Goldfish or Koi?

Hey everyone,
I might be making a 450 gallon pond soon and am thinking of stocking ideas. I would like Koi, but I feel like it'll be too small. I've seen rules of thumb saying 1 inch of fish per 10 gallons. If koi are 20 inches fully grown, that's 400 gallons for two. But most people seem to shout this down and say one per 500-1000 gallons while some professionals say 4 per 1000 gallons. It's really confusing. Otherwise, if koi aren't an option, would 10-ish common goldfish work? The dimensions would be 2.8 metres in diameter and 0.6m deep.

 

Too small for koi. They get huge, and you will probably stunt their growth if you put them in there. Do the goldfish.

 

The one inch of fish per 10 gallons is very flawed and I would especially not use it on koi. I've seen 500-1000 gallons per fish recommended per grown adult koi, so if you don't plan on upgrading any time soon, I would not get koi. One pond-building resource says 35+ gallons per inch of koi and 20+ gallons per inch of goldfish.

Goldfish would be a good candidate, just no fancy tails. Comets and shubunkins put a great spin on the common goldfish if you want something different/pretty.

 

Do shubunkins and comets get as big as commons? Most people seem to say yes but I've never seen them get that big.

 

Do shubunkins and comets get as big as commons? Most people seem to say yes but I've never seen them get that big.

Yes, they do grow to the same size! I'm not sure what the reason would be for not seeing any large comets/shubunkins.

 

Do shubunkins and comets get as big as commons? Most people seem to say yes but I've never seen them get that big.

They should grow to about the same size. Imo there isn't really a specific potential anyways.

I'de definitely go with goldfish. Singletailed varieties should work, just make sure you have enough filtration.

 

To me its not so much gallon per fish its about swimming area. 3 or 4 need about the same space to swim as 1 would.

 

Okay, well I guess I know what I'll be putting in there. If I have 2 or 3 plus pumps with sponge filters and my own DIY bio filtration that rotates the pond water once or twice per hour, would I be good with 10 goldfish and 6 - 10 hours at night with no aeration? I know koi need heaps of oxygen, is it the same with goldfish?

 

Anyone? This is important because I can only do solar and/or battery powered pumps.

 

I believe dojo loaches get to about a foot or so.....and they like cold waters...I'd throw like 30 of those suckers in there and say you had a snake pond.