URGENT: Need advice for fish/pond emergency
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11 years ago
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annedickinson
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoademink
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
fish emergency, how can I help them make it til morn?
Comments (12)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....See MoreEmergency! fish die off !
Comments (15)Thanks everyone for your advice. I am still in shock as it happened so fast.The fish literally died within a few hours yesterday afternoon. I have been outside working on the pond. I did hook up the extra pump. I moved a water lily off of a plant stand and put the pump on the stand. It already has a 2 inch pipe about 2 feet tall and I am letting the water shoot straight up and splash back down like a huge bubbler fountain. We still have one orfe that we can not find. Water is still testing fine so I think heat and lack of oxygen did them in. The goldfish seem o.k. but I could swear I had more.This morning, some goldfish were even spawning so I hope that is a good sign. I did feed the remaining goldfish last night so I hope I did not screw up.They were begging for food and I felt sorry for them. Frogman4, Thank you for the offer. I loved the orfes. They were so fun and playful and at feeding time would corral all the goldfish and lead them to the food. I doubt I will get orfes again as we are not even at our highest temps yet this summer so I am afraid it would just happen again. ccoombs, What size air stones would I need for a 15,000 gallon pond.?Would an airstone be more effective that an extra pump shooting up water?...See MoreOT: need to know if I am suppose to feed the pond fish?
Comments (21)Lucy you are going to give yourself a nervous breakdown. Just leave the stuff wherever it is and quit moving it around before you hurt your back. Leave the big back door shut and just open the windows and front door unless it gets in the 30's. John had started feeding the fish a few days before we left because it had been so warm but they won't eat now until the water warms back up. If you see them swimming around looking for some you can throw in a pinch but otherwise they are good. I'm sorry you are stressing out so bad. It will be ok so quit worrying. Having a good time but worn out being on my feet all day for so many days in a row. I need a rest day instead of a run all over one. The sunset was really beautiful tonight. One side of the island is stormy every night but the other side it dry so we had to drive 2 hours to get some sun, lol. Back internet connection over here so can't get on much and can't get pics to download to photobucket. I'll mess with it more when I have time. Have only been at the house to sleep mostly. Lucy you can call me if you need to. Its a 5 hour time difference....See MoreSkimmer advice newby large pond no fish
Comments (5)The skimmer box can be any size you like, can even be a pond (skimmer between 2 ponds). The width of the weir door (flap) determines the pump size...kind of. Really pretty much any size pump will work with any reasonable width weir. Technically you could compute the amount of water desired over the weir. So say 12" wide weir at 1/8" deep is about 1.4 sq in of water which is about the size of a 1.5" pipe. Looking at a flow table for gravity to low flow (6'/sec) you'd need a 2100 GPH. With 1/16" over the weir a 1050 GPH pump, for 1/32" a 525 GPH pump. Lot's and lots of pond owners, including high end pond owners, believe, and will always believe, that the bigger the pump the more "powerful" the skimmer. I've also seen many posts from "experts" saying a waterfall is needed to push debris to the skimmer. That all ignores the physics of why a skimmer works which is based on surface tension. The thinner the water going over the weir the stronger the surface tension pulling debris into the skimmer. So the smaller the pump the greater the pull distance. That assumes a level weir and no leakage around the edges which isn't realistic. People wanting to spend a lot of money on a pond will pair a 4000 GPH pump with a 10" weir and it will indeed pull stuff into the skimmer so they assume a huge pump is needed, or is better. It isn't. But it's impressive to people impressed by excess which this hobby can certainly be about. Bottom line if you use a 500 GPH pump or bigger and a 10-12" weir you should be OK. And that single skimmer will clear the surface of even a 25x35' pond. Stuff may get hung up on sides, but no skimmer can deal with that. And on windy days stuff may blow away from the skimmer which again a bigger pump isn't going to solve. Really skimmer design generally has much more to do with the owner and how knowledgeable and/or if their goal is to have lots of equipment. If you make a skimmer the main thing to get right are getting the walls and floor where the weir is installed to be square and walls parallel so as the weir moves up and down there a minimal gap between the weir and wall. Messing that up then requires a larger pump to overcome the loss around the edges. The corrugated plastic makes getting the weir door perfect pretty each since it's so easy to cut. Trim the edges that move against the wall at 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees so the final trim is just a single layer of thin plastic....See MoreNaturesFolly
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agosleeplessinftwayne
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11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoDebbie Downer
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11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoGretchen Giles
3 years agobeesneeds
3 years ago
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