“When can I start feeding my koi or pond fish again?”  is a question we are asked almost daily this time of year. We understand why, too!   Your pond has either been cleaned or turned on for the spring, the fish are becoming more and more active almost begging for food.  You can’t wait to interact with your friends who have been hibernating all year.

It's spring time, you know your pond needs to be dumped and cleaned because it's a mess!  You've decided to do it yourself or maybe you even found the perfect pond professional to get this dirty job done for you.  Then that thought, that one thought of : "What am I going to do with these fish while the pond is drained and I'm cleaning it?"  Or it could even be: " I just hired this pond professional to clean my pond, but I love my fish and what are they going to do with my fish while they have my pond drained?"

In Morris County New Jersey and many northern climates winter poses some challenges for our fish ponds and water features.  Our ponds and fish are subject to extreme cold temperatures, snow, and debris flying around and landing in our ponds and water features.  Spring arrives and all we want to do is get those features running to enjoy them throughout the spring, summer and fall.  It's a daunting and disgusting task, is a pond/water feature cleaning really necessary? 
 
By the time you’re done reading this blog, you'll be able to ask yourself if having a spring koi pond cleaning is the right choice for your pond.  

On the east coast we frequently get these storms call Nor'easters.  They even give them cool names such as Bert or Ernie, why?  I have no clue, now I'm getting completely off topic.  Let's come back around to why you're here, to find out what you can do for your pond fish if you lose power in New Jersey.  

We all love to venture outside to our ponds to see our fish and koi friends swimming around and begging for food.  They greet us at the edge of the pond mouths wide open waiting for the delicious food we so love to give them.  We all know they will essentially do this every time we stroll by the pond or stand next to it to admire our fish friends.  The brings up a valid question: Can your koi and pond fish be overfed?  

Kohaku, some weird letters put together that is tough to even pronounce, especially with a New Jersey accent... wait what is a New Jersey accent?  I don't even know...  The name Kohaku is pronounced (KO-HA-KOO ).  

It’s December in Northern NJ, your fish pond has been winterized, and the weather has been brutally cold for a few days.  You’ve caught glimpses of your pond aerator doing its job, because all you can see is a frozen pond with bubbles in the opening created by your aerator.  Then boom, Mother Nature plays a sick joke on us Jersey pond hobbyists and decides to throw a warm front into the December weather mix of cold and snowy weather.