frustrated & tired

[D&RW]

fighting green water. my 57 watt UV light stopped working and the parts are at the factory under review for replacement. the connection to the transformer shorted out. no water contact, just broke.

i KNOW i don't have adequate mechanical filtration. Particularly after reading about Doc's 50 gallon barrel system. Plenty of bacteria--nitrite and ammonia are fine. it's the small particulate matter that's getting through.

read on a "natural Pond" website that a gal used quilt batting to catch the finer stuff. in the meantime I'd googled like crazy and couldn't find much in the way of ultra fine mechanical filtration materials.

so we tried the quilt batting. it's polyester and did a great job of catching tons of particulate matter. Problem is, there is something in that stuff that sent my pH up to 9!!! F.... That's from a very stable 7.

So, I pulled out the quilt matting and am doing a 30% water change. I'm frustrated and tired of this pond.

 

[koiguy1969]

sorry to hear that, your luck has not been good with your pond, for sure....i run a 70 gallon skippy filter on my 1100 gal pond, ran my 9 watt tetra pond u.v for 3 days affter intentionally letting the pond go green as to just speedup a natural cycle. my water is clear as a bell, i can see the face on a dime at 26", and i am in full sun 12+ hours a day. i just cant understand your problems, i feel for ya.

 

[DrCase]

What kind of filter are you running again ? I need to go back to walmart and get more stuffing and i will see what kind it is i buy,,,Dont give up

 

[lovinglife]

My larger pond was green all the time and I felt the same way about it, frustrated and tired, finally decided I needed a much bigger filter, so I got some more liner, and created another small pond about 6x6x2, put in a piping grid with holes, filled the pond with gravel and pumped my water into this pond connected to my large pond via a small stream. WOW in one week NO green water at all. My pond is almost 4 feet deep and I can see every weed or leaf that is on the bottom. The fish are way happy. Maybe you just need a bigger filter.

 

[D&RW]

Hi again all,

57 watt UV light returned from AquaUV who replaced the ballast and the bulb from when it broke three weeks ago. It was in warranty and they were righteous about fixing and returning it.

After I hooked it back up, took about 3 days and 2 doses of barley extract but water's clear again and all parameters are spot on.

After I took the quilt batting out, I went to a pond shop and bought two sheets of black, high density filter material. Put a bottle of microbelift PL gel in between and placed them in the top of the filter which is an EasyPro medium aquafalls. Pump is an EasyPro 4700 GPH and pond is about 2100 gallons.

So, now what I have is 2 bags of bacteria friendly ribbon followed by one layer of white sort of standard filter material, 3 layers of Matala filter material in increasing gradations of density and then the two layers of new black pad.

I agree that I don't think this is enough or maybe just enough. IF I can get up the energy to rebuild the waterfall, my plan is to follow the example of Doc Case and build two 50 gallon barrel filters and put them behind it. I estimate the size of my filter now at 70-75 gallons, but I think two 50s like he built will work better.

As for the quilt matting, I THINK that whatever is on it that affects pH eventually washes off. My wife suggested we check this so we tried testing some of it, stirring it briskly and testing it after 1 hr, 2 hrs, 4 hrs and the pH didn't change. I don't know if all brands can cause the same problem, but I do recommend running it through half a dozen wash cycles in your washing machine before even thinking about using it.

 

[DrCase]

Glad to here you got your uv back...I use morning glory,premium polyester fiber fil.....I never noticed a ph swing...got it at walmart less than 3 bucks

 

[koiguy1969]

thats good news..are you alittle less tired and frustrated now???

 

[D&RW]

thats good news..are you alittle less tired and frustrated now???

Yes--thanks very much. what really frustrates me is feeling like I'm screwing up and harming another creature in my care.

No, today in fact, I'm energized. I've made some new good contacts on Koivet.com that together with you guys are helping immensely.

There's no good sources of supplies or knowledge in this town, so today my neighbor and I went up to Oregon Koi Garden shop in Portland. We met two men who are very knowledgeable and friendly. It feels very good to me to have such support.

I bought Dr. Johnson's book on Koi Health and some of their supplies plus medicated fish food.

My water's clear so I can see the fish on the bottom, that really helps. The parameters are good except GH and KH--very soft water. The folks at Oregon Koi told me how to adjust those and sold me some calcium chloride with which to do it. I'm starting slow, but should get those numbers in the proper range in a couple weeks or so.

Biggest problem right now is one fish has a nasty ulcer on her side. Based on recommendations on Koivet.com I treated it once with betadyne and put her in a HT. I've increased the salt to 3% and am feeding her a special medicated food they make at Oregon Koi. I also am using tetracycline and erythromycin in the water, but I'm told now that those don't do much if any good. I've ordered some Tricide Neo and Debride, but it's a little late in her course of treatment for those, I think.

Another fish, a goldfish, looks like it may be developing a red spot on its mouth. IF any other fish shows up sick, I may have to think about treating the whole pond with something, e.g. potassium p. I don't know if I mentioned this, but during the recent weeks chaos and problems I had a new Koi that got sick (eventually died). Some of the other fish were flashing, so I bought some Parasite Treatment from ecological labs and treated the pond according to directions. I also treated the pond with melafix and pimafix. Spent a bundle.

