New pond, all my fish are dying

[eirrac11]

1 month ago I finished constructing a 1200 gallon pond, with a waterfall, 3 pumps, all the works. Its a work of art. Too bad all my fish are dying! Too start it out, like every good novice, I went to my local pet store and bought $150 worth of koi and various types of gold fish. Then I headed to the nursery and spent $100 on various types of water plants. The plants are doing good. The fish not so much. The first week or so it was cold and they didn't eat, but they all made it, excluding a few of the couple dozen standard goldfish I bought. But now over the past 3 weeks, they have pretty much all died what appears to be a slow and painful death. Everyday I go out there and a new one is laying on the bottom, barely moving, and by the next day its a goner. Also, about 1/2 of them a few days before they die develop white type spots/patches on them. I am going tomorrow to have my water tested, but wondered if anyone had ideas?

Also, my silly dad put 2 small largemouth bass and 2 birch in there 2 weeks ago. Both bass died, birch are still alive.

Any advice or help would be much appreciated before I bulldoze this over!

 

[fishin4cars]

What kind of liner do you have? Water test is a must! Sounds like a serious ph crash. the first thing I think of is fresh cement instead of a liner. If this is the case, You will need to drain and seal the pond. but before we get to that, test the water, take some pics and post them and try and give as much detail as possinle, zone, temp, what the test readings are, pitures of the fish all thi swill help in trying to figure it out. my guess right now is ph, or hardness.

 

[DrDave]

I have made concrete ponds in the past and didn't have any losses. The trick is to flush it many times and let the lime leach out before you start loading it up with fish.

 

[eirrac11]

Thank you. I will post back after I get my water results.

It is a liner, not cement.

I am having trouble figuring out how to post pictures, but I did a blog post on my family blog a few weeks ago, so this link will take you to some pictures when it was pretty much complete. http://pinkcamogirl.blogspot.com/2011/03/koi-pond-completesort-of.html

I wish I would have just taken a picture of my biggest fantail that bit the dust today. ugh! I am sure there will be another one by tomorrow I can take a picture of

 

[eirrac11]

Oh, another thing, we just added a filter about 5 days ago. Not sure if that would have anything to do with it. The water has looked super clear. I can't remember if I really mentioned. The little standard goldfish seem to eat good, but my bigger fish are always hidden behind rocks and things and they don't come out when I throw food out, the guy at the pet store said to only leave it in there 5 minutes and take it out, I do that most of the time but sometimes don't just to make sure they are eating.

 

[fishin4cars]

I have made concrete ponds in the past and didn't have any losses. The trick is to flush it many times and let the lime leach out before you start loading it up with fish.

That or seal it. The first time I built a pond it was made of cement and the fish died looking like they had been burnt. I flushed it several times but it would continue happening but at slower rates. I finally drained it and sealed it and no more problems. But that was 15 years ago.
Anyway this one is liner, good. Is it a pond liner and was it rinsed before adding fish?
You added a filter. did they recommend adding a bacteria booster? That would help but By your time frame it sounds like the pond may be naturally cycling. meaning the bacteria or starting to colonize in the pond, Your ammonia or nitrites could be high due to feeding and the pond not being fully cycled before adding fish. This is a common mistake and can be fixed by water changes and patience. Get your water tested and keep giving info, don't grab the bulldozer yet. Just takes time to get it all settled down.

 

[eirrac11]

(bulldozer off)

Oh, forgot to add I'm in northwest Arkansas. Not sure my zone.

 

[fishin4cars]

BTW, Decide which kind of fish you want to go with. bass are highly territorial. Not sure about the other, Never heard of that before. I've seen bass and bream shred goldfish twice there size. Those two are not a good mix at all with Goldfish and really not a good idea to mix them as they do carry parasites, and diseases that can infect you goldfish and Koi..

 

[marla]

fishin may have hit it on the head...if the pond did not cycle the ammonia/nitrates/nitrites may all have been off and all are toxic to the fish. Get a good test kit...let the pond cycle for a couple weeks before adding fish, test first. If you are using city water make sure you are using a good dechlorinator. Make sure your PH is like 7 or higher is fine, to low is not good for the fish... high KH/GH is good as you will have less of a chance for a PH swing which will also kill the fish.
You said the fish had white patches...were they fuzzy if so they may have had a fungas, and that they may have had when you got them and with the stress it was to much and just got worse.
Don't worry if they hide, that is normal. Going out everyday and quietly standing watching moving slowly and feeding small amounts from the same spot will help them ease into their new home...remove uneaten food.
Don't give up, try again...I lost my first fish over the winter and was upset also...don't over stock either a few goldfish will populate very fast if you have males and females.
The pond is to pretty to quit now...try again

 

[shakaho]

Your pond is lovely, and complements your house perfectly. Sadly, you did things out of order. First you build your pond. Then you buy or build (most of us build) a nice big biofilter. There are many descriptions of how to do this in the DIY section. The function of the biofilter is to use microorganisms to remove toxic substances produced by your fish. It's good to run your filter before you put in any fish to give microorganisms time to colonize the filter. You can add a few very small goldfish right away, since they don't produce much waste, and shouldn't get sick from it before your filter is doing it's job.

