Had to drain/refill inherited pond... now what?

[southpaw211]

My husband and I inherited our small fish pond when we bought our house 3 years ago. It is a 1600 gallon pond to the side of our patio, with a small waterfall and one end that is about 10 inches deeper than the rest of the pond. We've tried year after year to get it clear with no luck. It was not clear when we bought the house (it was 10 years old at the time), and I realized they didn't even have a filter for it, just a very small pump (325gph) running the hose up to a rock ledge that served as a "waterfall".

Last summer, the entire thing got taken over by lily pads. This spring, it has been so putrid and disgusting, and the lily pads started again. We decided it was time to start fresh. It's a good thing we did, because it was horrendous. There was a root ball from the lilies that took both my husband and I to roll out, and he still had to chop away at it to take it out in pieces. The bottom several inches of the pond were so sludgey that our pump couldn't even pump the water out & we had to do it by hand. This past weekend, we drained it, scrubbed it, repositioned the rocks around the edges, and refilled it (I also conditioned the tap water before putting the fish back in). They seem very happy and quite active. We also culled out quite a few fish. We ended up keeping 21 fish (all comets) in various sizes, mostly abour 4-5" in length with a couple of smaller ones that had pretty markings and the start of long flowing fins. The rest (at least 30) went into our large farm pond in our back acres.

Now that the hard work is done, we have the problem of crystal clear water in full sunlight, not to mention the fact that we live across the street from a large lake and have a heron that likes to fish in our farm pond out back. Our comets are easy picking right now.

I'm looking for advice on several fronts - first, how do I keep the water clear this time, with the pond in full sun? I've been looking at the balls that come preloaded for two months with beneficial bacteria - are they any good? At the moment we have a 12X12 filter with white media as well as a nylon with activated carbon in it. The pump probably could be bigger (700gph), but until I drained and measured it this weekend, I had no idea how many gallons we had. The water then goes to our waterfall box, which also contains some white media and a bag of activated carbon. In addition to these, we have a fountain that also encompasses a small filter. As I said, the pond is in direct/full sun next to our patio, and we have no trees close enough to shade or deposit their leaves into it.

My next question, is what kind of plants would serve us well? We are in zone 5, so plants would come out in the winter. I'd like to avoid anything invasive like the lillies that will take root, unless it's something easily kept in a container. Floating plants and grasses would be nice, as well as anything that would flower.

Lastly, I've been considering adding a couple of actual koi to our "koi" pond. What will they do to our comets? Will they coexist? And how many fish is too many?

I apologize for the incredible amount of information - I just wanted to be thorough. Thank you for reading and your anticipated advice!

- Karen

 

[sissy]

yep lilies need devided every year or so or they will take over and the old roots will root and put off a pretty bad stink .I have koi and they get big really big as in 2 feet or more and are fussy about water quality .Goldfish don't care as long as they have water .Oh and welcome to the forum .Remember fish have babies lots of babies

 

[koiguy1969]

first off ..i need some computer repair or a new one...must have a virus or malware. as it has been doing for a while now, i was typing a reply to your posting here and for no apparent reason my curser locked up. no scrolling, no moving the curser, no control at all. the curser jumps to wherever it feels it will piss me off the most, and locks there. i have to kill power and reboot to use the computer, meanwhile losing anything i was doing.....
**back to your questions...
**lillies are a great pond plant. you just cant let them go for 10 years. every other year, lift the pots out cut the rhizones and replant in the same pot. give away or sell what youve cut off. this will keep large pads and lots of flowers thru the season. regular maintainence is just trimming off dead pads and flowers as they dieoff.
**a U.V clarifier / sterilizer will keep you from the dreaded "Green Water" single cell algeas. some string (filamentous) algea is a good thing.
**koi grow considerably larger than the goldfish varieties. 2' plus is very common 30" plus can happen if you feed enough and maintain water quality.
**for plants you might consider floaters, like water hiacynths and/or water lettuce. they are gonna be annuals but provide good hiding, good shade, and their roots are good spawning areas. their hungry plants that multiply like crazy, giving good surface coverage will do their fair share of nitrate removal.
*myself i dont find koi any more trouble or work than when i had goldies. i personally havent found any evidence that koi are any more intolerant of water conditions than goldies either.but, then, i have yet to loose a fish to anything having to do with water problems. i think panic and overthinking is a new ponders greatest enemy.
**regular small water changes can play a huge part in maintaining a clean, clear, healthy pond. my pond is 1200 gals and i do a 50 gallon or so water change atleast every week..these small water changes are better than larger ones for a few reasons...less stress on the fish..less drastic change in water chemistry....altho generally short term and minimal anyways (with dechlorinator), smaller water changes mean less chlorine /chloramine exposure for fish.. but waterchanges replenish trace minerals, and electrolites....dilutes any existing pond contaminates like ammonias, nitrites, nitrates, dissolved organic compounds,and even pharomones. excess pharomones can slow and even shut down a fishes immune system.
**as far as filtration...your description sounds like you could have enough filtration but a few pics and a more descript explaination would help. filtration has more to do with how much food is fed to the pond rather than number of fish or their size. but that said, I.M.O.. theres no such thing as too much filtration just not enough!
**i hope i helped ya out a bit.

