High Ammonia and Low PH

[appycrazygirl]

I am new too this forum thing, but really need some help with my pond. I have a 3000 gallon in ground pond. 7' wide x 25' long x 4' deep. I have a natural bog filtration system which includes a 700 gallon stock tank filled with rock media and LOTS of plants. I run a 10,000 gph external pump, Large water fall and two 2,600 gph in pond UV sterilizers. I have 18 koi in the pond varying in size from 4" to 26" (most are 12" and smaller, only have three large). Plus two 4" high fins and one cat fish. I am having a horrible time keeping my ammonia levels under control and my ph level up. It has been creating havoc on my fish (have lost 3 in the last two months). They have not been fed in over 3 weeks due to the water temp being only 42 degrees. I also clear the leaf and pine needle debree out of my pond daily. I am in western Washington and the extremely wet weather and weird temperature fluxuations have been hard on my pond. Several of my fish have ulcerations and have been treating them with salt and also recently had a parasite issue that I treated with Potassium Permaginate. I am completely lost on what to do next. All my other levels test out. Nitrite 0, Nitrates 0, PH 6.2, Ammonia 1.5 and rising. I have done several water changes (40%) over the last two months. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I can attach pictures if need be. Some of these ulcerations have gotten out of control. My poor yellow Ogon has a bad one on his lower lip and my Doitsu has a bad one on her side. Also my Hariwake has the base of her tail all red.

 

[sissy]

baking soda brings up your ph and and crushed oyster shells stabilize it .I have not lost a fish in almost 8 years with the bigger pond I have .Your pond is deep enough but how clean is the bottom of the pond and are you still using the uv's .I thought this time of the year they are useless ,never owned one my self .

 

[sissy]

I would hope you are feeding your fish wheatgerm also .

 

[appycrazygirl]

The bottom of my pond is very clean. I have a large intake tube for the pump assembly and my pond tapers from 3' at the water fall too 4 1/2' at the intake. I do feed a wheat germ every other day. I have the UV's disabled during the winter months and turn them on once the temp rises above 55 degrees. Athough my High fins like to use them for warmth.

 

[sissy]

Uv, are for algae and most here only run them for a couple of weeks at the most .I only feed my wheat germ 3 times a week I do not want them to get sick from over eating or from ammonia spikes .That what could be causing your ammonia spikes .Even in the summer I only feed my fish every other day and scoop out uneaten food .My pond water temps here in VA are at 65 today and that is because I built my pond not to far from my septic tank and learned that will warm my water up .Outside temp is in the 60's and supposed to get down to the 40's after this rain we are supposed to get .I don't have rocks on the bottom to hide gunk and not sure if that helps but feel it does .My pond is similar in size to yours .maybe others will be able to give you input also .If I were you i would stop feeding and see what happens to your ammonia levels .They will not starve as winter they slow down anyway

 

[appycrazygirl]

Outside temp here is around 30 degrees. I stopped feeding for about a week and my ammonia level climbed 0.25 which was really frustrating. I have nothing in the bottom of the pond either. Learned my lesson on that one when we had the smaller pond. Around here the UV's are a must. We have such heavy algae blooms and problems with hair algae (my pond gets direct sunlight most of the day) that I wouldnt be able to see my fish without them.
How much baking soda do you recommend as I dont want to raise the PH to quickly. Never heard of the Oyster shell thing, I will have to give that a try as they are plentyfull around here.

 

[appycrazygirl]

My biggest concern right now is getting the ammonia level under control and figuring out what is triggering it. At one point it was almost 2.0 and had to do several water changes to get in back down to 1.0. A week later it climbed back up to 1.5. I have even tried Ammo-Carb in an old nylon from the down flow from my bog to the water fall. I will attach some photos tonight of my bog set up and my pond. Maybe someone will notice something that I am not.

 

[minnowman]

It wouldn't hurt to add one pound of baking soda right away . Then you could get an alkalinity test kit. Maintaining alkalinity above 100 will stabilize the P.H. The alkalinity will help bacteria to change ammonia into nitrates. It may take a while, because of the cold water temp. Also check your makeup water for alkalinity. If it's low ,add baking soda whenever you add new water. Be careful with oyster shells. They could carry disease organisms if they came out of the ocean recently.

 

[sissy]

Yes true it is better to get the crushed oyster shells from a farm store ,they are used to make chicken egg shells harder when they feed them to chickens .Wonder if the water is city also and is it being treated well enough before it goes in the pond

 

[Waterbug]

Raising the pH right now would be a good way to kill the fish. Ammonia is more toxic as pH increases. Adding baking soda would convert ammonium (NH4+) to ammonia (NH3), about 10 times more toxic given your numbers. The cold water is helping to keep it less toxic so that's working in your favor.

