15 replies to this topic

[delori]

I have a 6 year old pond that had been running great for years. A month or 2 ago I started losing fish, first some older gold fish and then some Koi. I treated for all the normal things and it got better for a few weeks then I lost the last few fish about 1 every week or two. I have no idea what did them in but I desided to take this time to do a major cleaning and install some bottom drains in my pond. I noticed that after draining the large section of pond (about 600 gal) that when I unfolded the liner overlap in the corners that there was a white slime hidden in the folds. Can anyone tell me what this is? Is it normal, good, bad...

I know if I completely scrub the liner it will take quite a while to build up the good bacteria again so I don't want to do a harsh scrubbing on the normal green areas but I'm wondering about the white stuff. I can't find anything online with pics to help explain what this is so I'm hoping someone here can help.

Thanks for any help,

Delorian

[GoldfishGuy]

I'm not exactly sure what this may be. It would have been nice if you could have taken photos of the white slime you are seeing. Did you do anything different lately to your pond in the last month or two from the last 6 years you've had your pond? Did you introduce any new fish or new water plants lately? If so you could have introduced parasites and disease to your pond. Were the eyes sunken on the fish that did die? Did they appear healthy? The white slime, are you sure it's not snail eggs as that's a slime.

Hope to hear from you soon and find out exactly what happened with your pond. Sorry to hear you lost all your fish.

[delori]

I sure it's not snail eggs. As for plants I added a Giant CANNA BENGAL TIGER I picked up from the Depot. The thing went crazy, it's about 8' tall with constant new shoots and blooms. I tried to keep the flowers and bulbs out of the pond as they fell but maybe this plant caused it. I'll see about posting a pick of the slim here in a few.


I've attached a pic of the pond from just after it was finished. It's a three teir about 800gal total. Pumps from the lowest to the upper which is a 2x2x3 bog filled with lava rock then falls into the mail pond and overflows into the lower section again. Hope you like it.

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[koiguy1969]

its been my experience that some snail eggs are in little opague gel sacks and some look like fish eggs but are orange. nice decorative setup there tho!!

Edited by koiguy1969, 21 September 2009 - 09:55 PM.

[delori]

OK, I took 3 pics, Two are all dried out already and the other you can pretty much see.

390 shows the muck, the other 2 show other places where it was, but dried out.

OK, they are too largeso I compressed the one that shows the slim...

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[koikeepr]

you bought that plant in home depot. Did you use the soil it came in?? If you did, then it would have had fertilizer and those zany little water balls that hold in moisture. Both of those are highly poisonous to fish. Did you notice the fish started dying AFTER you put that canna in the water?

Or did you just put the bulb in bare?

[delori]

I did toss the whole thing in my bog but that was around jan or feb of this year and didn't have problems for over 6 months. In the future I will be sure to just pull out the plant though.

I do remember swinging by a local Koi place here a few month ago and seeing that their water hyacinth had blooms, mine have never bloomed so they gave me a few for my pond. I didn't even think of it till now but shortly after I was filled with duck weed and my hyacinth were dying off. I think this might have been were I really went wrong.

Thanks much for the other tip.

[delori]

OK, I just dug though the garage and found exactly what I bought, Here it is...

"1. Drop net bag into pond or container"
"2. watch it grow"

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[DrDave]

Duckweed is easy to control and is not your problem.

Edited by DrDave, 23 September 2009 - 01:04 AM.

[koikeepr]

these are the ones that have no dirt. they are in a little net bag just to put straight into the pond/water...is that right? Did you do anything else other than just drop it in the water? Put in soil, etc?

[delori]

I really don't remember if it had dirt, I want to say it was in some sawdust type stuff.

I dropped it in my bogwhich is the uper section full of lava rock and there was an old basket with aquatic soil from old plants. It took root and took off.

I think it's more from the hyacinth and criders that may have come with them...

Either way, no plants are going back in for now. I'm more concerned about the white slime in the folds of the liner.

[stroppy]

this gell like stuff ...was it about the water line level ? only i was wondering it it was fish food, that can go jelly like if left, maybe some got trapped in your corners

[delori]

That could be, they really weren't eating much in the end. I'l just blast it off with the hose and see if it builds back up while I'm cycling the new water.

Does anyone know how I can get this tested if it comes back?

[koikeepr]

did you test your water parameters? Ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/etc. Those numbers would help us.

Since it seems you had very large folds inside the pond (which you really should not have), it's likely just food and junk that just collected in there--which of course is not a good thing. When you re-lay everything, make sure the area in the pond is perfectly flat. If you have to have folds, they should be on the upper part of the liner that come up and over your sides and not in the pond where they will trap debris.

[delori]

Sorry, forgot. As for testing, I had just done a 1/3 water change a little while back and my silly all-in-one dip sticks said the water was in good shape. PH is always a bit low for me, it's the water here in San Jose CA. The local Koi shop told me to just disolve and add some baking soda from time to time, but never much at one time.

I hope he didn't give me bad advice.