Ammonia reading / picture

[Waterbug]

I only skimmed, so sorry if I'm not on topic...I don't see why anyone would be concerned about chlorine in city water hurting bacteria. If a filter has to be cleaned there's hardly any "good" bacteria there to hurt. Those kinds of bacteria can't survive in those conditions, covered even with a dusting would render the media useless to those bacteria. However it's a great environment for "bad" bacteria. Which is why most pond keepers really into fish stopped using these types of filters 5-10 years ago. The static submerged media, in addition to being having low O2 which cuts bio big time, also accumulate muck over time and you see bio conversion dropping off even more as time passes between cleaning. So there's this up and down in ammonia levels which they'd rather not have.

Not to mention the chore of having to clean a filter.

Was still hoping to get this info. Usually a pond with high ammonia is overstocked or not cycled. Rehoming some of the fish was a good idea.

A pond of any size that has high ammonia levels over a long period by definition would be "overstocked". Or "under filtered", same thing. So to me when someone has a long term ammonia problem the pond size isn't really something I need to know. But more info is always good.

 

[Dave 54]

Waterbug, on 17 Sept 2013 - 06:45, said:
I only skimmed, so sorry if I'm not on topic...I don't see why anyone would be concerned about chlorine in city water hurting bacteria. If a filter has to be cleaned there's hardly any "good" bacteria there to hurt. Those kinds of bacteria can't survive in those conditions, covered even with a dusting would render the media useless to those bacteria. However it's a great environment for "bad" bacteria. Which is why most pond keepers really into fish stopped using these types of filters 5-10 years ago. The static submerged media, in addition to being having low O2 which cuts bio big time, also accumulate muck over time and you see bio conversion dropping off even more as time passes between cleaning. So there's this up and down in ammonia levels which they'd rather not have.


Not to mention the chore of having to clean a filter.


A pond of any size that has high ammonia levels over a long period by definition would be "overstocked". Or "under filtered", same thing. So to me when someone has a long term ammonia problem the pond size isn't really something I need to know. But more info is always good.

wb the conversation is about taking off the top layer good bacteria, Jap matting allows for this and because bacteria is virtually indestructable they quickly re colonise the media .
Typically the type of filters we are using are in our case three 32" vortex style filters with a latice work of jap matting sponges and batting along with zeolite and lythaqua and a barrel bio filter wiith K1,Aquaone bio balls, bio balls from a different company and bio chips we are neither underfiltered nor overstocked.
It is considered good practice to clean our filters twice a year once in late spring and again in autumn
The link is to a South African site and the blog in question is Myths and fallacies about bacteria Pieter Odendaal is a well respected koi dealer in South africa with a huge client base .
Amongst his customers is Chris Neaves a koi expert and author of the south african health Standards book which is a large eBook a copy of this was kindly donated to me just prior to Cris suffering a stroke it makes fasinating reading.
Chris Spike Cover and the UK's very own Duncan Griffith are all koi health experts in their own right and make a truely formidable team.
I would suggest they would have argued that Pieter was wrong in what he was saying dont you think ?
Give it a read it makes interesting reading .

rgrds

Dave

 

[Waterbug]

wb the conversation is about taking off the top layer good bacteria, Jap matting allows for this and because bacteria is virtually indestructable they quickly re colonise the media .

Nitrifying bacteria only convert waste while in their bio film part of life cycle. There's no "bottom" layer. But again, if the "top" layer isn't covered by dirt there's no reason to clean the media. If does need cleaning the "top" layer is almost 100% bad bacteria.

Yes, nitrifying bacteria will rebuild a a new bio film on clean media. In good conditions ammonia converts it takes about 5-10 days, nitirte converters several weeks. In the bacteria's free floating part of life cycle if isn't a significant converter, at least in the species studied so far and empirical data. This is normally no problem at all because the dirty media wasn't doing much of anything anything anyways before the cleaning. So filter performance would be the same just before and just after cleaning. There would then be some window where the filter was optimal followed by falling a conversion rate as the media started to be covered in dirt again and the cycle repeats.

 

[Tula]

Sorry guys......no new info on my pond, been crazy busy at work. I'm looking forward to meeting the pond man this Friday and getting his input. Pond looks good...nice and clear.....it's strange seeing so many less fish....but a good thing Kim

 

[Tula]

Met pond guy today and liked him. Turns out he knew the guy who built my pond, but I got the feeling he didn't hold some of his work in high regard. He also knows a guy we got water lilies from , in fact they are neighbors......ponding is a small world.

