Too many plants??

[Bigwake]

I have started my koi pond this year and dreaded getting green water. Actually, I could probably handle the green water just fine, it would be the comments from my wife about the green water that I would not survive. I placed 5 large bags of bio spool material in my waterfall and placed 4 pots of Canna and Taro in it, some umbrella palms, two lillys in the pond, some Parrots feather and two more med marginals (can't remember their names.) The water has been GIN clear except for about the 4 days prior to me adding all the plants. Now months later my Lillies are losing leafs and my floating plants are dying, the taro and canna are also starting to look more yellow. I have 5 7" Koi in a 1400 gal pond and feed them 2 - 4 times a day. I clean the mech filter every week or two. (My in ground plants love this stuff.) When testing my water there are no phosphates. Is this a case of fall coming or do I not have enough fertilizer in the pond for them. By the way, I am in Texas and it is still warm out, 86 today.

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[bsr8129]

might be not enough fertilizer, 5 koi is not alot in a pond that size. I have 17 goldfish and 12 koi from 4-12. i have lots of water lettuce and hynichts and they are growing like crazy.

I do not recomend adding more fish.

 

[pondbuilder13]

like the above says maybe not enough fertilizer in the pond however fish waste does help plants grow but 5 fish is alot and they are kinda big but you said you feed them 2-4 times a day which means they could be producing too much waste...

 

[lauraleellbp]

Have you checked your nitrates? If your nitrates are bottomed out then that's a good indicator that you need to start using ferts.

(Hobbyist grade phosphate kits are notoriously unreliable so I wouldn't go by that alone...)

 

[Bigwake]

Thanks for all the feedback. I did test for nitrates - Zero. Maybe I am cleaning my filter media too often?? Is that possible? I can see adding fertilizer to the plants in pots. Will this fertilizer also impact my floating plants?

 

[lauraleellbp]

Adding ferts to the pots won't help your floaters, you'd have to add ferts to the pond water to help those out.

www.aquariumfertilizers.com sells dry ferts in bulk that should work.