FishVixen wrote:With koi pots are the only way. The plants will eventually get eaten by the koi anyway you plant them. Holey rock and angels really don't mix well. The PH stays too high. You have fish from cold water -68 to 72 (koi) low PH, warn water -78-84 (angels) high PH warm water 76-80(mbunas) all in one tank so really watch for disease as someone is really in stressed water conditions and there immunity is low.
My PH stays at a constant 7.2-7.4, even with coral chunks, argonite, and the holey rock. I have been testing it for months. I have a side issue with snail shells dissolving over time every time I put one in the tank. I don't use a water heater, but with the Four 48" lights about 2" over the surface of the water of the koi tank it stays at a constant 80-82 degrees. That's one reason why I mounted the Metal Halide light 12" over the water in the corner tank. I'm still waiting to see where it decides to stabilize at and whether there is a temperature zone difference between the top and the bottom of the tank, as it's 30" deep/tall. I'm expecting it to sit at about 80-84 with the lighting on and mid 70s with the lighting off.
Koi may be coldwater fish, but seriously, fish are fish and they are either hardy or delicate. I would define my koi as hardy. Prior to adding the lighting, the water temp still stayed at a steady 76 degrees. My cichlid has grown up with the koi since he was about an inch and that was 3 months ago. I would say he's hardy too as he was fine with 76 degree water and 7.4 ph, nevermind hanging with much bigger fish. In fact, when I had my 46G tank, I had an issue with the cichlid bullying the smaller koi, hence us naming him Bullyfish. When I got everyone in the bigger tank, we didn't have any further aggression issues. The worst of the "bullying" was him chasing two of the smaller koi around the tank in what I interpreted as an aggressive manner. None of the fish were nipped or elsewise harmed.
The smallest koi angel came to me as a bit bigger than a nickle. I call her baby girl. She's now quarter sized, and her two older koi brothers have put on a bit of size too in that time. They all school together with the marbled daddy. The platinum momma is normally off doing her own thing.
*knock on wood* I haven't had any issues with any fish disease and I don't run any aquarium salt or treatments in my tanks. I use Seachem Prime to condition my water and I just put a bag of carbon in the bottom of each tank because I've been getting some odors. I think the odors were dead snails... Even the empty shells stink to high heaven.
Once the temp normalizes on the corner tank I'll decide if I'm going to run an inline water heater to keep it nice and tropical. I'm also considering making a canopy for the koi tank so that their water will run cooler. I would need to incorporate the waterfall from their fluidized sand filter into it though... which is a minor challenge.
Those are pics from the old setup, but that's the general idea. Btw, since changing the gravel to sand, I am no longer a fan of UGF... that is all.