Whoa hold a moment here people you have to remember that this chaps a novice and as such all this is new to him and its most probably quite frightening to see his fish die so lets keep it plain and simple.
Also as a Brit like Liam I'm acctually along with other British members of GPF able to name products we have in the UK. We are as of yet unable to buy many US Products that have not have reached our shores as of yet [otherwise your talking double dutch to him yes]?,
Plus we also dont have access to many of the medicated antibiotic drugs you can buy over the counter in the US and have to visit the vet first for a prescription.
Liam First off buy a pond master API test kit plus a seperate API Nitrates kit they retail about £34 for the master kit plus another £8-9.00 or there abouts.
Then take your tests and come back to us with the results.
Your fish load for a brand new pond is way too high many use a sacrificial fish or two to kick start the cycle but weve now got to try and work with the load you have to get your pond cycled.
How many gallons is your pond and what filtration does your pond have, also you'll need to know that to the exact gallonage for any future treatments .
Whilst your in the fish shop buying the test kits you'll need to buy a bottle of Ammo Lock this will render your ammonia less harmful so that it wont do any further damage to your fishes gills also it negates the need for salt which to us has no business being in a pond of fresh water fish [it is however used in short term Salt baths], to rid a fish of parasites before it goes into Quarentine [your going to need a QT fasility to QT any further fish prior to them going into your pond after 4 to 8 weeks so it will als need to be filtered if your introcucing only one at a time perhaps a fish tank .
Tell me did you introduce your fish from different stores [something you must never do] because of the risk of cross infection to your other fish.
I tend to suggest to Newbees to our hobby to buy one or two books on the subject of fish health which explains everything your going to need to know about our hobby [weve been koi keeping now for 28 years].
But for the moment the best one to buy would be this on Amazon books UK :-
The Manual of Fish Health ISBN 0861013869. Dr Chris Andrews Adrian Exell, Dr Neville Carrington
This is the first ever book we owned about fish health issues and it turned us around from exactly where your at to very successful fish keepers.
We now have a vast reference library but together over 28 years totalling 100 books [an adiction I've had since my training ship days when I was a Librarian in the ships Library]
Dave
