Question
We have moved into a home which has a huge sunroom with pond.  The pond is stained we were wondring if you can paint these plastic ponds with the new plastic spray paint sold in most hardware stores.  We want to remove the Koi ... drain the pond and paint it black...our question would this paint come off and would this be safe for the Koi?   We do not want to kill the fish.  We have not had Koi before and wondered about what to feed them, what plant life would be good and etc.  How often to feed.

Answer
Hi Bonnie,
Most of the spray paints would be toxic to fish.
Before using anything, call the manufacturer and tell them what you intend to do.
Maybe you should try to get in touch with the previous owner and ask him what did he feed the koi with.
You don't want to change their eating habits to quickly.
There are many different types of food. Depending on what you feed them, their color would change (just like flamingoes becoming pink from eating a lots of shrimp)
Koi will eat anything but you should not overfeed them.
The ideal is to give them as much food as they would eat in twenty minutes.
You do not want leftovers in the water. That would put a strain on your filtering system.
Regarding the plants, you could have water lettuce, eychornia, cattail, iris, papyrus and almost any kind of water plants.


Good luck!

Carlo