What made you get onto koi keeping ?

What fIrst started you off keeping koi?


I started with a very small rigid pond that was given to me by my mum! she said to me you might as well take it home as it will never get put into my garden.
I got it home had a hole dug to put it into and got a rigid waterfall, then a few goldfish rigged to a green genie

Then my sister told me my brother-in-law had finished his pond, so a few months later I decided to go and take a look That was the first mistake as soon as i seen the fish I thought I have to have some of them! so about 3/4 months later I decided out with the rigid pond and in with a liner make the hole bigger and get a bigger filter system.
This now in place I left it about a month and bought some small koi. Now the pond was well stocked and I was quite happy sitting by the pond every summer.

Until disaster struck! not really knowing much about koi keeping and through ignorance i guess thinking put them in and watch them we decided to but 20 3-4 inch koi from ebay
I won the bid the dealer said they had all been heat ramped and so I took half the fish and the other half went to Simon. After a day he lost one of the small fish and the next day he lost another, then mine started to die along with the koi I had for 7 year in my pond In the end we lost all the stock we had in both ponds apart from One small one I had left! We took the fish to Lincolshire fish to be tested along with a few dead ones that had been frozen and as most of you know we where told the koi all tested for KHV

So I now have the pond I have today because of this as everything was ripped out and I started again made it bigger still and added japanese koi and only from dealers we knew and trusted even changed the filter system as I did not want to chance any traces of it being left.

So thats my story now lets here how you all got started.

Thats is a real shame sheryl that one unscrupulous dealer managed to wipeout 2 ponds. Glad you stayed with it and started again, it must have been hard to overcome the disappointment.

I was introduced to koi over 15 years ago when my eldest son came home with 2 ghosties and a tank to keep me company whilst I recovered from major surgery. Needless to say these ghosties soon outgrew their tank and the first pond was made, I added a few more koi and I still have one of these in my pond now. From there the learning curve started and the rest is history so they say.

well love fishing and shooting,so the interest has been there all my life.built a small pond at my old house, then it all started lol. new house built a brick pond 1 thousand gal.not big enough. so built another two ponds bigger, header with plants 1 thousand gal leading into 2 thousand main pond . not good enough, so made a 2500 indoor pond. not big enough lol ,so now the last one is under way .

I started keeping fish 38 years ago a 2ft aquarium with guppies over the next ten years I increased my number of aquariums and became more specific in types of fish I kept from the run of the mill community tropicals, rift valley cichlid tank, oscars and plecs and a 6foot tank with a shoal of 10 red belly piranhas. Soon after I decided I needed more of a challenge and started keeping marines - once again starting with the usual damsels, dominoes etc. My old 6 foot tank became home to 4 Lion fish, I had a reef tank just for inverts and corals.During this time my late father decided he wanted a pond so I set to work and built him a 600 gallon pond - he had mainly goldies but my sisters but him a koi each one fathers day. When he passed away I had the job of maintaining his pond for yoda - i bloody hated koi! overgrown goldfish I used to call them. Then mum decided she couldn't have the pond anymore but wanted me to keep the fish alive...and so started this endless journey into the world of koi

All sounds very familiar.

Decided we wanted a small pond.We built the pond and went to the local garden centre centre.

Saw our first Koi...amazed but come on..£15!

20 years later...

Jeez, what a question.

I thought I'd give you the whole war and peace edition of my fish keeping as it sort of shows some sort of progression.

I started keeping fish when I was about 5 (1975), Even then I was destined to be a little different as I didn’t have just goldfish I had 4 x figure 8 puffers in a tank in the front room. I don’t think these lasted long as little seemed to be known about them and they died. (Probably because they were brackish water fish and we didn’t know that)

Anyway rather than having an empty tank when I went to the local fair I won a couple of goldfish, (I didn’t know about how they were caught and the cyanide then honest!!)
When they got too big for the tank, my dad decided we would set up a pond in the garden, which was a pre formed pond with an under gravel filter leading through a black box and pumped by a central heating pump.
All supplied by a company called ASS water gardens in Grays Essex, which was not far from where the addict and Zipster now live, but at the time was in the middle of nowhere.

As time moved on we put another pond in our garden as a hospital pond for any of our mishaps, which in turn led on to another pond being installed for babies etc.

When I got to the age to start working, with my fist ever wage packet I went out and bought a 3 foot fish tank for my bedroom which I then started to dabble in Tropical fish. To help sustain my hobby I took a summer Job in a local Tropical shop and had my first experience of a Koi spawning and catching all the babies up and putting them into various tanks.
This also was my first encounter with a now old friend Mark Gardiner who also was starting out on a journey which would take him to where he is now living in Japan and doing what he is.

Anyway trying to cut a lot of stuff out I dabbled in bit and pieces including making tanks etc, and soon moved into my first house with my Girlfriend. There we bought a large tank for the front room. It was a 8 x 3 x3 cottage tank which held 220 gallons and weighed just over a tonne.
In this tank I continued my love of fish keeping first cichlids, with my fav being alonacara peacocks then onto bigger stuff like Arrowana's etc.
When I moved into my second house after splitting with the Girlfriend the big tank went with me and then as I had a 130 foot long garden the pond then got added down the bottom. It was another preformed pond fed by UV and black box but this time pumped by Aquamax's

By the Time I met my Wife and she moved in The big tank was still In the Kitchen, I had a dangerous pets license and as I had it as a Marine tank and in it were sea Crates (a basic sea snake), various lion/scorpion Fish, Blue ring Octopus, and any venomous and dangerous marine Fish I could get hold of.
In addition to this I had a four foot invertebrate tank in the front room and a three foot tank in my bedroom breeding sea horses (which is bloody hard!)
I also managed to be one of the first in the country to breed venomous Marine Catfish. And was put in the marine breeders register.

At this time the Koi were getting bigger and I was running a little business in addition to my full time job. My business was to go round cleaning and maintaining other people's ponds and fish tanks, these including a regular maintenance contract in various Night clubs and doctors surgeries etc.

Slowly as the family got bigger the tanks indoors dwindled for space, and when we moved into our new House 5 years ago they were all gone.
I told the wife that I wanted still to keep the pond which is where I got in contact with now a man I class as a good Friend Ned, who built my pond and filters as they are now,
One of the stipulations he said in building my pond were that I would help him at the Essex show just for a few hours which I did…. And there you go I was hooked again and here I am ....

Still learning... which is what keeps me interested i think, the inability to never stop learning.

Anyone else got anythng to add to this post??

It Is interesting to see that many started out in simular ways one way or another either from keeping fish indoors and fishing as a hobbie or just having a very small goldfish pond!