Nymphaea Fidelity » Ultimate Koi Clay

A first impression of the name may lead you to believe that this product is designed specifically for koi. While it works great for koi, it is a multipurpose product. Ultimate Koi Clay is derived from calcium bentonite clay which has trace minerals and elements in good levels. The product is soft to the touch and feels slippery when in contact with water. When applied to a pond, it will appear slightly cloudy but will clear after a brief period of time.

We use the product for the trace minerals and elements (micros). The reason for this is that the substrate that we use is sand. We get our sand from the local Lowes and it is prescreened and washed and therefore is a fairly “empty” and clean product. Our primary fertilizer is Osmocote and this product has macros (N-P-K). Therefore our plants are lacking in micros. We know that plants need a combination of macros and micros to thrive.

We now typically will mix a minute amount of Utimate Koi Clay with our sand when we pot up tropical water lilies. We also will directly supplement the water with Ultimate Koi Clay. Keep in mind that we use pots with holes so the roots can utilize the clay easily.

Recently we have begin to mix the fish food with the clay (we keep wakin in most ponds [fish emulsion also benefits tropical water lilies]) and their colors have deepened.

In the photos below there is a close up of the Ultimate Koi Clay and a pond of young N. ‘Foxfire’ that has been “dusted” with the product (we typically dust with Ultimate Koi Clay and Dipel just before a rainstorm). Dipel is a product with BT that used to control caterpillars–an article is available on the blog.