Five Towns Koi Ltd

26/05/2026

BIG THANK YOU
To everyone who has supported and enjoyed these little posts on koi keeping and related subjects
If you do like them please give them the thumbs up like and share it will help us put our little koi outlet on the map.
Don’t forget we are open summer hours now
Thursday Friday Saturday 10:00 till 5:00
Sunday 11:00 till 4:00
Lots of Japanese koi carp and associated koi products

26/05/2026

Water 💦 purifiers ?

Do you need one ?

Now as I’ve said many times I’m not an expert and stand to be corrected if I get anything wrong?
When I ask people how they dechlorinate their tap water ??
These are some of the answers.

I use sodium thiosuphate to remove chlorine so I don’t need one ?

So let’s try to answer the question?
First of all Sodium Thiosulphate is a nasty chemical?
Why ?
First of all putting any chemical in your pond is a risk it has consequences especially when there are none chemical options.
What does sodium Thiosulphate actually do?
Well it sits in your water and neutralises chemical compounds such as chlorine and chloromines but it will also neutralize pond treatment such as blanket w**d removal and parasite treatments OH! And while we are on the subject - pond detox ? I’ve seen people putting this in weekly??
For what ? Once again none of your treatments will work properly if you are doing this and bigger problems are on there way - stop it immediately use pond detox in an emergency only.
Also bottled dechlorinators why add chemicals to remove chemicals leaving behind chemicals??- I think I said that correctly??

Three stage water filters
Are a great bit of kit for any pond enthusiast great value for money around £65-£70
Consisting of a particle filter for larger particles obviously but the water authorities add coagulants such as iron sulphate this binds with small particles and you particle filter takes them out
In the centre you have a carbon or GAC filter and last you have a carbon block between them they will neutralise your nasty,s such as chlorine and chloramines making tap water safe.
great bit of kit in my view every pond owner should own one.
If you have got a big pond you will need a 20 inch or if you have a really big pond a big blue.
We have dechlorinators by evolution Aqua that are full of active carbon I use mine in combination with my 3 stage filters so that my particle filter and carbon block are always in play - on a big blue for instance you would fit a particle filter - it doesn’t ever look like it does much but very important to fit one - 🤔
The more water you use the bigger the dechlorinator ???
But and it’s only my opinion ( and I’m aloud one) I 🤔 think.
Their is a lot of overkill going on in the industry people with 10,000 liters with 2 big blues is your water that bad ??
As a koi dealer I go to places like koi wholesale - yes Ricky Stoddart a koi wholesaler 30 odd ? Ponds but where are the big blues ?
Now if my memory serves me correctly he has done a video where he pumps pond water through bone char in a big blue ?? - one YouTube video.
But when you walk around koi wholesale all you see is the odd 12 in dechlorinator from Evolution Aqua
Slowly topping up tanks and that’s all he uses.
Remember new fishing gear is made to catch anglers NOT fish 🐟.
OH! And don’t get me started on the ones that constantly say “ we look after 💦 water - not fish 🐟 “
NO we have to look after both to be successful in this hobby.
I gas off any nastys in the water by having my hose on spray ??
I use rain water ??
I live in a good area my waters fine ??
What a load of rubbish.
Last year in Derbyshire the water system was contaminated chloramines were recorded @ 25 mg parts per million - it was a miscalculation by workers working for the water board
Normal chloramines levels used to clean pipes and sterilise are used @ 0.2-0.5 mg max. parts per million every koi keeper in the area was affected everyone with constant trickle in lost all their koi anyone that did a filter clean or water top up lost all or most of their koi collection - even koi outlets were seriously affected with big losses .
Even inline filters can’t handle toxicity at them levels
I’m sure I’m right in saying chloramines is a form of bleach ?
Accidents can and do happen
But on a normal day to day running of a koi pond chemicals such as-
Chlorine - coagulants - fluoride- phosphate- ph adjusters like calcium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide- chloramines can be removed or at least bought down to acceptable levels by using an appropriate water dechlorinator.

Then after reading this - ask yourself?

What the hell are we drinking??

