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Help I'm new at all this... The first Step

The First Step in Koi keeping

This then is the first step. Understand that you need to plan ahead. You need to know exactly what you are doing and why if you want to achieve success.

The second step is to learn what you need to know about.

I have summarised the sections that the website covers below. You can visit them in any order but they are logically arranged in a common sense fashion.

1. Know your Koi. You have to know your Koi in order to understand what their needs are and what you have to do so meet these needs. You must know this information backwards before even THINKING about building a pond or you are going to make serious mistakes. This is documented under water quality.

2. Understand the limitations of a Koi pond. It's relatively tiny size is your biggest challenge.

3. Know the theory. There is a surprisingly large volume of theory that is applicable to Koi ponds. This is part of the attraction of the hobby - it's typically an application of chemical engineering. A Koi pond is a small chemical factory operating in a continuous steady state mode. Chemical engineering is perhaps the most abstract of all engineering disciplines in that chemical engineers attempt to model or predict the most complex processes that take place within reactors, mass balances, energy balances, fluid and particle dynamics, turbulent flow processes and so forth. As one myself I have to admit that I think we make the best Koi pond keepers since we understand much of the theory about the filtration and biological actions that take place.

4. Never, ever underestimate the value of common sense.

5. You can never over engineer or over specify your pond when it comes to filtration.

6. All Koi ponds require maintenance. This means you and you alone are responsible for it.

7. You are dealing with many differing living organisms. Koi are just one of them. You WILL experience unpredictable situations and you have to be ready to deal with them.