Koi Hotel
Why has koi keeping become so popular?
Why Koi?
Koi are believed to bring good luck, prosperity, and health to their owners. Watching koi swim around is soothing and peaceful. Also, gardening is becoming more popular and many house owners want to have a koi pond to enhance their landscaping.
You may have garden fish or Arowana in your pond but at the end almost all still ended up having Koi in their ponds instead of any other fishes. Koi are 'evergreen' and never get out of favour with home owners.
Why the need for Koi Hotel stay?
Due to various reasons. Most often, to repair leaks which mostly come from waterfalls.. To correct filter designs (built too small or completely wrong piping system which results in ' green water') or to enlarge the pond size are the next most likely reasons to have your koi stay at our Koi Hotel for a period of time.
Our Hotel Facility
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A section of our outlet is dedicated to Koi Hotel with pond sizes 4 to 8 tons water. These ponds are supported by AC back-up units as a safeguard for your koi should a power failure occur. Koi upon check-in are inspected for any injuries or infections and these are treated before they are settled into the pond.
Our fee is based on the size and number of koi as these factors would determine the size of our pond to house your koi. We charge minimum one month's stay. Beyond one month, our rate, at weekly interval, is lower than the initial first month.
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This service is popular. We have our trained staff and complete set of equipment to pick up your koi at short notices, but about 3 days notice in advance as it is important to fast koi before packing and transferring them.
Service Pond Filter
Maintenance & Service Koi Pond Filter
Each month, we service 20 to 30 pond filters and make many more trips to customers' place to treat sick koi, medicate pond water and many other pond related matters.
Budi and Masum in action
We recommend servicing your koi pond filter once 6 to 9 months depending on number of koi, feeding regime adopted by customers and filter size and design.
Our charges are between RM250 to RM550 depending on the size of filter. The charges are inclusive of anti chlorine and salt but exclude consumables like replacing UV light, coral or filter mat. Prior arrangement is required as we would want customer to fast their koi for 3 days before we carry out the servicing work. Unless an emergency situation, we would normally prefer to carry the servicing work arriving at customer's place in the morning arriving between 8.30 to 9.00 am.
All filter media are removed
Service pond filters involves removing all filter media from the filter chambers, clean them with existing pond water and most importantly to also flush out the wastes from the concealed pipes, etc. It normally takes about 2 to 3 hours to have the works completed. When we are done, someone at home needs to be around until the pond water is filled, to load in anti-chlorine pallets as the water is being filled and to turn on the water pumps.
Pond and water features are usually given minor touch ups. If the whole pond requires complete cleaning due to overgrown algae then it would be separate charges. It would take almost the whole day for 2 persons to complete such a job where your koi in the pond would have to be packed using plastic bags filled with oxygen.
Improve Filter System
Overview of koi ponds built within Johor
Based on our assessment, about 40% koi ponds are built with poor filter system and usually under-sized . If the filter box was built too small (we recommend 30% filter to pond ratio) with not enough filter media in the filter chambers then one cannot expect to have clear and nice water for your koi.
I was recently asked how to build a cheap and good koi pond. My answer to that question was 'to build it right the first time' ! There are many koi hobbyists here ended up having to spend money to redo their koi pond to correct inefficiency.
Here are some recent rectification works (including refurbish works) undertaken:
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Mr Boon of Sri Impian - Pond water leaks and water loss of 12' per day! This filter supports two ponds and is located at the rear of the house. Main koi pond and a small fish pond are both about 40 metres apart from this filter. Given the distant, it is not unusual for the bottom drain pipes or the PVC pipe linking the skimmer to the filter to spring a leak (more likely skimmer pipe) due to soil settlement.
It is safer to build filter boxes as close to the pond as possible to prevent such problems. Also it is better for koi wastes to move quickly into the filter box chambers than to travel such a long distant in the bottom drain pipes.
Given the complexity of the water pipes installed from the filter box to the two ponds and with water cacasding wall and vases as water feature we first proceeded to do a complete re-filberglassing of the filter box and only the fish pond after confirming koi pond was holding water well. It was subsequently established that the pipes linking the skimmers to both ponds were also causing this water loss problem not just the fiberglass coating! To avoid major excavation to identify and repair the leaks, both pipes were sealed off. This means the skimmer for the koi pond is now not useable. As for the fish pond, a dedicated filter box was then built to support it.
In conclusion, it is crucial to build your filter box as close to the koi pond as possible.
