I can feel a definite chill in the air, especially early morning...

As winter approaches and the temp starts to drop, and the leaves start to fall, what is recommended to get the pond and the filters ready? Other then the routine cleaning, is there something "extra" that can be done to prepare the koi for winter?

Just cut the amount of food down that you are feeding. Here in the cape our winter temps very rarely go below 16'C. i usualy have 2-3 days of 14'C and then its back upto 16'C.

When you feed kois in winter try and feed at 10am and 4pm. The idea is to feed once the water has warmed up a bit and to feed 1hr before sun down...before the water cools down again.

Dont feed below 10'C

As winter approuches i change my water circulation so that most of the water return under the water level so that the cold air cant chill it. I try and keep the warm water for as long as possible. A waterfall or bakki shower cools the water down even more.