A Sandy Hook Fish Story –– Keeping Koi

By Dottie Evans

At dusk, and especially after a long day working on his farm, Jim Shortt likes to stroll down to his pond and visit the Koi fish swimming around under the stone waterfall he built by hand.

“It’s peaceful and quiet in the evening, when all you can hear are the birds and the sound of the water,” Mr Shortt said as he and a visitor stood by the pond’s edge watching the brilliantly colored fish ply the depths.

The fish-shaped shadows were orange with dark patches, pale yellow, creamy white, and scarlet.

In deep water, they were dimly seen, but when Jim’s wife, Sue Shortt, threw a handful of fish pellets into the pond, all the Koi rushed to the surface, their tails flashing and their whiskered mouths gaping. They gulped as much food as possible while competing for eating space.

“They’ll eat a lot and then stop when they’re full,” Mrs Shortt said.

Mr Shortt, who owns an organic vegetable farm and plant nursery at 52-A Riverside Road in Sandy Hook, has been keeping Koi as pets for more than a decade. His farm is one of 240 “Farm Destinations” listed with by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture and, right now, he and his wife are working dawn to dusk to get their soil prepared and seeds planted.

But there is always time to visit the Koi.

“These fish are very gentle. They’ll come right up to me and let me touch their backs,” Mr Shortt said.

“It’s a feeding frenzy at dinner time, but if the temperature dips to below 55 degrees, they’re not going to eat,” he added.

Many of Mr Shortt’s fish are the offspring of the few big ones he started out with more than ten years ago. Koi can live a long time –– up to 200 years or more. In Japan, they are passed down from generation to generation, often outliving their owners.

Mr Shortt said his Koi might survive for decades and eventually grow to three feet in length.

“They are a little crowded now in this one pond. And they won’t breed if it’s too small.”

Never Enough Koi

Once hooked, as it were, Koi aficionados are always looking to expand their collection, get some new young Koi in the more unusual colors. Of course, one must never neglect the venerable elders, the parents and grandparents of the smaller fry that reside in a long-established fishpond.

Hence the second Koi pond that Jim Shortt has just completed next to his first pond. This one is 16 feet by 20 feet, much larger than the pond he built in 1993 which “is only eight by 16 feet.”

“It takes a while for a pool to get seasoned,” Mr Shortt said, and the older it is, the better.

For example, an older Koi pool would have a nice mucky bottom and there would be algae and nutrient-filled scum lining its edges. His ponds are lined with thick, rubberized sheets similar to inner tube material and they are anchored with stones at the bottom and along the sides.

“They stand up over time,” Mr Shortt added.

Locating a pond in full sunlight is good for the water plants, Mr Shortt said, though fish need shade and cold water. If the pond is deep enough, say, 24 inches at the lowest part, they can go to the bottom in hot weather.

“People think ponds will be scummy and harbor mosquitoes, but this doesn’t need to happen. If it’s well balanced chemically, you won’t get scum and slimy water. Also, the fish and the frogs pretty much take care of any mosquito larvae floating on the surface, and birds will eat the flying insects.”

As soon as his new pool has stabilized, Jim and Sue Shortt will be out there with nets and buckets and they will move the largest Koi over into their new, expanded quarters. He is hoping they will breed again and start a new generation.

Asked whether they had names for the Koi, they laughed and said no, they did not.

“Jim has names for all his chickens though,” said Sue Shortt.

This, in itself, is remarkable since there are 100 egg-laying hens on Jim Shortt’s farm.

Lying Low In Winter

When winter comes, Mr Shortt turns his waterfall off but keeps the circulating pump running. He said the Koi descend to the bottom of the pool where they go into a dormant state.

“They can make it through the toughest, coldest winter as long as there is a hole in the ice and some circulating water to add oxygen. There has to be a way for the [carbon dioxide] gas to escape. If you let it freeze over, they might suffocate,” he explained.

About predators, Mr Shortt said they really are “not a problem,” because the pond is too deep for the raccoons to reach the fish.

“I did find one dead fish on the shore recently, and it had been pecked not chewed,” he added, which indicates a great blue heron had stopped by for dinner.

Aeration and cleaning is critical to the health of a pond. The water should be constantly flowing from the skimming pad, which is a troughlike container at the low end of the pond that catches debris like the drains of a swimming pool. Then it is pumped through underground pipes up to the bio box, which is another basin at the top of the waterfall. The bio box is where beneficial bacteria can be returned to the water system.

“The waterfall also serves to aerate and clean the pond,” he said.

To have a small backyard pond constructed, outfitted, and maintained, a homeowner might pay from $5,000 to $7,000, Mr Shortt said, “although a lot of the labor can be done by anyone with a strong back who knows how to read directions.

“Buy a good book about building ponds and get your supplies from a distributor or wholesaler,” he recommends. He does not recommend buying a kit or ready-made pond setup as may be sold in the home construction warehouses, “since various elements in the kit might not work or stand up to hard use.”