🥃🍺🍻🥂🍷🍹🍾

22/05/2026

All them empty fish bags and koi boxes
Can only mean one thing Ronnie ??
Yes
Our latest shipment of Japanese koi carp have arrived from Japan !
Tatesh*ta Nisia from oofuchi in 2 different sizes 30/35cm and 35/40 cm
Some wonderful koi from Mano 35/40
I’m not going to say anything else but there are some very special pieces in this mix 👀👀🐟
Some Tatesh*ta Showa from Hirisawa
15-20 cm including gin rin
All now in quarantine recuperating.
These will be ready for sale ( all being well ) in 4-6 weeks
They will certainly be ready for our open day planned for the 4th July
Yes Saturday 4th of July free burger and chips free drinks hot and cold free ice cream van in the afternoon.
Matt from the koi place will be joining us with his knowledge and full range of Horizontal flow Japanese style koi filters
Luke from trident ponds 🔱
Will be joining us with his Fiberglass koi tank and filter range we will have koi auctions on the day some for various charities lots of offers on koi and all associated products
Our new E/A showroom will be ready by then our new plant tables should be in by then ??
Grow and show selection
This years grow and show VHQ Kase Showa - you can view them at the shop right NOW!
Want to join our grow and show it costs £120 per entry
£200 to the winner plus takazumi koi food prizes for 1st 2nd and 3rd winner will be selected this time next year from video
Buy from our website or from the shop
Be a part of a proper grow and show with quality koi ????
Presentation of last years grow and show winners 🏆🥇🥈🥉
Lots to see lots to do
Put it in your dairy’s folks
July 4th Five Towns Koi open day
See it advertised on Telford koi pond on YouTube.
Who wouldn’t want to meet…
The Legend that is……
……Ronnie………..🤔
And I’ve saved the best till last
Yes
We will be having the luxury toilet block again with the neon LED lights 🤔

Free food and drink
Luxury toilets
And everything KOI
Five Towns Koi Open day
July 4th - American Independence Day
We look👀👀👀forward to seeing you 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟⛩️

Put it on your calendar

20/05/2026

No time to rest Ronnie
We are open for all your koi needs over the coming bank holiday
Opening Hours Friday 10:00 till 5:00
Saturday 10:00 till 5:00
Sunday 11:00 till 4:00
Monday 11:00 till 4:00
The VHQ hand selected Kase Showa for the grow and show are on sale in the shop £120 each some great prizes to be won selection to take place on our open day July 4th - but you can view them at the shop this weekend ( please note None of these Showa will be bowled to keep them in the highest condition until the grow and show)
We have topped up most tanks for this weekend
We have a huge selection of Aoki Tosia including yellow dragons 🐉 white dragons 🐉 Doitsu Goshiki
To name a few and are now from £50.00 when purchased in a multi buy
We have topped up all the small Tosia in tank 1 and 2 giving lots more choice
Don’t forget these are from marudo and otsuka in Japan 🇯🇵 and when purchased in a multi buy start for as little as £10 each
We have new stock from maruhiro in tank 5 30-35 cm great value @ £250:00
Longfin and tamasaba available in tank 7
All your foods treatments pipes and fittings lots and lots more in fact everything for your koi pond?
Like I say no time to rest Ronnie ??

Not been down to Five Towns Koi Yet ??
Put it in your diary come and have a look 👀
We don’t proclaim to be the biggest or the best
But you will receive a warm welcome
There is mountains of stock to look at and rummage through Help with advice when we can fish scapes and water tests (we do charge but half goes to Dougie Mac hospice )
You can even get cold drinks and coffee
Come and chat to fellow Hobbyists
Five Towns Koi Ltd
Unit 2
Paramount business park
Nile Street
Burslem
Stoke on Trent
ST62BG
We look forward to seeing you 👀👀👀
🐟

