Aquatic plants that koi will not eat?

[RichB]

I've been building a new pond over the last few weeks and once the old one was drained I realised that not a scrap of elodea remained. A few years ago it was stuffed full of it and I was always clearing it out. Then in 2008 I put 4 x young ghost koi in with the idea they might eat the duck weed. Over the last two summers the koi have grown to a reasonable size, about 12" long, and while my experiment to see if the would eat duck weed singularly failed, I did discover they demolish elodea! Now they are back in the new pond there is no point in putting in more elodea because the koi treat it as a salad bar. So does anyone have any good ideas on deep water plants (I hesitate to call them oxygenators) which do not appeal to taste of koi carp? R...

p.s. been doing a bit of research on Google and it seems hornwort (deratophyllum demersum) might be reasonably resitant to their best efforts.

Edited by RichB on Thursday 23 September 15:10

[andy43]

Seaweed?
Note the salt needed for the seaweed may kill the fish tho'.

[redeye]

i would have thought anything plastic

[akita1]

Koi will destroy any pond plants they are the hooligans of the fish world i once spent £30:00 on a fantastic water lily an hour later it was totally destroyed i now dont bother with plants as they dont last anytime if you keep koi im afraid.

[RichB]

akita1 said:

Koi will destroy any pond plants they are the hooligans of the fish world i once spent £30:00 on a fantastic water lily an hour later it was totally destroyed...

Crikey, I didn't realise they would smash up lilies as well.

[Flintstone]

akita1 said:

Koi will destroy any pond plants they are the hooligans of the fish world i once spent £30:00 on a fantastic water lily an hour later it was totally destroyed i now dont bother with plants as they dont last anytime if you keep koi im afraid.

You could have invested the money in some punctuation.

[otolith]

With koi, I would just try to keep the plants and the fish apart! We used to have a separate pond between the filter and the koi pond that was only about 6 inches deep and filled nearly to the top with gravel which we planted with reeds, irises and watercress and some baskets with emergents in the edges of the pond.

[JFReturns]

Well, I set up my parents pond, and though there is only one small Koi there are several large mirror and ghost carp so presuming they display similar behaviour my point stands...

We have loads of plants - rushes, some other rush flowery types and a huge lilly. They die back every year then grow again in the summer. We find the carp don't 'eat' the leaves, rather they uproot the whole lot whilst digging around in the loose gravel / aquatic soil.

Answer? Cover the base of the pot with sodding big stones! Job done.

[Dilligaf10]

I have plants in my pond, horn-wort, lilies, reeds & rushes as well as ghost koi, grass carp and regular koi.

They have been in the pond a couple of years now and no problems yet.
(In fact I wish they would eat some of the weed, it goes mad).

[RichB]

Ah ha, yes hornwort, I came across that mentioned elsewhere as a good oxygenator that is koi proof. I've put 10 x bundles in. I also like Aponogeton Distachyum-Water Hawthorn it flowers pretty well all year round is plesant to look at and not too invasive.