Salt for my pond ?

[dannyboy]

Hi everyone,

I recently (6 months ago) dug a pond with my dad. It's about 20,000 litres. We have a home made bio-filter up and running.

Just this week we have started to have problems with a few of our bigger Koi and Ghosties. They seem to be very disorientated and swimming in strange circles, they don't look very well at all !:100:

We have been reading around and realise that we need to do a water change which is now in the process, we will do a 50% change. Could anyone tell me what kind of salt i need to buy if i want to add it to my pond water. I understand that a 1% solution would be adequate ?

Thanks to all who read, look forwards to a reply soon hopefully :icon_mrgreen:

 

[richdeer3]

Salt is a great general tonic but I would caution you against using it in the winter. Visit http://www.richdeer3.com/site/1566246/page/902636 for more reasons not to use salt and it may give you a better idea what is wrong with your koi. If you use salt be sure to use noniodine salt with no preservatives. Pond salt is best and has other minerals in it as well. Rock salt, kosher salt or some brands of solar water softener salt can be used. A 50% change is a big shock to the system a 10-20% change followed in week with another 10-20% change would be less stressful. Have you noticed any external signs of injury, parasites or illness?
Did you do a water test? If so what were your results? Good luck and let us know how it goes, Gail

 

[DrDave]

Dannyboy
1% will kill them! You want .1% for normal conditions and up to .3% for hospital conditions and then only for a short period of time.