20/05/2026

18/05/2026

WHICH KOI FOOD ???
Part 2

I ended part 1 virtually saying you can’t give most koi foods and treats to your koi
But as you all know you can in moderation?
Going back to the 1980,s - 90,s most koi ponds were unheated so the foods they used were 36-37 percent protein - you didn’t need anymore because the koi could not process any more I think it was Peter Waddington that said he fed wheatgerm all year round
( don’t quote me on that? I’ve read so many books by various- but I think it was Peter)
But things were very different then
Average koi size was about 30-40 cm
Big specimen would be 50cm
And a monster would be 80 cm
Now we have jumbo blood lines we all know someone with an 80-90 even 1 meter koi now ?
Some do have a problem with the tape measure at times
If you know what I mean 😂
While we are on the subject of fish measuring how come when you buy a koi from an online dealer it’s always smaller when it arrives 😂
Perhaps they shrink during shipping.
Sorry I slipped from the subject slightly
So with more and more ponds now heated
Koi and koi bloodlines getting bigger
WE CAN feed more protein because the koi can absorb more protein and turn it into growth
But this is not done at 18-19 degrees this is done at 24-25 degrees
In the main picture you can see 2 chagoi both jumbo bloodline from Hirisawa they are currently 75 and 73 centimetres they are both still only 2 years old - both Nisia No fancy food
25 degrees and fed on takazumi growth they grew for fun every time I went to look at them I felt they had got bigger.
So we have established that growth foods can be used at high temperatures for growth ………but
They are chagoi so no conditioning was needed
If they were kohaku it would be different
Let me explain if I get a bright red balloon 🎈 as I start to blow it up it will stretch- as it stretches the colour fades - with koi the same thing happens so we use colour food to restore the beni (red)
This can be done by either feeding a mix
70 percent growth and 30 percent colour - this is what Ricky Stoddart does
Or what I like to do is push for 6 weeks on growth
Then feed a mix of colour and balance now this can be 60-40 in favour of colour food or 50-50 or less at times colour food can be dangerous stuff it can bring on secondary beni and ruin koi especially kohaku
So please if you use growth and colour food make sure you are using them in the right manner at the correct temperatures.
Colour food can destroy any yellow I’ve seen yamabuki ogons turn orange be careful.
I have so many people come into the shop with ammonia problems Nitrite spikes
And when we work things out the amount of times it turns out to be food fed at the wrong temperatures
Only this weekend a gentleman come in with high Nitrites I’m doing everything right he said
I use the best food I spend a fortune on my koi but I just can’t get it right???
When we got to the bottom of things yes he was heated
Feeding Sakai Hikari 40 percent growth food - 30 percent colour food and 30 percent balance
What temperature is your pond heated too (I asked)
18 degrees (he said)
Also turns out an auto feeder was hitting them every hour
I told him to move to balance only hand feed if possible using a measured amount of food 4or5 feeds
His nitrites started dropping after 1 day
I had another customer came in and asked for a bag of Sakai colour and a bag of saki white another koi outlet had told him this was the best mix for Sakai 50-50
Are you heated (no he replied )
It was August with winter ahead of him
I told him that the 2 foods were fighting each other and it didn’t make any sense apart from helping to fill the koi shops till with cash 💰
I eventually got him on balance and he has never looked back.
We all watch YouTube and watch different koi dealers pile in the food or tell you what the mix is but they don’t always tell you the temperature they are using them at ??.
Just because you are buying the best koi food doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you are using it at the wrong temperature.
Just to finish there are many koi foods out there that don’t cost the earth -many of them constantly improving all the time
Stay away from any koi food that is sold by volume
“By the litre’ rubbish like koi sticks you are buying air
Stay away from dealers special mixes
9times out of 10 it’s the stuff they can’t sell in the shop tipped into buckets mixed with wheatgerm
Normally a money spinner ask yourself??
Why does Ricky Stoddart with all his knowledge why doesn’t he make his own food ?
Why does he pay all that money on Sakai Hikari
It’s simple Sakai Hikari have spent millions developing what they believe to be the best koi food range on the planet and they keep on developing they keep on improving ingredients to keep it at the top

Do you think that Bill at the local aquatics shop with no budget- no access to top ingredients- no scientists backing him

Do you think for one minute that Bills special koi
Mix is good enough to rival match or get anywhere near a koi food like Sakai Hikari ?

Like I said at the beginning I’m a big fan of Sakai Hikari
Yes it’s expensive but it’s definitely the food that other koi food company’s try to emulate
I also like Takazumi koi food in the budget world Takazumi takes some beating I’ve had some great results with it over the last couple of years it’s not the best but it definitely doesn’t have the price tag either.

Hope you have enjoyed my view on koi foods
If you like it give it the thumbs up and give it a like and a share
Many thanks
FTK

17/05/2026

WHICH KOI FOOD??