He said he was actually impressed with my pond given my set up and I admitted I work pretty hard at it. He is coming out next Wed. and will drain the pond and put the fish in an aerated container with pond water, drain my pond completely, remove the gravel and carefully clean it with a pressure washer. I have carpet algae on the sides, which will remain and I actually told him I'd like him to leave a little other algae. He will take all my fish, except my five koi, and place them in other jobs. He knows I'm nervous about disrupting the balance of my pond.

He mentioned an ionoizer? Said it releases copper into water and it can be used to keep water falls clean.....anyone ever heard of it? I tested my pond prior to a water change last night and ammonia was .25, which is a slight improvement, but where it was the first time I tested it. I am wondering if my ammonia level rose becasue I removed all my plants and cut back the lilies, for the winter?

I think he will prove to be a good resource and we'll discuss filtration and a bog at some point in the future. Next summer I might rehome one koi and get one butterfly koi in it's place....but lots of time to ponder ( pun intended) that! This time next week, I'll have a gravel less pond

 

[crsublette]

Met pond guy today and liked him. Turns out he knew the guy who built my pond, but I got the feeling he didn't hold some of his work in high regard. He also knows a guy we got water lilies from , in fact they are neighbors......ponding is a small world.

He said he was actually impressed with my pond given my set up and I admitted I work pretty hard at it. He is coming out next Wed. and will drain the pond and put the fish in an aerated container with pond water, drain my pond completely, remove the gravel and carefully clean it with a pressure washer. I have carpet algae on the sides, which will remain and I actually told him I'd like him to leave a little other algae. He will take all my fish, except my five koi, and place them in other jobs. He knows I'm nervous about disrupting the balance of my pond.

1) He mentioned an ionoizer? Said it releases copper into water and it can be used to keep water falls clean.....anyone ever heard of it? 2) I tested my pond prior to a water change last night and ammonia was .25, which is a slight improvement, but where it was the first time I tested it. I am wondering if my ammonia level rose becasue I removed all my plants and cut back the lilies, for the winter?

I think he will prove to be a good resource and we'll discuss filtration and a bog at some point in the future. Next summer I might rehome one koi and get one butterfly koi in it's place....but lots of time to ponder ( pun intended) that! This time next week, I'll have a gravel less pond

1) He mentioned an ionoizer? Said it releases copper into water and it can be used to keep water falls clean.....anyone ever heard of it?

Yep, it is effective and used by some. It releases some form of a copper oxide at a particular rate, which you determine, and this rate adjustement is dependent on your copper test kit and the volume of algae in the water. The devices will come with a copper test kit. The reason for the test kit is that copper is a heavy metal that can become extremely toxic to fish at a high concentration. However, fish can tolerate particular levels of heavy metals better than algae can tolerate. The adjustable copper release rate and the test kit helps you determine the proper setting on the device. Be sure to read the instructions if you get one.

As far as I am aware, copper ionizers is a non-selected herbicide. So, if the copper concentration reaches too high, then it could kill everything that is aquatic in the pond. However, it takes time for this to happen so you would have to be quite derelict in your duties, ignoring the instructions, for the device to kill everything in the pond.

It will kill all, or most algae, and not just the algae on the waterfall or stream.


These devices actually are used by more hobbiest than I thought. Zinc oxide is another heavy metal that hobbiests play around with to control algae.

These products work due to maintain a residual in the water. Once this residual falls too low, then it will not control the algae. Once the residual reachs too high, then it will harm your fish and other aquatic plants.


Most products work to control algae through maintaining water residuals, whether it is short term or longer term. I am more comfortable with using products that just use short term residuals, such as hydrogen peroxide, but, as with anything, if dose too much, then it will linger and kill plants/fish.


2) I tested my pond prior to a water change last night and ammonia was .25, which is a slight improvement, but where it was the first time I tested it. I am wondering if my ammonia level rose becasue I removed all my plants and cut back the lilies, for the winter?

Oh it might be.

Since your fish load is now down to be more reasonable, generally, any time ammonia or nitrite is registered, then it is a failure of the bioloigcal filtration, whether it is plants or man made, to proper process the ammonia or nitrite. If you are registering ammonia.

So, it might get resolved once you are able to talk filtration options with your pond guy.

 

[Waterbug]

I've heard about ionizers. They've been marketed to pond owners for the pasts couple of years. I haven't heard any pond owners review one. They've also been used in swimming pools for more than 15 years, and there a lot more info there. I haven't heard anything good about them from swimming pool owners. Their complaint is they still have to add chlorine to control algae. Ionizers were marketed to them as a replacement for chlorine. So people were saying if I still have to test and adjust chlorine, what's the point of the ionizer?

