Pond Goldfish

Japanese KOI on other hand, and especially larger ones, will often create a huge mess out of submerged potted plants. They seem to enjoy 'digging' in soil of plants and sometimes even knocking them over. This all leads to added mess in pond, and can create a real problem for pond owner.

Generally, it's best to not have submerged plants in large pots, when also keeping KOI. The ideal KOI pond is much deeper than average water garden, so necessity for plants to help with water quality and shade is reduced.

However, if you still do want to keep potted plants in your KOI pond, we recommend wrapping netting over tops of pots, to keep fish from digging in pots. Another thing you can do is to top pots with 1" of pea gravel, and then larger river stones or similar over that. The KOI will not be able to get past larger rocks.

As far as mixing Goldfish with KOI, this is fine and very common, we've just tried to highlight most important differences between two and between average water garden and KOI pond. Feel free to experiment with both, and then decide which fish is more to your liking.