The experts do sometimes get it right should we listen. We as keepers can very seldom control our emotions to get one more Koi and to err on the overstocking side, in spite of good advice given. We need to experience the problem ourselves first before we normally agree.
My first pond had 9 Koi, well within the 6m of koi allowed in 10 000lts of water. I was very strict on my pond maintenance and feeding program and still find it difficult to maintain the water standards that I would like to achieve. In the Cape some of our keepers refer to it as Ernst water as the man’s pond is always looking so shiny and healthy.
I moved my Koi over to the new pond and my old pond now has 6 Koi, with a total of about 3 meters of Koi. I still feed the same and it is amazing how the water has improved over the last 21 days. Everything is still being done the same way, but the water improves daily. So the moral of my story is that overstocking seriously effects out water quality and Koi health. The American Koi Kitchies call themselves on Koi Bito, the serious Koi keepers and are advocating 4000lt of water per Koi, 4 times the amount of water we are generally happy with. In my new pond I am going to try and keep the emotions under wraps not to exceed 2200lt per Koi. Well not a good start as I said to myself before not less than 2500lt per Koi.

Good post Bobby.

You can add to that the maintanence side is critical. Irrespective of the size and complexity or cost of your filter system if it is not maintianed it will fail.

And there is one other critical point to keep in mind - the size of your koi. Every time a koi doubles in size it has about 8 x the body mass - not double the body mass. This in turn means 8 x more oxygen removed from the system and 8 x the ammonia excreted intothe pond.

Oh dear, oh dear - I may have to sell more koi I am over stocked.

But you can over come this to some extent.

Regards,
Chris