 

[Waterbug]

how do I keep the water clear this time, with the pond in full sun?

Despite what you read in many many places, sun light is completely unrelated to whether the water is clear or not. Light may increase the number of algae so a pond would be more green given more sun light. But a pond in total shade could still be very green and far from clear.

I've been looking at the balls that come preloaded for two months with beneficial bacteria - are they any good?

They're a scam. Bacteria that can grow in your pond is already there. What you're actually wanting to do is grow more of what you already have. Adding "bacteria" has be shown to only feed other bacteria, the kinds you don't want. Basically you'd just be adding more waste to the pond.

At the moment we have a 12X12 filter with white media as well as a nylon with activated carbon in it.

Pretty much worthless. Activated carbon is a great filter, trouble is the amount of stuff a pond produces. You have a pretty good idea having just cleaned out the pond that a massive amount of waste is generated. And what you saw was greatly reduced by decomposition. So in your own head you can start to do the math on how much activated carbon would be needed. Truck loads.

The nylon media can be used as either a bio filter or a mechanical filter. If it clogs and needs to be cleaned often (once a day, once a week type deal) it is a mechanical filter. If it never has to be cleaned bacteria can grow on it and convert chemicals like ammonia and is called a bio filter. If the media only has to be cleaned once a month it's a really poor mechanical filter and also a really poor bio filter because the bacteria can't get at the chemicals when covered with muck. In generally mad type media create more problems than they fix. They can be used if you really understand filters and do proper upkeep.

The pump probably could be bigger (700gph)

Bigger wouldn't help water clarity. They can help in moving water around in the pond which increases O2 levels. Fountains generally do very little to improve water. If needed, an air pump moves more water for less electric.

My next question, is what kind of plants would serve us well?

Any plant is going to hurt water clarity rather than help it. They add more waste than they remove. The one exception would be string algae if it is harvested and removed from the pond regularly. But even then it's isn't a good way to keep ponds clean.

Lastly, I've been considering adding a couple of actual koi to our "koi" pond. What will they do to our comets? Will they coexist?

They're fine together.

And how many fish is too many?

Measuring for ammonia is one way to tell if you have too many fish. This is more related to how much food you feed rather than the number or size of fish.

Another limiting factor is O2. The bigger the fish, the warmer the water, the more the problem can appear. Measuring O2 levels is difficult and expensive. Normally people look for fish gulping air at the surface...but fish gulp at the surface for lots of reasons and it's hard for the inexperienced to tell the difference. Generally O2 is not the limiting factor in most water gardens.

Beyond that there is no general formula that works. Tons of formulas around, but they're totally made up and are meaningless.

I apologize for the incredible amount of information - I just wanted to be thorough.

I appreciate the info. Only way to give even a guess at solutions.

Speaking of solutions...for clear water you can't beat a UV filter. Kills the green water algae, which in turn allows bacteria that kills the algae a chance to reproduce to a level that they'll kill all algae in the future. So in most ponds the UV only has to be run for a week or two. Turn it off and see if the water starts to turn green again. Try again if it does turn green. If the UV can never be turned off (a rare case) you'd have to build an addition filter (longer stream, bog, trickle tower). Never add a combo filter with pads and such....they're worthless.

Another option is to do trickle water changes. This is where you hook up a regular drip emitter, like for the garden, into the pond. For a weekly 10% water change in a 1600 gal pond you'd need 1600 x 0.1 = 160 gal / (24 * 7) = 0.95 gal per hour, so a single 1 gal per hour emitter would be enough. Maybe a little more for evaporation. You would need an overflow in the pond so water could be sent to the garden. People report good water clarity just using this. And it makes for great water conditions for fish.

 

[sissy]

koiguy not to change the subject but I have avast and and spyware terminator and they offer for free a cleanup for your puter and avast and spyware terminator are free .At the end of the spyware they have a free cleanup tool that lets you click on it to clean all the nasties from your puter and all for free .

 

[rebelangel_3733]

ya know we've had two significant rains this past week...wondering if it's not that that turned my water cloudy...humm

 

[j.w]

Karen

 

[JohnHuff]

koiguy, this is ot also, but get avg and ad-aware. Both are free and are widely used. I have 6 computers at home and do all the maintenance on them. I used to use other anti virus/malware programs but have basically cut down to those 2 and windows defender. Once your computer is virus free, they have resident shields and will prevent your computer from downloading anything bad into them.

 

[southpaw211]

Thanks all for the warm welcome and the advice. I've uploaded some pictures, though it's not much to look at just yet. When things start growing, all of the grasses and plants will fill in around the pond and it will look quite lovely. I've also got some lighting that I haven't brought out yet for the season. I'm eager to get some floating plants and put it all together! :goldfish:

 

[sissy]

Hope to see what you do and take pics while you are doing it we like to watch the progress