My Friends Pond

[Priscilla]

A friend of mine has been adding lots of fish to her and I've been sitting here envying her crystal clear water. While I warned her I thought it was a lot of fish, she has added quite a few. Her pond is about 7 years old. I'm not sure of the Galls, because its kind of dug like a V shape.

She's recently found 2 goldfish dead. I checked her water, she had low levels of ammonia and nitrites. Her filter is quite small, although she has a second pump going into a smallish preformed pond that cascades down into the main pond. She has not added any new fish in a few weeks now.

She did a big water change and I think she was going to add some salt.

Any additional thoughts?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Clarify what you call "low levels of Ammonia and Nitrite".

 

[Nepen]

new or old goldfish that died?

 

[sissy]

are there plants and when time of day does she think fish died .A lack of oxygen overnight can cause this to happen .Could be plants overnight used up all the oxygen .Also what temperature is the water .In full sun the water can get really hot if the pond is shallow .Just like cold can kill fish so can heat

 

[Priscilla]

Clarify what you call "low levels of Ammonia and Nitrite".

Ammonia looked around .25
Nitrite looked around .25

As you know these colors are very difficult to match exactly.

new or old goldfish that died?

The first one she thought died of 'old age' I think it was maybe 5 years, the second one she said wasn't that old. Maybe a year or two.

are there plants and when time of day does she think fish died .A lack of oxygen overnight can cause this to happen .Could be plants overnight used up all the oxygen .Also what temperature is the water .In full sun the water can get really hot if the pond is shallow .Just like cold can kill fish so can heat

There are some plants in the pond. She has two areas of water flowing back into the pond. I don't know the exact time of day they died. She woke up and found the first one dead. The second she heard a splash and went over to check and there was the dead fish (Late afternoon time). The pond is fairly shaded. It is about 2 to 3.5 feet deep. The fish weren't hanging around the waterfall or anything like that. There are some large koi in the pond and they are fine.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I would suggest that she stop feeding the fish until the ammonia and nitrite levels are back to zero. Test water daily and comtinue to do partial water changes.

What kind of filter does she have? She may want to consider adding another filter.

Five years old for a goldfish is not considered old. With proper care they can live to be 20 plus years old.

 

[Nepen]

Priscilla, the reason I asked which one of the gold fish died was because if it's the new fish she just put in the pond we might look at it as stress or that it was sick before. But since it's the old fish she had that died, then it could be that the new fish gave the old fish disease? that also depend on how long ago she added the last new fish. Ammonia spike is another thing I can think of.

 

[Priscilla]

She hasn't added any new fish in a few weeks.

Yes, I think some sort of ammonia spike. Bit strange. She also said she had cloudy water for a few days too.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Could be that the Koi spawned. Considering how physical they get during this event, the Goldfish may have been collateral damage.

 

[sissy]

could be it if water was cloudy we always forget your warm temps .can cause spawning .I had a koi chase and almost kill one of my goldies .I took him out until they were done .Funny thing was that they only picked on the one and none of the others .He went back in 2 weeks later and no problems .Koi can get very aggressive during spawning .

 

[Meyer Jordan]

could be it if water was cloudy we always forget your warm temps .can cause spawning .I had a koi chase and almost kill one of my goldies .I took him out until they were done .Funny thing was that they only picked on the one and none of the others .He went back in 2 weeks later and no problems .Koi can get very aggressive during spawning .

Since Koi and Goldfish are genetically close cousins, it could very well be that the male Koi were responding to egg-laden female Goldfish. Hybrids are not that uncommon.

 

[sissy]

Yeh I know that for sure .I have lots of them and have given lots of them away .I get a lot of them with the long flowing tails .

 

[callingcolleen1]

be careful with too many floating plants on water surface cause they tend to smother the pond, especially if she has a small pump and small pond with too many fish.

 

[longdaicat]

A friend of mine has been adding lots of fish to her and I've been sitting here envying her crystal clear water. While I warned her I thought it was a lot of fish, she has added quite a few. Her pond is about 7 years old. I'm not sure of the Galls, because its kind of dug like a V shape.

She's recently found 2 goldfish dead. I checked her water, she had low levels of ammonia and nitrites. Her filter is quite small, although she has a second pump going into a smallish preformed pond that cascades down into the main pond. She has not added any new fish in a few weeks now.

She did a big water change and I think she was going to add some salt.

Any additional thoughts?

Please see below link:
http://www.longdaicat.com/ho-ca-koi.html