Do I need to do something about this?

[natbla]

Good idea on the testing.

The killers of fish are mostly clear. Murkiness isn't generally a killer.

When you do test water you should do a test as early in the morning as possible and again in late afternoon or early evening. Repeat for several days. A single reading only tells you a little bit.

Well, it looks like the one set of tests was out of wack. I'll add a morning testing

Tonight's numbers were: 0 nitrate,0 nitrite, 150 hardness, 180 alkalinity, 7.5 ph

 

[Waterbug]

What do you think is out of whack?

The trick to testing is to collect the data to start to see a pattern. Each test gives you one part of the elephant. Takes a few before you see the big picture. After awhile you'll start to understand why the numbers move. Like, wow, 3" of rain dropped my alkalinity by 50%. Then when you see it rain you'll know without testing that you need to add alkalinity.

It would be helpful at least to me if you could give all the test data in each post. Hard to dig them out of past posts, easy to make a mistake.

No ammonia test? That's the main killer of fish.

 

[natbla]

What do you think is out of whack?

The trick to testing is to collect the data to start to see a pattern. Each test gives you one part of the elephant. Takes a few before you see the big picture. After awhile you'll start to understand why the numbers move. Like, wow, 3" of rain dropped my alkalinity by 50%. Then when you see it rain you'll know without testing that you need to add alkalinity.

It would be helpful at least to me if you could give all the test data in each post. Hard to dig them out of past posts, easy to make a mistake.

No ammonia test? That's the main killer of fish.

I'm not sure what's going on chemically, the other fish seem to be acting the same as before no new or abnormal behavior. I do need a better test set. But in the meantime are there clues to if the ammonia levels are up? When I have more data I'll put it in the same post. Temps today are holding steady at right around 70.

 

[Waterbug]

Well, it looks like the one set of tests was out of wack. I'll add a morning testing

What I'm asking is why you said this. What is that you think is out of whack? I'm trying to figure out where you are. This fixing pond thing is 80% trying to understand what the person thinks is true and trying to explain where they took a wrong turn. The pond stuff is the easy part.

But in the meantime are there clues to if the ammonia levels are up?

No.

Temps today are holding steady at right around 70.

Air temps? Water temps?

A couple of months ago I was flying on a major airline and I was talking to the flight attendant and she asked if I wanted a tour of the cockpit. Sure, why not. I get the nickle tour and the captain asks if I want to sit in the co-pilot seat while he takes a break. Sure, why not. The captain is explaining this and that. So then he says he's going to hit the can and tells me to take the stick. I tell him I don't know how to fly and he says it's easy, just keep the stick steady and don't touch again thing else. I figure he must know what he's talking about, so sure why not.

So I'm tooling along at 35,000 feet and 457 mph ground speed. But the plane slowly starts to bank right. At first no big deal I turn a bit left. But I guess I turned a bit too much and now I'm banking left, and I notice I'm down to 27,000 feet although I hadn't notice I'd pitched the nose forward. OK, now I have to pull up some and turn right. So I give it a go, but now I'm banking way right and pretty soon the plane is upside down and I'm loosing altitude fast. OK, now I'm pretty confused. Upside down and heading for the ground at around 700 mph, how to I fix that?

So in this little fable the plane is the pond, the passengers are the fish, I'm the person looking for advice and the captain is the "expert" giving the advice. Who's the biggest idiot? The passengers aren't. Am I for for allowing the captain to talk me into this mess? A little. But the biggest idiot is the "expert" captain. Why in the world did he think I could fly a plane? Why would he give me advice like "just hold the stick steady" and not give me a 500 hour course on all the things that can go wrong and out to fix it before going to the can? Because he's an idiot.

I don't want to be that idiot. So I don't like to tell people stuff that will kill their fish if I don't have any idea about what is actually going on. And along that same line, if a pond keeper is unable, for whatever reason, to take water tests and report the values with some precision they aren't going to be able to do the necessary calculations and tests needed to fix the problem. The best advice I could give is "don't do anything" and hope the fish luck out.

