How to acclimatize Koi fish ?

Acclimation is the process of soft introduction of Koi into a new environment.

There are many reasons why you may need to acclimatize Koi fish into a new pond or tank. Perhaps you bought a new Koi and take it home to quarantine. You may need to bring your Koi in the room in the fall. Other reasons include:

Moving patient Koi to a hospital tank
Moving to a new house
Your fish is a Koi show participant
temperature
The most important factor when introducing Koi into a new pond is the equalization of the temperature of water in a bag with water in a pond or quarantine tank. A sudden change in temperature will interfere with the metabolism of Koi and can kill the fish. Slowly acclimating fish, their metabolism will allow for the change in temperature.

Koi fish can withstand temperature fluctuations in Fahrenheit 20 degrees during acclimatization. A greater temperature difference should be avoided. Think about how to adjust the temperature of the new pond, Koi will be within 20 degrees F from the old pond. Koi is easier to adapt to a higher temperature than to adjust the temperature of colder.

Steps of acclimatization

Pond or tank, which includes fish, must have a pristine water quality. Moving and acclimatization of Koi is quite difficult, not dealing with poor water quality. Float the bag or tube in which Koi is located for 1/2 hour (longer if the temperature change exceeds 10 degrees F). Take Koi out of the bag with your hands or a sock net. Do not use a conventional mesh, it will remove the mucus when you lift the fish from the water. Discard the water in the bag. Do not unload it into a pond, it contains fish waste, and water will have an unstable pH level. Cover the tank with a mesh. Koi change when their environment changes. Place one or more (depending on the size of the reservoir or pond) of polystyrene foam, one to two square feet in size. This will provide a place for Koi to hide while they adjust to their new home.

old style

If you think: "Wait a second, should I not slowly introduce Koi into fresh water from the pond?" Then you are partially right.
The old school of thought was:
To swim the bag for 20 minutes, open it, and then add 25 percent water. Repeating until the bag barely swims, and then lets go Koi.

or,

Drop the water and Koi into the tub. Float the tub in a pond and slowly add water for half an hour.

Now the general consensus (see Koi Kichi) is that equalizing the temperature and getting Koi out of the water with a dirty bag as soon as possible is better than equalizing all the water parameters before introducing Koi into your pond. It is believed that a rapid pH change has less harm than Koi, immersed in water with a high content of ammonia and CO2 for a long period of time.

(Go back to Koi care)