What other huge fish besides koi can I put in Texas pond ??

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jjb

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 26, 2007
111
4
18
Rowlett Texas
Thinking about paddlefish would like gig as but it's too cold in winter ,, has anyone had any successs with other larger fish that can handle temperature ranges in Texas ? Pond size stoned 18k with waterfalls and excellent filtration / UV Ultimata skimmer but yea looking for some real monsters to go with my beautiful 25 3' koi
 
Perhaps one of the tor species.They are active,have koi shaped bodies and large scales with a metallic sheen to them so they might show well when you look down on them from above.
 
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I'd say gator gar if you're not worried too much about the koi... miss a feeding and you might miss a few koi. Pacu are a choice but again might cause an issue with the koi, arapaima is probably a bit too large for that pond size as well. Perhaps some catfish would work - RCT, TSN, Achara Cats, any hybrid of those three, and/or niger/ripsaw catfish would be cool, and would make for a nice wet pet as well. Arowana might work, but you'd have to be willing to risk keeping it in an open pond. Is the pond in ground or no?

That should provide you a good starting point. I'm not sure I would go with any gar species other than an alligator gar, just because of the fact that there could be issues with the koi damaging the spines of the gar during feeding time - accidents happen and gar tend to be fragile.One other fish to try would be a clown knifefish, they get pretty big.

One thing that will really help us out is the temperature of your pond. Footprint might also help, more of the shape than the size though - since even at 4 feet depth, 18,000 gallons provides you with over 600 square feet of pond.
 
But will those fish be able to withstand the Texas winter temps?
 
Maybe trout, fairly big and can take colder temps
 
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