A few governments also went after the ionizer sellers for false advertising.

The big red flag to me is if an ionizer can't control algae in a swimming pool how is it ever going to do anything in a pond? In both swimming pool and pond ionizers the instructions I've read say you have to start with clear water.

The next red flag to me is these kill algae and bacteria. Without bio filtering how can ammonia be handled? I assume they have some answer, but I don't know it.

The next red flag is these are not set it and forget it. Water pH and KH have to be in a pretty narrow range. Unit's I've seen requires the owner to test copper levels and adjust the ionzier. Commercial and some swimming pool ionizers have some built in monitoring for copper levels, but these were very expensive. Not sure if self monitoring unit's are being sold in the pond market. But either way, we're talking about some pretty serious water testing requirements just for pH and KH and adjusting to keep them good. Sounds like a lot of work to me. I can manually pull out string algae faster.

The next red flag is if the copper level gets too high the fish die. You have to really be on top of your game. Go away on vacation for 2 weeks...hope you're feeling lucky.

The oddest thing about the ionizer to me is it's the same as using copper sulphate, you get the exact same copper ion. The only difference is whether you buy an ionizer to produce copper ions or a factory produces the ions and sells them to you. Originally the ionizer selling point was it only produced the amount of ions needed, but that claim was never true for most units. The biggest reason few people use copper sulphate is it takes a lot of testing and adjusting to keep algae/bacteria dead and fish alive. Without a self monitoring ionizers you have the exact same problem. The big difference imo is that the cost of buying and running an ionizer is several hundred times more than using copper sulphate...so I'd just use copper sulphate if I was so inclined?

When chlorine or other oxidizers are used to kill algae/bacteria the chemical is used up, consumed. Copper ions are released back into the water after it has killed a bacteria or algae cell, so it doesn't get used up like chlorine. So copper can be very cheap to use. However the pH and KH has to be right or the copper ion change into other stuff that doesn't kill anything.

 

[Waterbug]

crsublette, on 20 Sept 2013 - 22:56, said:
It releases some form of a copper oxide

Releases copper ions, regular copper with 2 electrons removed. Copper ions can then convert into copper oxide which won't kill algae or bacteria and is not water soluble so falls out of the water.

 

[capewind]

Thank you Charles and WB ... I need to research this more, but you both may have just solved a mystery for me. Back in the spring, I placed two young koi (8-9"), and then a month or so later, placed two larger koi into the same home, The larger koi (16-22") were in trouble about a week later. There were a lot of issues here, and hubby wanted nothing to do with it, but I didnt want to see my koi die, so tried ... He was testing with strips, so I went over and tested his pond. PH was a little low, but KH was basically nonexistent. Yes, those are issues, but have seen the same test results without distressed fish. Told him to add baking soda to bring the KH up. Everything else looked okay. Other tests were all good, crystal clear water, no visible muck on the bottom (pond was super shallow), heathy looking plants, etc. The one variable that I had NO knowledge of was his ionizer. Told him I knew nothing about them, and he had said that it was set really low, I want to say he said it was set at 3, which again, means nothing to me ... I asked my pond supplier about the situation (I sent this person up to him to pick up a dechlorinator, so called ahead to give him the headsup of a problem), and he was thinking/guessing/grasping maybe gasses escaping the gravel bed (the whole pond had a 3/8" gravel bed covering the liner) ,,, I dont recall telling him about the ionizer... Now I am wondering if that could have been the issue. With the actions of the pond owner, it's hard to nail it down completely, but now I wonder....

 

[Tula]

I told the pond man, that I won't consider the ionizer this year, but will research it.....interesting to be sure. As I'm not an expert and I'm very conservative with pond changes....not sure I want to be a "guinea pig".

All in all, I'm making conservative changes....rehoming all , but five fish and ridding myself of gravel.....will go from there and keep testing my water. I want to get a KH test kit and learn about it.

 

[Waterbug]

PH was a little low, but KH was basically nonexistent. Yes, those are issues, but have seen the same test results without distressed fish. Told him to add baking soda to bring the KH up.

My assumption is if a person isn't testing KH it's likely they also don't know how to raise KH safely. These things stress fish which doesn't manifest into visible signs until something else happens. For example, stress can diminish immune systems, can't see that. Fish gets a cut followed by a bacteria infection because of a diminished immune system. Other fish will look fine but also have diminish immune systems.

