House came with koi pond/turtles. Help!

9 years ago

Hi. My husband and I just bought a house (in Los Angeles) that came with a koi pond. We thought it was going to be empty but there are three turtles and tons of tiny little light colored fish. We have no experience with a koi pond or fish or turtles. The seller of the house had only been there a year and left a note saying "The koi pond is a bit of a mystery. Here's some fish food" next to an old coffee can filled with little brown pellets. We don't know how koi ponds work. We will call a local company tomorrow but more importantly we want to know how often and what to feed the pond. I finally got a pic of one of the turtles before he dove back down and the little fish are surrounding him. Any advice on caring for the animals and identifying them would be of great help! Especially no idea what kind of fish these are. Will they grow into big fish or are they turtle food? I threw some of the brown pellets in and the fish nibbled at them.
Thank you!

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Comments (4)

fireweed22
9 years ago
Score!
Red eared sliders, nothing overly exotic, but they are colorful and can become tame if you care to hand feed etc. If the pond is decent sized they won't be much of a concern but do need a small raft or log to sun tan on.
Can't tell what the fish are but possibly guppies or baby goldfish?
rebsy
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi Fireweed22,
Thanks for your message.
I had a pond guy come by who thinks the fish are mosquito fish. We are doing some troubleshooting with the pond to figure out where a leak is- somewhere in the pump. The pond is quite big and the turtles were sunning themselves on the pond's perimeter but the water level dropped a few inches and they can no longer reach so they've been struggling to sun themselves on the pump itself. I bought a floating fake log from petsmart but it's a little small. Hoping to have the pond fixed this week- it will be drained and cleaned with the turtles kept in a tank for a few hours...The pond guy said the pond is very primitive, he was not impressed, but hopefully we will get it running well. Also, I took the coffee can of "fish food" to a pet store and they said it was turtle food so I've been throwing some in every few days but the pond guy said they will eat fallen leaves mostly. Any other advice you have is much welcomed. Here's a bigger picture of the pond. Thanks!
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Jason
9 years ago
That's an excellent little pond! It probably wouldn't hurt to get the PH checked and do a little de-mucking if it needs it. You should try throwing in some aquatic plants, if the turtles don't eat them plants go a long way towards keeping the water clean. Did you ever get the leak fixed?
Debbie Downer
9 years ago
Why do you call it a koi pond? It looks much too small for koi (which grow to 2-3 feet and require 500-1000 gallons per fish). The current small inhabitants are more suitable.

Not sure why there's a separate koi pond forum here - more traffic on the pond & aquatic plant forum, come on over!

It's a cute pond actually - simple can be good. Probably could benefit from oxygenation/filtration - sounds like you have good advice from your local pond people.