Starting over

[mheiderscheit]

My pond is going to be new to me this year. I had had it up and running for 8 years and then the winter of 2011 came and we lost power to the pond and all my fish died. It kind of took the wind from my sails and last summer I did little with it. I am ready to start over this year. I am in Wiscinsin and we have had an extremely late spring. Hoping to completely clean it out this weekend and start over. I don't remember the things I need to put in to help my water balance. My grand kids want fish, so I will be adding a couple. My pond is small, probably 10 x 16 and an average of 2-3 feet deep.any help and encouragement would be appreciated.

 

[Mmathis]

Well, welcome back! Thank goodness for grand kids!

 

[addy1]

Welcome back!

Clean it out, add new water, run your pump, wait a few weeks. Add some plants, then add a fish or two. You don't really need to add any chemicals, let it cycle.
Are you city or well water? We are well water, our ph is very low one thing I have to watch out for.

Stick with goldfish or shubunkins. They are tougher than koi

 

[mheiderscheit]

We have well water. What type of test kit do you recommend? How do you change the PH?

 

[addy1]

I have a API test kit. Our well water is very acidic, 5.4, very soft. When I first built the pond I put some feeder goldfish in, they all died. I had waited a few months with the water cycling, figured it had to be good. Well it wasn't. The ph was still 5.6 or so, the fish were wiped out. That first summer, I put in baking soda, had ph swings constantly. I let the pond sit until the next spring, somehow 4 fish survived, never saw them. That spring I added crushed oyster shells to my bog, made the water harder, stabilized the ph in the mid 7 range.

Test your well, see where it sits for ph and hardness. GH KH you need to buy a separate test kit to get those. Once you know what your well water is you can have a better idea on what you might need to do to add fish.

 

[HTH]

I had similar problems with very soft water and aquariums. I purchased some spiral shells from a marine fish store and tossed a few in each filter and sometimes in the bottom of the tanks. Like this one maybe 1.5 or 2 inches long. They did a great job of buffering the tanks. In time all that was left looked like the wire in a spiral bound note book. I bleached them for a day prior to use.

 

[mheiderscheit]

I have filters in both my skimmer and bio falls. Should I clean them to start the season? Also how often during the summer should I take them out to clean them?

 

[Litzi1964]

I use the additive Simply Clear. It adds beneficial bacteria. If you have well water I assume it's not chlorinated. Otherwise you'd need a dechlorinator like Aqua Safe. Are you in a rural agricultural area? Are you near any large farms, whether crops or livestock? If so the problem might be farm runoff. This is the time of year when they add all sorts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Livestock farms have animal waste runoff. I grew up in central IL so I'm familiar with these issues. If you are in a farming area, you might want your well water tested by the EPA or a professional lab. There could be chemical or sewage contaminants. Fish are the aquatic canaries in the coal mine. I live in metropolitan area with municipal water, so my concerns are more about chlorine, lawn and garden chemicals and pondkeeper error.

 

[Litzi1964]

Oh and one last random thing--do you have other pets, like outdoor cats or dogs? One year my sister in law lost a pond full of fish because her dog decided to go swimming right after a flea treatment.