 New filter box built besides the existing fish pond |
 Completed filter box with balau wood cover |
- Mr Jasmin - He purchased a house as a lodging place for staff from his other faraway offices. This house came with a koi pond. It needed some refurbish works to get it working and look new again. We repaired water jets x 3, put in place water skimmer, fiberglassed the whole pond and filter and replaced all filter media and water pumps.
.jpg) Before - Pond Overview |
.jpg) After |
.jpg) After - close-up |
 Before - Filter overview |
 After - Filter media replaced |
.jpg) After - Filter Overview |
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Mr Chin of Nong Chik - Simple action of replacing under-sized pipe from Tsurumi water pump from 25 mm PVC pipe to 32 mm improved the water being pumped to the waterfall and water circulation jets. Before the change water was not flowing nicely from the waterfall unless one of the water circulation jets is turned off.
(The wrong use of PVC pipe by the contractor who built the pond - From 50 mm outlet of Tsurumi pump it was reduced to 25 mm PVC pipe and branched to 3 x 25 mm pipes to waterfall and water circulation jet x 2)
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Our staff Budi replacing the 25 mm PVC pipe
with a bigger 32 mm PVC pipe
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Mr Haridass of Taman Johor - Mr Haridass's pond came with the house he bought. We re-fiberglassed the whole pond and relayout the chamber partitions to create much wider space for filter media.
(The filter chambers were built very narrow leaving big space for the settlement and pump chamber and little space for filter media)
 Before |
.jpg) After (widened space for filter media) |
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Ms Koh of Taman University - We improve the pond to filter ratio from 18% to 25% by increasing the filter depth by 40 cm (16'). Re-layout the chamber partitions, PVC pipes and built a Dry chamber to allow customer to periodically discharge wastes to drain. All exposed circulation PVC pipes are then concealed. Bottom drain pipe size increased from existing 3' to 4' diameter. A surface skimmer was also installed. The whole filter and pond re-filberglassed to complete the whole project.
(Per Ms Koh, her pond was handled by 2 other contractors before we were engaged to upgrade the pond. View pictures below to better understand the difference.)
 Before |
 After (still incomplete) |
.jpg) After (Dry chamber) |
 Before |
.jpg) After |
.jpg) After (Bottom drain) |
Fiber-glassing Koi Pond
Over time due to various reasons your koi pond might spring a leak and you find water level dropping. Slight water reduction due to evaporation is normal for a koi pond. Reduction of 5 to 10 mm water level in a week is acceptable. If you observe 10 to 20 mm drop in water level within one day then it is a clear indication of a leak somewhere.
Before we proceed to do anything to your pond we have to first establish the source of leak. Several visits might be necessary before we are able to pin point the source. Most of the time leaks come from natural waterfalls. This is because it is common to have some plants and shrubs around the waterfall to enhance the beauty of the pond surrounding. Over time when these plants and shrubs grow and their roots could cause the concrete structure to shift and cracked the fiberglass resulting in a leak.
Fiberglassing work is a delicate task and sunny weather is important. Your koi will have to be relocated (Koi Hotel) for the duration of the filberglassing work and also the time needed to prepare water for your koi to return. It is usual for such a repair job including water preparation activities to take between 2 to 4 weeks.
Ms Ginny Shim of Horizon Hills
 Old loose fiberglass material stripped |
 Fiberglassing in progress |
Re-fiberglassed pond almost done
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Mrs Wong of Sutera Utama
 Mrs Wong's Koi to our Koi Hotel - 20 Oct 2013 |
 Fiberglassing completed, Budi releasing Koi back to pond - 15 November 2013 |
Koi Treatment
Ulcer in your Koi
Ulcers are open sores. They occur on the skin or the mucous membrane of the body and are characterized by tissue breakdown and often, the discharge of pus.
Poor water quality and inadequate aeration of the water usually stressed up koi in a pond. From time to time, parasites might surface and itchiness may cause the fish to rub against the pond surfaces leading to breaks in the skin and ulcer formation. Viruses cause some ulcers and Bacteria are opportunistic secondary infections.
Depending on the serverity of the sores they are either treated with directly applying medicine on the sores or in advance cases antibiotic injection is given.
For enquiry on koi health related matters, please send your email to ongph10@hotmail.com. We will be glad to offer our suggestions and advice.
US 1396 
MY 158 
CN 144 
AP 144 
AU 92 
CA 42 
NZ 39 
IE 37 