Part 1
Choosing a koi food can be a daunting task?
So many brands-
Saki Hikari- Takazumi- kusuri- Nutramare - Evolution Aqua - NT Labs - kockney koi -?
The list goes on and on
What kind of koi food-
Balance- garlic- probiotic- colour - wheat germ- mix - high growth - white - oh my days what a headache.
How much protein ?? Fat?? Ash?? Vitamins ?? Spirulina??
It really is a mine field? Or is it ?
Let’s start at the beginning in the spring when we start feeding our unheated koi ponds we have to feed low protein foods such as wheatgerm right ??
You could feed wheatgerm but is that a healthy diet for your koi - you wouldn’t feed your children on nothing but cereal ? Most wheatgerm is rubbish in my opinion ( and Im aloud an opinion) and its the last thing I would give my koi - its what I would call empty food no real goodness in it.
So what would I feed??
Its all about temperature and balancing koi food with your pond temperature
We are not living in the 70,s koi food has moved forward a lot since then.
We have a wide range of koi foods with med /low protein that can be fed from 4 degrees up to 14/15 degrees full of goodness vitamins probiotics spirulina
And lots more
Take Takazumi food for example ( quite reasonably priced affordable to most if not all koi keepers)
Start of the year Takazumi EASY full of vitamins to boost your koi’s immune system just enough protein to get them going but not much to pollute the water can be fed from 4 degrees the perfect start of the season koi food - Sakai Hikari do a multi season food that also fills this gap with ingredients that are sourced at the highest level .
For me Sakai Hikari is the best koi food money can buy but the problem is -
It takes a lot of money to purchase Sakai Hikari koi food these days
People often joke ?
Should I buy a bag of Sakai Hikari or should I buy a new car ???
It’s not quite that bad …….. yet 😂
With more competition for koi foods there are lots of good foods out there that can be fed in cooler temperatures - you don’t have to use wheatgerm
First thing to look for when purchasing koi foods - is
Are they using Fish meal ??
If it’s not fishmeal don’t go near it
If the protein is made up of chicken meal or poultry meal - and lots are these days
There is only one reason a company would use poultry meal- and that is because it’s cheap they are using an inferior ingredient to save money
And that should tell you all you need to know
Secondly koi can Not digest poultry protein so it’s coming out of the other end serving no purpose
Left polluting your pond - most people look at protein
And think this is better because it has more protein ?
NO the Protein has to come from fishmeal .
All good brands use fishmeal
But it doesn’t end their now good brands will tell you what fish they are using and how it’s cooked
Some brands claim fish is cooked slowly to retain more nutrients using fish with higher oil content such as salmon some claim that the spirulina comes from fresh krill sourced from Iceland .
You can now see why some brands are so expensive ?.
Getting back to the koi pond but staying with protein British summers may lift our unheated koi ponds to 18/19 degrees maybe even 20 degrees now’s the time to feed high protein koi foods and treats such as silkworm pupae - black soldier fly - river shrimp 🦐
It’s summer we can throw in as much as we like??
Right??
Sorry wrong again
At 18/19 degrees koi can consume and process about 36/37 possibly 38 percent protein
So with average growth foods 44-46 percent protein
And black soldier fly @58 percent protein we can’t feed these either
What should we feed ?
And when do we feed protein foods ?
Hopefully we will get to the bottom of it in part two.
🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

16/05/2026

MORE THAN JUST A KOI SHOP ?

SUMMER is on its way - at last
All your koi treats - koi food - treatments- nets
In fact everything you need for your koi pond we have it here @ Five Towns Koi
Pipework fittings ball valves bottom drains skimmers uv,s filters.
You name it we have got it all at competitive prices
Most of our customers will tell you we will spend the time to help you sort any of your pond problems that’s why most of our clients will recommend us and keep coming back.
We don’t proclaim to be the biggest or the best
We have a good knowledge on koi keeping that has been acquired over the last 40 years
I learned the hard way but by sharing the knowledge you don’t have too.
You don’t get the personal touch or help from eBay
So please come and check us out.
We are very proud of our 5 star rating
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
We buy all our koi from the breeder’s in Japan
We carry out strict quarantine procedures so that you can buy koi with confidence .
We need your support to keep little shops like ours alive - come down and have a coffee and a chat .
We look forward to seeing you .🐟🐟🐟

15/05/2026

Good morning- koi people’s
Heads up
Due to events that are out of our control the shop will be closing early today
Normally we are open till 5:00
But today we will only open until 3:00pm
Sorry for any inconvenience caused
Open
10.00 till 3:00 today (Friday)
10.00 till 5:00 on Saturday
11:00 till 4:00 on Sunday

The shop will be Closing @ 3:00 pm
today - sorry for any inconvenience

04/05/2026

Wow what a busy weekend that was .
I haven’t had time to put this on here until now
This year’s grow and show - KASE VHQ SHOWA has now gone live on our website
Entry is - £120 selection will you take place on our open day which has just been announced by -
Telford koi pond ( check out his latest YouTube channel) open day is Saturday 4th July
It’s going to be another fantastic day don’t miss out put the date in your diary’s
Yes book your place by purchasing your entry for the grow and show off the website or at the shop we only have 30 places and some have already sold 👀 don’t leave it too long folks 🐟🐟🐟
Selection will be done ( chop stick method) each will take turn on Saturday July 4th
Take them home and show them some love - then this time next year bowl your koi and send us your video - the top 3 koi will be selected with koi food prizes rosettes- the winner 🏆 will receive a trophy and £200 prize money 💰 want to be part of a really good grow and show ???
Worried about coming last in the draw ?? - not a problem we have 50 grow and show koi so the person that comes last has 21 koi to choose from in fact going first is going to be a massive headache because these Showa are so SO good for £120 you will get one of the best if not the best Showa iin your pond and that’s a Five Towns Koi promise - they really are Top Quality.
For more information check out Telford koi ponds latest YouTube/Five Towns Koi.
Or purchase on our website - good luck