710f7648-4a22-42b8-9b95-13b2a34d5331.xls 12/14/2011
How many fish will your pond hold?
If you want to explore more then take a look at www.aquatext.com
The information in this spreadheet is obtained from the published work of Larry Lunsford
Larry is a member of the Rocky Mountain Koi Club ( www.rmkc.org )
Any pond can only safely hold so much biomass in the form of weight of fish and this will vary enormously depending upon the conditions in the pond system.
The risk of overpopulating a pond with disastrous results is high.
Remember fish grow and they multiply over time and this needs to be borne in mind
The following spreadsheet is meant to assist or guide you - neither Larry nor I can accept any kind of responsibility for what happens in any actual situation no matter
what the conditions
If you like this calculator the please visit http://www.practical-water-gardens.com for more
Larry defines stocking as follows:
Weight of fish
Type Of Stocking Density To Match Conditions Volume of water Weight of fish Lbs to be held in this Volume of water gms approx to
Of Bio-Filtration, Oxygenation etc US gallons volume Litres approx be held in this
volume
High density as in commercial fish farming 1 1 4 450
Medium density as in commercial fish farming 10 1 38 450
or very heavily stocked koi pond
Low density as in commercial fish
farming or medium stocked koi pond - 100 1 378 450
this is used in our examples here
High density Japanese mud pond or very low 1,000 1 3,780 450
density koi pond
Low density Japanese mud pond 10,000 1 37,800 450
Well stocked fishing lake 100,000 1 378,000 450
Natural lakes 1,000,000 1 3,780,000 450
Now the interesting stuff (your own pond) - Answers shown are for the example only. The answers will
change automatically when you enter the contents of your own pond in the table below (yellow coloured
column ONLY starting at ROW 40)
The table below will calculate the volume of water you need for the weight of fish in your pond depending if they are below average koi in weight terms, average or
better than average. This factor!! - only you can decide but you get the point (all this is related to weight of fish but since weighing a fish is difficult rather measure the
length and estimate the weight from the length)
PROCEDURE TO CALCULATE YOUR POND VOLUME NEEDED FOR YOUR STOCK DENSITY
Measure or estimate accurately the length of each fish
Split up the fish into size categories eg 5 fish of 14 inches each and 3 fish of 21 inches as used in the example below. Put this
number in the yellow column in the table below next to the appropriate length. Be careful to enter into the correct column.
THAT'S ALL FOLKS except for 1 little thing - the GREEN BOX covered next. NOW That Is ALL!!
Enter condition factor for your Notice how the answers change with condition factor -
fish into this green box - see 3 play around with this factor
code choice below: 1, 2 OR 3
In this example condition factor is good so I type 3
CAUTION - Do Not Change any formulae in this section unless you have
made copy first
Here are your answers
Add this code
Code for condition factor - select ONE condition
factor code number only
number into the Condition Factor is Good
green box above
If BELOW average type in green box the no. -----> 1 Weight of fish in pond lbs
27.0
For good performance using good
If AVERAGE type in green box the no. -------------> 2 filter equipment etc systems pond US gallons
volume should not be less than 2,704
If BELOW average type in green box the no. -----> 3 Weight of fish in pond kgs
12.3
For good performance using average
filter etc systems pond volume Litres
should not be less than 10,220
If your pond volume is less than this then
consider you MIGHT have too many fish in the
pond
Fill in YELLOW column only - Do NOT change anything else
Number of fish
Length of EACH fish in inches Weight of fish in this category
having this length
4 0 0.0
5 0 0.0
6 0 0.0
7 0 0.0
8 0 0.0
9 0 0.0
10 0 0.0
11 0 0.0
12 0 0.0
13 0 0.0
14 5 6.0
15 0 0.0
16 0 0.0
17 0 0.0
18 0 0.0
19 0 0.0
20 0 0.0
21 3 12.1
22 0 0.0
23 0 0.0
24 0 0.0
25 0 0.0
26 0 0.0
27 0 0.0
28 0 0.0
29 0 0.0
30 0 0.0
31 0 0.0
32 0 0.0
33 0 0.0
34 0 0.0
35 0 0.0
36 0 0.0
Total weight avg
condition lbs 18.0
Avg condition Excellent condition
Poor condition weight in lbs
Length of individual fish weight in lbs weight in lbs
1 0.00625 0.003125 0.009375 0.1
2 0.0125 0.00625 0.01875 0.2
3 0.01875 0.009375 0.028125 0.3
4 0.025 0.0125 0.0375 0.4
5 0.05625 0.028125 0.084375 0.9
6 0.09375 0.046875 0.140625 1.5
7 0.15 0.075 0.225 2.4
8 0.225 0.1125 0.3375 3.6
9 0.31875 0.159375 0.478125 5.1
10 0.43125 0.215625 0.646875 6.9
11 0.575 0.2875 0.8625 9.2
12 0.75 0.375 1.125 12
13 0.95625 0.478125 1.434375 15.3
14 1.19375 0.596875 1.790625 19.1
15 1.4625 0.73125 2.19375 23.4
16 1.775 0.8875 2.6625 28.4
17 2.13125 1.065625 3.196875 34.1
18 2.53125 1.265625 3.796875 40.5
19 2.975 1.4875 4.4625 47.6
20 3.475 1.7375 5.2125 55.6
21 4.01875 2.009375 6.028125 64.3
22 4.61875 2.309375 6.928125 73.9
23 5.28125 2.640625 7.921875 84.5
24 6 3 9 96
25 6.78125 3.390625 10.171875 108.5
26 7.63125 3.815625 11.446875 122.1
27 8.54375 4.271875 12.815625 136.7
28 9.525 4.7625 14.2875 152.4
29 10.5875 5.29375 15.88125 169.4
30 11.71875 5.859375 17.578125 187.5
31 12.93125 6.465625 19.396875 206.9
32 14.225 7.1125 21.3375 227.6
33 15.6 7.8 23.4 249.6
34 17.05625 8.528125 25.584375 272.9
35 18.60625 9.303125 27.909375 297.7
36 20.25 10.125 30.375 324
condition factor code
1 0.5 Poor
2 1 Average
3 1.5 Good