Pond Cleaning

[mikeinmo]

I put in a 96 gallon preformed pond last spring. I had four fish that lived all winter into this spring, but the pond was NASTY. I took the pond out of the ground to clean it. I used Simple Green to help get the algae off that was stuck on the sides. I put the fish that had survived all winter back in and they all died the next day. Five more attemts to put gold fish back in had not worked, they all die. I had the water tested and the results came up good. I called a place that does water features and was told that the plastice pond could have absorbed the Simple Green and that it is now releasing back in the water killing the fish. Can anyone tell me if this could really be the case. If so, how can I remedy this? Any tips would be greatly appreciate. I am in central Missouri if that means anything.

TIA,
Michael

 

[sissy]

you can use peroxide to clean the pond next time ,spray it on and let it work and hose it off and right now just pour some in the water in the pond and see if that will clean it .If you did not let the cleaner soak in it should not have caused any problems .Do you have city water or well water ..Then go to a liner pond deeper and you will not have to go through this and your pond should make it threw the winter unless this type pond is all you want to take care of

 

[JohnHuff]

I went to the Simple Green website and found the pdf for the list of ingredients, it's here:
http://www.simplegre...poseCleaner.pdf

The stuff it contains isn't that toxic, just mainly alcohol based cleaners and that stuff would evaporate not sure that it would seep into plastic. In fact, if you go lower down on the page it says low toxicity to aquatic animals.

I suspect it's more that you've changed the water chemistry of the pond by completely cleaning it and probably have new pond syndrome. However, if you've put new goldfish into the pond 5 times and they've all died then there is a problem. Maybe the cleaner has reacted with something inside your pump and filters?

There are a few things I'd do here:
1) Let the pond lie fallow dry for a while and let the Sun disinfect it, 2 weeks perhaps.
2) Rinse it out again and fill it with water and plants and let that cycle for a couple of weeks before putting any more fish in.
3) Get a new pond or buy a small liner and put it on top of the pond in effect starting anew.

Next time, perhaps you should just scrape the algae off? I always leave a little algae on as it gives the fish a little to chomp on. Good luck!

 

[j.w]

mikeinmo

 

[brandonsdad02]

We use simple green at my work to clean hydro oil. Its a good degreaser but my guess is that the plastic absorbed it and is now leaching back into the water.

 

[koiguy1969]

sounds probable...if you take some chemicals that by themselves are harmless and mix them, who knows what chemical reaction might occur. the simple green may have reacted with the liner's plastic

 

[mikeinmo]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. Decided to just buy another hard plastic pond. Had fun replacing that yesterday in the hot 98 degree weather. Put some .38 cent fish in it last night and they were all still alive this morning. Live and learn.......... I'll be doing more research on this board and others before I do anything else. Put the old pond on a Garage Sale board on Facebook and was gone in two hours for free. I did explain the history of it so no one will try fish in it.

 

[don't ask]

welcome mike... and great attitude with the live and learn although sometimes the learning curve is hard to swallow

 

[pugle1]

My bet would be that it was the chlorine in the water that knocked-off the fishies. When you added the new water to the pond did you use a de-chlorinating solution? I'm no expert by any stretch, but I have a feeling that that may be the culprit. In reading the MSDS provided by JohnHuff I don't see anything there that would convince me that the SimpleGreen was the problem. The TPP is basic but in such a small amount I doubt that that is the problem, as well, the 2BOE and BOA are both evaporative and wouldn't leave any residue. You did say the liner was well rinsed, so I'd bet that the water itself was the problem. Most likely chlorine / chloramine.