All my fish died at the same time

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Me and a couple buddies recently started renting a house from people and we have about a 500 gallon fish pond. This pond was left alone for about 2 months and all of the fish survived. We were cleaning the filter out every day and the pond finally got clear again after a month or so. There were 5 goldfish that were about 5 inches each and about 20 smaller goldfish that were about an inch in length. All of these fish died suddenly a couple days ago and i don't know why. We started noticing white bubbles and foam on the surface of the pond were the filter sprays water back into the pond a couple days before they all died. The ph was around 7.0 when i checked last and everything else appeared ok. I don't know if rain could have affected the water either (we live in Atlanta so rain water is not the cleanest). Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

Jeff
 

lollyfrog

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Boy JD, I don't know. Did you test the ammonia levels? Cleaning the filter out daily may have hurt the bacteria levels which would affect the amount of ammonia in the pond. Are there plants in the pond? When you cleaned out the filter did you just use water?

I'm sorry all your fish died, :bowdown:

Lolly
 
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Thanks Lolly, I have not checked the ammonia levels yet, what should they typically be at for ponds? I'm relatively new to ponds so i don't know all the specifics yet. There are plants in the pond, about 4 of them. And for the filter we just sprayed it out with the hose and it was usually covered with brown goo before we got the water clear again. We also did a couple 50% water changes when it was really dirty but the fish seemed fine after that, i don't know whats up.
 
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yea, everything was a little high but it wasn't outrageous, and i've been using the same dechlorinator that i use in my saltwater tank called "ultimate", i'm guessing thats ok for ponds too? Today i looked at the pond and saw tons and tons of bacteria or fungi all over the bottom of the pond so i think that was the problem. They didn't appear until after all the fish died though. The bacteria or fungus look like tiny half inch strings and they also had tiny worms all around them. I have no idea what it is called so if you all could help me out with it i can put some treatment in there. Thanks!

Jeff
 

DrDave

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Sterilize everything with bleach. Then after much flushing, start over with a few sacreficial fish. If they make it a week then add a few more until the water chemistry is stable.

It sounds like parasites got to them.
 
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o ok, thanks! Should i take the plants out before i pore bleach into the pond, or will they be ok?
 

DrDave

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I did use tap water in a lined garbage pail and soaked my plants then vigorously rinsed them during a cleaning to rid my pond of mosquito fish. I had 1800 that needed to be dispatched.
My hope was the chlorine was just enough to kill the fish without harm to the plants. Either it worked or there were no fish hiding in the roots...
 
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haha man thats a lot of mosquito fish! thats good to know that bleach works, i'm going to try it this weekend and see how it goes!
 

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