and the first looks like a morning glory.. if i can just make out the seedlings leaf down low ... crush a tiny bit of two ... if you smell tomato ... you dont need much more info .. ken

Hey there. I'm sorry about Tiny. We get as attached to our finny pets as we do the furry ones. I've shed a few tears myself at times.I remember being so surprised that some fish had real personalities. Test kits are important. We can sometimes get away without using them but sooner or later it can catch up with us. I'll give you a very brief explanation for someone without a daily familiarity with chemistry. The reason I asked about rain is that a heavy rainfall can cause a PH crash which can kill fish rapidly. That is a drop in the acid /alkaline levels in the water which is on a 1-10 scale. Below 7 (approximately) is acid, above is alkaline. There can be other causes but the rain is a fairly common one. The reading in the PH test should be around or above 7.8. Higher is ok, lower is not particularly good for Koi. The important thing is to prevent rapid, wide swings in the numbers. A temporary prevention with a heavy rain is to slowly add a box of ordinary Bicarbonate of soda to stabilize the water. Some ponders add the bicarb before the rain. There are other ways to stabilize PH. Bicarb is for an emergency. The KH test tells you about the resistance of the water to a change in the PH. If your KH is good according to the test, then it is less likely for the PH to change rapidly. If there has been a PH crash it should be corrected before correcting the KH (aka hardness). Ammonia is a killer. It shows up when there is a lot of fish poop, mulm or debris on the bottom, too much fish food or the filters need cleaning or any combination. Ammonia drives out oxygen and can cause great discomfort and even death for the fish. 10 to 20% water changes, addition of oxygen through bubblers and splashing of the waterfall helps. I use a combination of Activated charcoal and Ammocarb in a cloth bag in the waterfall tank to absorb ammonia and other toxins, odors and stains in the water. The nitrite and nitrate tests indicate too many nutrients in the water. If the level is high, the Ammonia levels will soon rise. Water changes, reduced feeding, elimination of mulm and debris and clean filters all help. The string algae in the water can be removed with a brush like a toilet bowl brush. If there is a lot, pour hydrogen peroxide directly on the algae to kill it. For your pond a pint bottle is about the right size. A quarter cup won't do much of anything. It won't hurt the fish but don't pour it directly on them. Treatment can be repeated in 24 hours although peroxide loses its effectiveness in a few minutes as the water dilutes it. There are different kind of test kits. The liquid/ test tube types are best. The dip sticks are tempting but not always accurate. A test kit will cost about $30.00 and covers the five tests above. It is usually good for a year. A test for oxygen is available but not often used. The affects of low levels is too readily apparent. I hope this isn't too daunting. It usually takes about five or ten minutes to do the tests. Water changes are a good practice. Tap water is different everywhere and you probably shouldn't add it directly. I spray it or add it very, very slowly to moving water to avoid the stuff they use as purifiers. The chemical suggested is usually a good bet to reduce those although I don't generally like to add chemicals off the store shelf,. Keep us posted.

It looks like two totally different issues to me. Lets talk about the calico first. Goldfish commonly get fleshy tumors and that is exactly what this looks like to me. Fungus starts out as white fluffy looking tufts that quickly turn greeenish because of the algae in the pond. I do not believe that is what this (or the other fish) have. I believe this fish has a tumor of some sort....for which there is no treatment. Its also possible it is carp pox, although that is not very common in warmer summer water....so I am thinking tumor. Don't worry about it...there is nothing you can do for a tumor anyway. The other fish looks like it has slightly raised white patches. That spells out parasite infestation to me, probably colonys of a protozoa-type parasites. Please throw pimafix and melafix away. They do nothing more than smell good and clog up the gills of fish that are already sick. You should probably treat with a chemical such as ProformC....something that contains formalin and malachite green. That will kill the protozoa parasites. But since we don't know exactly what parasites we are without a microscope, we need to assume that it could be ich. Ich is very different from most parasites. It has 3 different phases of it's life and it is only susceptible to parasite killers during one brief period in it's lifecycle. So it is necessary to keep the parasite treatment in the pond for at least 7 days, repeating the dose according to the manufactures directions. Do you know the volume of your pond? And do you have salt in your pond? Salt is not compatible with some parasite treatments.

Ok hi I just got a fish tank as a gift so we installed everything we got a thermometer and everything nessesary and then we went to go buy fish we bought a black molly, red wag platy, a black neon tetra,glowfish grn, a guppy and a catfish the day before we put a easy balance plus maintaines healthy water and reduces frequent water changes and aqua safe plus makes tap water safe for fish and today we barelt got our fish like in the afternoon and now three of them are completely dead our catfish was the first one to go down and then the rest we only have three left and two are mostly dead on the ground and the guppy is the only one a lil fine but still he isn't moving as much we really don't know what's going on or what went wrong I would really appreciate your help on maybe giving us a clue on what went wrong or we are doing wrong thank you