The pH being "a little low" isn't probably valid because testing pH with zero KH is extremely difficult. A few minutes later another pH test could be super high, then super low.

Told him I knew nothing about them, and he had said that it was set really low, I want to say he said it was set at 3, which again, means nothing to me ...

It wouldn't mean anything to anyone because the settings (on units I've seen) only changes the amount of electrical current which would change the amount of ions produced. We should care about is the number of ions in the water. If tons of ions are being produced but then converted to non-ions the water could have very few copper ions. Turning up the electric would only create more non-ion material faster and not increase the amount of copper ions in the water.

It's possible the dial controlled a timer, but I haven't seen those types of units. But I read some swimming pool ionizers used internal timers.

There are units that do the testing for you and the controls would in that case actually control the amount of copper ions in the water, but these units are very expensive. I've never seen one of these sold into the pond market, doesn't mean they don't exist, just my guess this particular unit wasn't one of these. So testing the water for copper ions is the only way to tell.

I asked my pond supplier about the situation (I sent this person up to him to pick up a dechlorinator, so called ahead to give him the headsup of a problem), and he was thinking/guessing/grasping maybe gasses escaping the gravel bed (the whole pond had a 3/8" gravel bed covering the liner) ,,, I dont recall telling him about the ionizer... Now I am wondering if that could have been the issue. With the actions of the pond owner, it's hard to nail it down completely, but now I wonder....

My guess would be the KH issue. That would be the 800 lb gorilla in the room. While copper can certainly kill fish, and may have contributed to the deaths, the wild swings in pH brought on by zero KH would remove copper ions pretty fast, both low and high pH removes them. So it's unlikely the ionizer was doing anything more than consuming electric and the copper electrodes..

I asked my pond supplier ... and he was thinking/guessing/grasping maybe gasses escaping the gravel bed (the whole pond had a 3/8" gravel bed covering the liner).

Pretty standard response. You're so right "thinking/guessing/grasping". The list of things that can kill fish is really long, and almost always I think the cause is a combination of different things. People like simple so many people seem to have a couple of standard things to blame to avoid the conversation. I'd bet anything if you'd mentioned the ionizer he would have latched on to that as a death machine, unless of course if he sold them. Plus the person asking almost always just wants a simple response, not actual fixes. A person in the business can't afford to give anything other than answers people want to hear even if he suspects more complex issues. So it's win-win for the people, not so much for the fish.

 

[capewind]

My assumption is if a person isn't testing KH it's likely they also don't know how to raise KH safely.

I explained to him to test the PH daily as soon as he got up, and as soon as the sun was setting to confirm a swing, as I was assuming there was a swing likely with the KH reading as it was. I told him to add baking soda that day (mixed in water), get his own KH test ordered, wait a couple days, and do it again. Then retest and see where he was at. I told him to continue doing this until his KH reached 6 drops.

I also told him to NOT do another water change for a bit. The night before he called he had done a 50+% water change, and did not dechlorinate the water. His view was his town does not add to their water ... I printed the town report and gave it to him, thus the reason I sent him to get dechlorinator to have on hand.

Even though he had done the massive water change the night before, had it been ammonia or nitrites, I would still have gotten something for a result, so THINK I was safe to rule those out.

The pond itself was NOT a good design. It was pretty, but a large area of the pond was only SIX inches deep, and the so called deep area was only a foot with little circulation (floating plants did not move). It was an Aquascape kit ... He had originally told me it was about 5000-6000 gallons, and when I saw it, I was a non believer, and he said maybe it was 4000 gallons ... I did the math at the time, and it was closer to 2000 gallons. Water temp was also fine, so while I would never have placed fish into such a shallow pond, with no filtration (this had the old fashion box filter), those fish should have been okay for some time. The pond also did not have a lot of fish. He said something had cleaned him out over the winter. He had the 2 he originally got from us (about 9"), then unknown to me, got 2 more about the same size, and then our two larger fish.

His original concern, why he did the water change, was the 22" fish was clamping fins, and the 16" fish was "falling over" ... When I got there, the 22" fish was NOT clamping fins and swimming casually, and he had moved the 16" fish to a fountain (maybe 600-800 gallons) of water, she was NOT rolling to her side. So whatever was wrong, the water change helped but the 5 fish in the pond refused food, and the 4 smaller fish were all spooky. The four from us were all used to people and handfed. He called me the next day to tell me he moved the 16" fish back to the pond after I had left, and she died that night. When I was there, there were nets out, but no buckets or totes. I suspect he just netted her, walked with her in the net the 75 or so feet between the ponds and just dumped her in, so take the moving issue with a grain of salt. Her sudden death could have been a few things ...