I've been so anxious to try and help these fish, I've been going off half-cocked and reacting and very probably doing more harm than good.

I haven't been quarantining new fish. Just didn't know I needed to . So, now I don't know if I've got some kind of outbreak or not, but you can bet I am not going to be rash again. One of my new contacts has a microscope and knows how to check a fish for parasites. She is going to teach me how to start learning how to do it. Before I do anything to the whole pond, I'd probably want to get one or two fish checked. I am told there are vets in the Portland area that specialize in fish.

One thing that was very interesting the folks at Oregon Koi told me is that goldfish can actually be more prone to problems and illnesses than Koi. Very interesting.

In any case, I'm learning and learning and learning. going to buy a quarantine tank and quarantine all my fish before putting them into the pond.

The other thing I'm thinking about as I have in the past is rebuilding the pond. Something is getting my fish. We've lost another goldfish, a shubunkin and a koi. The pond is built with steep sides and has a fence preventing easy access by blue herons. I guess a coon could get up to the side and snatch a fish as it went by. We have dogs, but they sleep in at night.

If I rebuild, I'm thinking of going for it and building it inside a building. I've built several greenhouses so I'd build a greenhouse like building and then rebuild the pond using new filtration and changing many things, e.g. putting in a real bottom drain or two, allow bypass of the waterfall and have additional circulation capacity.

lastly there's a koi & goldfish club in portland. going to send in my $$ and start going. i'm looking forward to gathering together with folks with similar interests.

So, yes I'm feeling better. I really hate, really hate the fact that fish illnesses seem to be such a potential threat, but it's clear that if one plays according to Hoyle most problems can be prevented or treated if addressed quickly.

Oh, and regarding that batting--I bought it from a fabric store and threw away the package. So, unfortunately I don't know the brand. I'm still using a little of it in the skimmer and will definitely keep the Morning Glory Brand in mind if I have another need. Thanks Doc

 

[DrCase]

Its nice to have Koi people around...I dont know any one around here that keep them..
Hope the new friend with the microscope can help you find out what is going on..
I dont get a lot of new Koi ,but i did get 4 new ones this year,no Qt .I need to watch it my luck may run out..

 

[D&RW]

Lost another fish this morning. a small koi bought 2-3 wk ago-never seemed healthy. hoped it might just be shy, but it finally died--taking the corpse to Oregon Koi for diagnosis tomorrow.

As for buying fish and quarantining, I think a lot of it comes down to knowing who you buy from, i.e. their practices, knowledge, professionalism. Of course, you have to know enough to evaluate.

If sure of who you buy from, quarantining can be either shortened or bypassed, I'm told. If not, quarantining sounds essential.

Before you know all this, you're left trusting people who run Koi and Goldfish operations. That's what I did for a whole year. My neighbor & I both trusted a shop that didn't deserve it. Problem is, it's the only shop in town. Other shops sell fish, but don't specialize as this one supposedly does. Turns out the operation is shoddy. My neighbor and I have had 6 fish die that we bought over the last year.

Reading Doc Johnson's Koi Health & Diseases. He describes a way of quarantining that includes treating the fish for most known potential ailments.

I've got the new shop now and I joined a Koi club. With friends on this forum and Koivet, things are looking up. Still must figure out if I have some kind of outbreak in my pond. But after that's squared away, things should settle down.

Final note for now, Wilde seems to be getting better in the hospital tank--her wound looks better. She's swimming more vigorously. Also the red spot on the other goldfish's mouth seems gone. Fingers crossed.

 

[koiguy1969]

best wishes for you and your fish!!!

 

[w00005414]

To keep the predators out I use a scarecrow which is a motion detector connected to a water house..... animals come within range of it and it shoots them with water. We used to have a great blue heron and a family of king fishers come by and eat our fish but not anymore. It doesn't get the water snakes and the frogs though. I had a huge bull frog hanging out near the pond last year with a big orange goldfish tail sticking out of its mouth, never thought they'd eat my fish!

Good luck with your pond

 

[DrDave]

Didn't work for me with GBH or raccoons.

 

[D&RW]

I'm thinking live trap for coons. i think our humane society will lend you one. If it's a repeating problem owning your own would probably be the ticket.

We have a blue heron decoy for BH, but in Doc Johnson's Koi Health and Diseases he points out that in some cases the decoy actually has the opposite effect, i.e. it attracts them. Yes , they are territorial he says, but the other heron sitting down there means it's safe, he thinks.

Deb and I have been toying with an idea to build some lightweight modular netting covers. For our ponds they'd be maybe 4 X 8. Make them out of something light, but stiff enough not to completely flex into the water. Keep the pond covered when we're not around. Coons could probably get in, but it'd be harder.

 

[DrDave]

Infra red alarms and a rifle work well. I use nets during the day and night when I cannot be here to protect them.