The bacteria that converts ammonia has just about shut down at your current temperature.

You have an ammonia problem and still feeding the fish??? STOP. Food, any kind, is converted into ammonia by the fish.

You could use something like Ammo-Lock before changing pH, but you will still get high ammonia readings which makes it hard to know where you're at. The ammonia tests can't tell the difference between ammonium and ammonia. It's a worst case plan E deal.

I would not screw with pH until ammonia is gone and after you've done some studying on the subject. It's not really very difficult but you have to wade through reams of really bad info unfortunately. That's the internet. Anyone who can type is an expert, heck, a lot can't even type that well.

Water changes are about your only reasonable option imo. Please research so you feel comfortable in the amount.

The pH of rain in your area is about 5 I think. Given the rain you mentioned it could be one reason for the pH. Toss out your pH test kit and buy a KH test kit. Once you understand KH you will never need to know pH.

Please be careful about getting advice on the internet. You sound like you know a fair amount, but then seem to be missing some of the basics, so I'm not sure where you're at. When I read someone has used something as complex as Potassium Permaginate but doesn't know about KH I worry you may be doing stuff people suggest without understanding the ramifications. Sorry if that seems harsh, it isn't meant to be. I see the same thing a lot.

 

[Waterbug]

Please don't do massive water changes without doing a little research. There isn't a lot to know, but you have to have some basic understanding. For example, if your source water is high KH and you do a 50% water change you could drive pH higher and go from no problem to a deadly problem. You should also have a basic understanding of temperature differences so you can make a reasonable call on how much of a water change to do. Smaller, more frequent, changes are generally safer. A massive water change, especially if you interpret the word "massive" to mean 75% or something, is most effective at lowering ammonia, but could kill the fish. The goal should be to save the fish imo.

I think you should be considering 10 to 20% water changes depending on the source water KH and temp. Repeat every couple of days as needed. If ammonia continues to increase you'd have to get more aggressive. But research first, I don't know your pond. Once you stop feeding the ammonia will hopefully stop building as fast.

At 6.2 pH and a temperature of 43F the 1.5 ppm ammonia level isn't deadly. (And please, put the ppm after the number if that's what your test kit uses so people are sure of what you're talking about.) Consider this chart. Your ammonia would have to be close to 10.0 ppm to be deadly. You've got time. Jacking around your pond could get you into real trouble. If you were to add enough baking soda your pH would be 8.4 and then your fish would be in actual danger.

If you want to treat the ulcers it should be done in a hospital tank where you have some control. Adding salt it not an effective ulcer treatment in general and the salt has to then be removed If you wanted to treat with malachite green, formalin and other things. If you think massive water changes are a pain for lowering ammonia wait until you try to get salt to low enough levels to do treatments. There's absolutely tons of info on ulcer treatment. Spend at least 10 hours reading before doing any treatment.

Focus on one step at a time and step 1 is getting ammonia to zero. Fight the temptation to do whatever idea pops up and sounds good. Understand the bigger picture.

 

[appycrazygirl]

Sorry I should have included my KH and GH readings when I did my orginal post. That would have been more helpfull. My KH reading is 40ppm and my GH is 20ppm.. I have never had them that low before. What comes out of my tap (city water) reads as follows. PH 6.8, ammonia 0ppm, nitrates 0, nitrites 0, KH 120ppm, GH 80ppm. However the clorine levels in our tap water is ridiculios. Had to have my pond running for 3 months before I ever put a fish in. I have never had to compensate for those numbers dropping before. I also keep an eye on my salinity levels also.. right now its a little low so I added some salt last night. I checked my pond for anyone missing and all my fishies are accounted for, so no dead. I am afraid to move my fish to the holding tank I have in the garage as it test out at ph 7.5, ammonia 0, nitrates 0, nitrites 0, and KH is 120ppm and GH is 40ppm. If I put the sick ones in there dont I risk the chance of putting them into shock? We have had the big pond up and running for a little over a year now. Our 500 gallon and our indoor tropical 100 gallon we had running for over 5 years and never had these kind of issues. This is my first attempt at a large pond. I currently have AMMO-carb (what my local breeder recommended- activated carbon with ammonia remover) in the pond to help aleviate some of the ammonia. But at this point I feel completely lost and all the knowledge that I strove for before we started has gone out the window.

 

[appycrazygirl]

Thanks for that wonderful artical on ammonia Waterbug. I have been doing regular 20% water changes to keep the level under control. I wonder if the AMMO-Carb is making me get false readings? Should I pull it out and wait a couple of days and retest again?

 

[sissy]

I know that koi are harder to take care of and if I had to do it all over again I would go with goldfish >I have some really great looking goldfish and so much easier to take care of .I guess I lived and learned to late .

 

[Waterbug]

So you added more salt??? Sorry I can't watch. Good luck.