New to pond forum....Springfield, MO

[Bjcook79]

I live in Springfield Missouri. I have recently (a week ago), finished expanding my pond that I had for 5 years, it was a 300 gallon prefab pond and I decided after seeing the relaxation in it that I would expand an use a liner this time. I now have a 10 x 11 x 3.5 deep pond. I am using a pondmaster biomatrix 5000 waterfall filter, and a 3000gph pondmaster pump. It was and will be again my backyard oasis! I often sleep out there on my swing. I am having a little problem with my koi dying within days of putting them in the new pond, the goldfish that I previously had for the past 5 years are fine. I have yet to figure that out, I'm a little confused to say the least. Any suggestions would be great though. I will post a pic of the pond soon.


Thanks
Brandi J Cook

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the group

Your pond water probably did not have time to cycle, bacteria to grow and you most likey had spikes in ammonia etc. Did you test the water?
How long did you wait before you added fish?

 

[CountryEscape]

Welcome to the Forum, Brandi! I'll be interested to learn about possible problems and solutions to what you are having with the koi! I'm in the learning process, so am glad you asked, and I will watch for replies. Good luck!

 

[Bjcook79]

I put my goldfish in 2 days after opening the new pond, but the koi I waited just over a week before putting them in. My goldfish I have had for 5years but the koi were new this year! But I did just read someone else's post having a similar problem and someone asked them if the liner was rinsed first, I didn't rinse mine unfortunately and we have had a lot of rain it has been raining for over a week also!?!

 

[j.w]

Brandi

 

[addy1]

Koi are touchier about things, did you check levels of ammonia etc? I have never rinsed a liner, so not sure about that.

 

[Bjcook79]

Yes all levels were great, but the koi just are not making it! It's a bit confusing even to my pond lady that runs the pond store I go to...she has owned this pond shop and orchid greenhouse for 40+ years and is head of the Missouri water garden society...she knows her stuff and everything I buy I get from her....to weird huh?

 

[sissy]

welcome bjcook also koi seem to need more oxygen than goldies ,I notice when my old air pump was going out they got a little slower and as soon as I put the new one in they perked up and are happy .Koi are prone to shock also a neighbor had 2 die because of the big difference in the water she put in .It was way to cold and she put it in way to fast .Koi also put out a lot of waste and need a little more filtering .I have 2 filters going on mine to keep the ammonia levels down .What were you feeding them it should still be spring and fall diet in your area ,I do not change my koi's food until the water temp is above 65 here .I put garlic in there food to help them feed again after a long winter plus it is supposed to fight off any desease

 

[shakaho]

Could you post a picture of your pond, and give us your test results on the pond water. Do you have a reliable test kit? Have you been testing the water after all the rain? A couple of things come to mind. Is your pond receiving any runoff during the heavy rains? Could it be getting contaminants that way? With a new pond, heavy rain could be messing with your pH, and that could be hard on your fish.

Goldies are tougher and more adaptable than koi. Your goldies have a had chance to adapt to any peculiarities of your water. I suggest you hold off on getting any more koi for at least a month to allow the ecosystem of your pond to stabilize. How big were the koi you lost? Big fish have more trouble with new environments than little ones.

 

[DrDave]

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[fishin4cars]

Welcome aboard Brandi, I would wait before adding any more koi until the pond is about 6-8 weeks old. Something sounds like it was off in the water conditions, Goldfish are a little more adaptable than koi but both are really very hardy fish. Have you added salt? If not goldfish and Koi alike both benefit from the addition of salt in the water. Do not use iodized salt, Use rock salt, ice cream salt, or salt designed for aquarium or pond use.
On the koi, did the rest of the ones that were with the group you bought from the store make it ok? It's not unheard of that a whole shipment of fish to get a disease/parasite infection from being stressed in shipping and all of them do very poorly. The pond set-up sounds fine but I too wonder about your oxygen levels, If there isn't a good flow of water from one end of the pond to the other you can have spots that are less saturated with oxygen than other spots. If you have a area that is not moving try installing a small submersible pump or air stone at get that water moving some, Oxygen is a key for Koi, they use it at a lot higher rate than goldfish do.

 

[CometKeith]

Hi Brandi, Welcome to the forum. Good luck with your new pond. I agree with all the above comments. Also goldfish are more tolerant to higher PH than Koi are. If it is above 8.5 then it could hurt your koi and the goldfish would still be fine.

 

[marla]

Welcome to the forum Brandi...so sorry you are having so many problems with new koi
are you slowly acclimating them to your water? Did you quarenteen them for a while to check there health? As for PH mine is close to 9 and I have koi going on 7yrs old, that does not mean though that all can sustain higher PH, I have never heard that high PH is harmful.
Personally with new fish going in with existing fish sometimes can be tricky. The origianl fish are acclimated to your water, they could even have parasites (unknown to you) and your water has bacterias good and bad that your fish are use to...now you add new fish who are stressed and may even have other parasites/bacterias there can be problems even sometimes with the origianal fish.

First when getting new fish they should be Quarenteened in a separate container to make sure they are healthy for at least a month. Most people do not do this they just put them in. If you are going to do this then I would slowly acclamate them to the pond water taking a good hour of adding/removing say 25% of water every 15 mins. to their container till it is all new pond water. Then add extra air and give them a salt bath for a good half hour use a .6% solution...this will kill lots of parasites that you can't see. and release.
but if all the fish that are dying are from the same lot...yep could be a problem there.

 

[fishin4cars]

The biggest problems with high PH is that your ammonia can become even more deadly. In a well established pond it isn't as critical as a newer pond, That's why new pond keepers have problems is they don't know that PH can effect the amount of damage that is caused from ammonia. Koi prefer water that is 7.2-7.5, yes they can survive in 6.0-9.0 but this is survive, for optimal conditions the closer you can get to neutral the better as long as it can be held there consistently. that is the bigger key as Large PH fluctuations can and are very harmful to fish, far more so than the ph being at one extreme or the other and stable.

 

[marla]

thanks for the info fishin....I'd rather not play with my PH as it is very stable, even if high. They seem to do fine and grow great.