A particularly toxic waste product produced by fish is ammonia. When people talk about "cycling" a pond, they are talking about establishing a population of bacteria some of which convert toxic ammonia into nitrite (which is also toxic) and others that convert nitrite into nitrate. Nitrate is what most plants use as their source of nitrogen, so the plants in your pond remove it. It is not toxic to fish unless the concentration is very high.

The more fish you have and the larger those fish are, the more ammonia they produce. Unfortunately, you put in so many fish that you got toxic levels of ammonia very quickly. As a general guideline, a goldfish needs from 20 to 50 gallons of water, and each koi needs ~300 gallons.

The first thing you need to do about this is remove about half of your pond water and replace it with fresh dechlorinated water to reduce the concentration of toxins. Then go to the pet store and get a test kit that will test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH. The API Freshwater Master Test Kit is a good one that is widely available. Then test your water and tell us the results.

Those who try to remove goldfish from lakes and ponds where they don't belong have found that bass are the most effective predator to get rid of them. By "birch," did you possibly mean perch? In any case, stick to goldfish and/or koi if you want them to be healthy.

Just about everyone here can tell stories of things they did that destroyed some or all of their fish. There's a lot to learn about caring for fish. You are probably over the worst of it, so hang in there. We will help you through this.

 

[addy1]

Great post for eirrac..........your pond is nice and deep, 1200 gallons and looks great, love the rock work (do you have rocks in the bottom?)......I agree with the comments above, you put in fish too quick. I did the same last year, but we did let ours sit for a few months without fish, but I have very acidic well water. So my ph was off. I managed to kill small feeder goldfish, which were my test fish. Now all is testing fine, I am waiting for warmer weather to come around.........Telling you this because I have had ponds for over 25 years and still killed fish. So don't feel bad.

Start with the water testing, then with that size, koi might be the wrong fish to get, they get big.
You might want to stick with goldies or shubunkins, both will give you great pleasure in your pond.
The koi will eat your pond plants, the goldies will eat some, but not destroy as the koi do. If you want koi you will need to protect your plants from them.

Post your results of your water testing, there are a lot of smart pond peeps here and all will help you through this.

And last but not least

Welcome to the pond fanatics

 

[eirrac11]

Okay, I am the worst fish mom in the world! Everything was okay with the water except the ammonia level and he said it was horrible. He showed me the water with this little green chart and mine was the worst green color on the chart. He said I need to immediately drain at least 1/2 of the pond, more if possible, and then refill and then I bought this pond cleaner stuff and he said to do 1 scoop per 200 gallons of water and then do it again in 4-5 days. Does that all sound correct? Do you think it could save my fish that are still in there? My big fantail will probably be dead by the time I get off work and get it done

 

[fishin4cars]

What is the product he sold you? Really need the name and what's in it. as for the water change, first off your pond is cycling, If you do to large of a water change it will try and cycle again. I would recommend doing about a 30% water change wait for a few days then do another 25%-30% water change. Also if you add a beneficial bacteria to the pond so that it starts a quick growth in the filter this will also use a lot of the ammonia, grow a really strong bacteria bed as it will be feeding off of the ammonia and it will turn that ammonia into nitrites then nitrates which are less harmful to your fish. This is all part of the natural process. Your mistake was adding to many fish and over feeding them (Giving to much love is what I call it....) I'm afraid that if you don't already have a aquarium/pond set up and conditioned that there isn't much that can be done for the fish that are in bad shape, the best you can do is change some water and try and get the levels down some.
Once it has cycled and settled down, Add fish one or two at a time. Just a couple per week until everything settles. Try picking out inexpensive fish as your seeing you may still lose a few, Once your able to maintain the pond for a few months with no illnesses and the pond seems to be running normal then you start adding your more select choices. Be aware of sales people trying to sell you products that quick fix. some are expensive to use on that size pond and may do no more good than a water change will do.

 

[j.w]

Sorry you have had to go through this terrible learning experience but it has happened and now you can fix it and get through this and probably, hopefully save the rest of your fish. What is this cleaning stuff you are talking about they gave you? Could it be called beneficial bacteria? When all this is over you now will be able to help some other new ponderers from making the same mistake. Keep letting us know what is happening so we can all try to help you get through this as easily as possible. We have all made mistakes.........oh yes, I know personally

 

[j.w]

Sorry fishin my post popped up right after you posted some of the same things that I did