I'm new.... with questions

[tbfoto]

Hi everyone, I hope to learn alot from this forum. I've been reading alot but have not seen this subject before. I have a 1200 gal. koi pond in my back yard. My koi spawned about a month ago and I pulled a string of eggs out of the pond and put into a 20 gallon aquarium with an air stone and filled it with water from my pond and just set it out in the yard with the top covered with a screen. The eggs hatched about 5 days later and I had hundreds of very small baby koi. I did not use any kind of filter at the time because they would have gotten sucked up through the filter and died. I removed about 1 gallon of water every few days and replaced it with water from my big pond. I've been feeding them crushed up koi food. They all seem to be doing just fine but still far too small to be put into the big pond. It's been one month now. They are all getting bigger (1/4 - 1 inch) and I want to set this 20 gallon aquarium up in the house to raise them until they can go out in the big pond which may not be until next spring.

So my questions have to do with setting up this 20 gallon tank WITH a power filter. My plan in to remove all the fish with a small bucket and place them into a temporary container. Then clean out the 20 gallon aquarium (has lots of green algae on inside of glass) and fill with fresh water (treat for chlorimine) ( or should I use the old water) and hook up a whisper power filter that I have setting around.

I know that the tank needs to be (seeded) so I was wondering if placing the filter cartridge (for the whisper power filter) in my pond for a couple of days, then adding it to my power filter would work ok? Then allowing this to run for a couple of days before transferring the baby koi back into this tank.

I know this is a long post but I can use some help.

Thanks,
tbfoto

[gm72]

1. Using a prefilter to the whisper will avoid the fry being sucked into the intake.
2. Set up your whisper now, add a few stones or something from your existing pond.
3. That many fry will never survive in a 20 gallon tank until next spring.
4. Just wipe the algae off the glass, no need to break down the whole thing. This would, in fact, be a detractor to continuing what I imagine is an already ongoing cycle.
5. The bacteria need a source of ammonia in order to survive, so just setting up a seeded filter without adding ammonia or fish wouldn't do anything.

[tbfoto]

Yes I do realize that is too many for a 20 gallon tank and I do plan on giving away some of them as they get bigger. It is my hope to only have about 10 of the best looking to keep for my pond, and even then I'll not be able to keep all of those as they get bigger. Thanks for your help.

[gm72]

Good to hear you are aware of stocking requirements. You'd be amazed at what we hear here.

"Gee I don't understand why my 100 feeder fish aren't happy in my 2.5 gallon tank!"