It wouldn't mean anything to anyone because the settings (on units I've seen) only changes the amount of electrical current which would change the amount of ions produced. We should care about is the number of ions in the water. If tons of ions are being produced but then converted to non-ions the water could have very few copper ions. Turning up the electric would only create more non-ion material faster and not increase the amount of copper ions in the water.

This is all Greek to me. The only thing I can say here is that he said he had been using the unit for years, and always keeps it set the same ... I wouldnt know if there is anything that is supposed to be cleaned, replaced periodically, or what not.

My guess would be the KH issue. That would be the 800 lb gorilla in the room. While copper can certainly kill fish, and may have contributed to the deaths, the wild swings in pH brought on by zero KH would remove copper ions pretty fast, both low and high pH removes them. So it's unlikely the ionizer was doing anything more than consuming electric and the copper electrodes..

Well, you are probably right then, Would a PH crash, like in the case of low oxygen, likely effect the larger fish first?

Pretty standard response. You're so right "thinking/guessing/grasping". The list of things that can kill fish is really long, and almost always I think the cause is a combination of different things. People like simple so many people seem to have a couple of standard things to blame to avoid the conversation. I'd bet anything if you'd mentioned the ionizer he would have latched on to that as a death machine, unless of course if he sold them. Plus the person asking almost always just wants a simple response, not actual fixes. A person in the business can't afford to give anything other than answers people want to hear even if he suspects more complex issues. So it's win-win for the people, not so much for the fish.

The pond supplier definately didnt sell it to him, but I didnt know what else to look at, so used him as a sounding board. I was even open minded enough to wonder if it was something here, in the same regards that every house has its own set of germs ... I placed about 75-80 fish during this period, about 25 of them are in clients ponds .. if it was something here, I would think someone would have called if they lost fish ...

 

[Waterbug]

Would a PH crash, like in the case of low oxygen, likely effect the larger fish first?

First, I shouldn't be using the term "crash", bad habit. It's cool sounding. Better to use "swing", but unfortunately it sounds more fun than dangerous.

I don't think pH swings would effect larger fish first. It's really hard to say because we're talking about something that normally doesn't have any visible symptoms...just a blanket term, stress. Bunch of internal stuff, heavier slime coat, but that's pretty hard to see unless crazy heavy. I have no idea, but if I had to guess I'd think smaller fish would be more affected faster. My assumption is smaller body the faster the surrounding water would affect their blood pH which drives the stress. Purely a guess on my part. There's so much to learn I kind of draw a line at some point. It's enough for me to understand the basics of how pH swings effect fish to get an idea of how much of a danger we're talking about. Once I learn that and decide to buffer water I concentrate on that so I don't have to learn the details of things like how water pH changes fish blood pH. Be cool to know, but there's only so much time.

 

[capewind]

First, I shouldn't be using the term "crash", bad habit. It's cool sounding. Better to use "swing", but unfortunately it sounds more fun than dangerous.

I tend to agree with you here. "Swing" IS more accurate to the event, but as you wrote, it doesnt sound as dangerous as the reality ... I never heard either term before joining this group, as our PH was stable, I just never knew the WHY it was.

Once I learn that and decide to buffer water I concentrate on that so I don't have to learn the details of things like how water pH changes fish blood pH. Be cool to know, but there's only so much time.

I would think we would all drive ourselves crazy if we needed the details on EVERYTHING, but unfortunately for me, on some topics, I need to understand the why, so some of the more obvious things make sense. I couldnt wrap my head around the KH/PH relationship until another group member gave me the BASIC chemistry lesson I needed to fill gaps. Now I also understand why my husband is not a fan of baking soda. YES, in a pinch it does the job, but he prefers other methods to keep the KH stable. He agreed to let me play with our pond this year with baking soda, but I am learning that the baking soda only lasts a few weeks before needing to add more. Great for learning, but not for the long term.

 

[crsublette]

Releases copper ions, regular copper with 2 electrons removed. Copper ions can then convert into copper oxide which won't kill algae or bacteria and is not water soluble so falls out of the water.

Very good. Thanks for the clarification.

Looked it up and appears copper oxide is not soluble as is zinc oxide is quite soluble. So, terrible assumption I made there in connecting the two compounds and thus assuming a copper ionizer releases "some form of copper oxide", which I am glad this was clarified.