I'm not saying I'm giving up on you natbla, just saying if you want really to figure this stuff out and have any chance of getting it right it's going to take some effort and attention to detail. That's my advice for what it's worth.

 

[natbla]

What I'm asking is why you said this. What is that you think is out of whack? I'm trying to figure out where you are. This fixing pond thing is 80% trying to understand what the person thinks is true and trying to explain where they took a wrong turn. The pond stuff is the easy part.


No.



Air temps? Water temps?

A couple of months ago I was flying on a major airline and I was talking to the flight attendant and she asked if I wanted a tour of the cockpit. Sure, why not. I get the nickle tour and the captain asks if I want to sit in the co-pilot seat while he takes a break. Sure, why not. The captain is explaining this and that. So then he says he's going to hit the can and tells me to take the stick. I tell him I don't know how to fly and he says it's easy, just keep the stick steady and don't touch again thing else. I figure he must know what he's talking about, so sure why not.

So I'm tooling along at 35,000 feet and 457 mph ground speed. But the plane slowly starts to bank right. At first no big deal I turn a bit left. But I guess I turned a bit too much and now I'm banking left, and I notice I'm down to 27,000 feet although I hadn't notice I'd pitched the nose forward. OK, now I have to pull up some and turn right. So I give it a go, but now I'm banking way right and pretty soon the plane is upside down and I'm loosing altitude fast. OK, now I'm pretty confused. Upside down and heading for the ground at around 700 mph, how to I fix that?

So in this little fable the plane is the pond, the passengers are the fish, I'm the person looking for advice and the captain is the "expert" giving the advice. Who's the biggest idiot? The passengers aren't. Am I for for allowing the captain to talk me into this mess? A little. But the biggest idiot is the "expert" captain. Why in the world did he think I could fly a plane? Why would he give me advice like "just hold the stick steady" and not give me a 500 hour course on all the things that can go wrong and out to fix it before going to the can? Because he's an idiot.

I don't want to be that idiot. So I don't like to tell people stuff that will kill their fish if I don't have any idea about what is actually going on. And along that same line, if a pond keeper is unable, for whatever reason, to take water tests and report the values with some precision they aren't going to be able to do the necessary calculations and tests needed to fix the problem. The best advice I could give is "don't do anything" and hope the fish luck out.

I'm not saying I'm giving up on you natbla, just saying if you want really to figure this stuff out and have any chance of getting it right it's going to take some effort and attention to detail. That's my advice for what it's worth.

I'm not sure anything is out of wack necessarily now that I have more data points, just that things are changing in the system. For example:
1) the sudden change in algae on the waterfall
2) the increase in algae growth on the walls of the pond
3) significant increase in fish load
4) lots of swing in temps

 

[sissy]

hmmmm I just test and take my test to my local pet store for a print out and it is more accurate than i could ever do with my home test .I started a pond and knew nothing and to this day I am beginning to think i know nothing ,and maybe glad i know nothing .But I do know I'm happy with the outcome .Guess my fish agree .Patience and time win out .

 

[Waterbug]

Trouble shooting a person's pond on site is difficult. Doing it from a forum is pretty much impossible. Doing it with little info....completely impossible. Good luck.

 

[natbla]

Well, it seems that the changes going on in the pond were generally positive.I purchased an ammonia test and its consistently 0 so the load of fish to bacteria is right, no major growth of algae, and rest of my test numbers are good and constant with 300 hard water, 7.5 PH and 0's across the board for nitrite, nitrate, and ammonia. Fish are growing, and waterfall is staying clean of algae growth, so things must be balanced in general.

I did lose 2 small koi fish. one had a visible fungle growth on it looked like what was identified on another thread here recently. It didn't survive treatment. The other was floating dead when i went to clean the leave and such off the surface one morning. It looked normal, and I don't have scope to examine closer.But the others are all swimming and eating well. I'll keep testing and keep working on cleaning muck off the bottom. These two deaths were at the 2 week mark from when they were introduced to the pond. SO I'm guessing it had to do with adaptation.

 

[addy1]

Glad to hear, hope it keeps going good for you