Fish Behavior

[Shoestring Ponder]

Buckry How are the fish today? Was so saddened to hear you lost 2. Did you recently mention on a thread that while s8ing for some supplies, your pond cleared on its' own? Could that possibly be the problem. dead algae? Or was that in an earlier, month or so ago post? :question:

:goldfish:

 

[buckry]

The remaining fish were all acting awesome last night, and this morning they were all super active. I feed them a little bit of flake food and they went insane for it. I didn't retest the water, but last night it was perfect, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates, 8.0 PH. If the problem was dead algae wouldn't something spike? Ammonia? But yes, the pond did clear on its own, it's just about perfect, making me really regret wasting $100 on a UV clarifier, but I'm sure it will get used eventually.

The algae bloom happened over the weekend, so it's been this week, it probably cleared on Tuesday, then got a little better yesterday, and this morning was better than ever.

The weather changed, the weekend was 95 degrees, and Monday it was only 85, I think that's the biggest factor, but I'm not sure if that situation is killing fish.

The 2 fish that died were both fine in the morning though, and started acting bad in the early evening, so I don't really think I can say everything is ok now, since everything seemed ok at this time yesterday, but obviously wasn't. I'm pretty nervous, really anxious for 5pm to roll around so I know.

 

[Waterbug]

If the problem was dead algae wouldn't something spike? Ammonia?

If you have enough ammonia converting bacteria you won't see a spike. You do want to watch it over the next week or two, and more importantly nitrite. The bacteria that convert nitirte take a little longer to reproduce. But given your fish load I wouldn't be too concerned. When an algae bloom dies the decomposing algae can produce a little ammonia, but the real issue is the algae had been consuming ammonia and nitrates. With that "bio filter" gone it's up to the bacteria to reproduce and take up the load.

But yes, the pond did clear on its own, it's just about perfect, making me really regret wasting $100 on a UV clarifier, but I'm sure it will get used eventually.

Too bad you didn't build the Skippy and get it installed in time....could have been another Skippy enthusiast. :yellowbounce:

The weather changed, the weekend was 95 degrees, and Monday it was only 85, I think that's the biggest factor, but I'm not sure if that situation is killing fish.

Air temp (I assume) doesn't really matter, water temp matters. I read this a lot, people thinking air temp is killing fish. I guess they think the pond temp swings as rapidly. Hopefully it doesn't.

 

[buckry]

Yeah, good point on the water temperature, the first couple of inches was super warm, but I have no idea of the temp 4' down. 4" of warm water probably isn't going to let algae go crazy in my pond. Today as I was placing my new air stones, the water temp on the surface felt the same as it was 2' down as far as I could reach, I didn't put a thermometer in, but it was extremely cool, I have a feeling jumping in today even as hot as it is, would be very uncomfortable.

Yeah, I'm very intrigued by the fact that I did nothing and it got worse, then later I did some more nothing and it got better. I have a feeling that's a very important lesson for all ponders.

Waterbug, I really appreciate your no non-sense information, and your skepticism is wonderful. I don't know what any of us here would do with out you.

 

[buckry]

Unbelievable! Late evening and another fish is swimming around on top of the surface. What is going on? Why would 1 fish at a time die every 24 hours?

 

[buckry]

2 Huge aerators, a third pump, and still fish are gasping for air. Whoever said Koi are a hardy fish is full of it, haven't lost a goldfish in 6 months, but now can't keep koi alive no matter what I do.

 

[buckry]

So do I need to salt my pond now? Obviously I've got something horrible going on, this seems like the time to add salt. I don't have any koi medicine so that's out of the question for now, but I have solar salt I can add.

 

[sissy]

make sure it is the blue bag

 

[buckry]

I changed my mind, I don't want to medicate my main pond, it just doesn't seem like a good idea, not to mention I have to add 10 pounds? Geez, that seems like a lot.

 

[buckry]

Just thought of something. Due to the drought I haven't added fresh water in 2 weeks. I've let the sprinkler hit it when watering the grass, and I've topped it off, but I haven't done any amount of refreshing to the water. Could that be the problem? I put 600 gallons in tonight, that's just under 20%.

I also said I wasn't going to water the grass tonight in case water on the bridge was the problem, and I did it anyway, the bridge got all wet, and a fish died. So tomorrow I definitely will not water the grass or bridge and we'll see what happens.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day waiting for 7pm to roll around.

 

[JohnHuff]

Whoever said Koi are a hardy fish is full of it, haven't lost a goldfish in 6 months, but now can't keep koi alive no matter what I do.

Koi is not hardy. Koi is hard to keep, it's the goldfish that's hardy!

I just thought of something, you seem to have a lot of stuff around your pond. Is it possible that fertilizer from your grass or something from your bridge is leaking into the pond? Is it a pond liner problem? What is your setup like?

 

[buckry]

No fertilizer on the grass, but yeah the bridge is a possiblity at this point.

What kind of pond liner problem?

My set up is super simple, 2 large pumps pumping inside of rubber buckets filled with 3 different kinds of media. They pump into my waterfall pit which has pea gravel and some creeping susan. I also have a bag of AC in the waterfall pit. Then I have a small pump hooked to a skimmer that jets water across the bottom of the pond.

And since the heat and deaths started I have added 2 air stones at opposite ends of the pond, and I bought a third pump and put it in a bucket with only lava rock and am pumping that water to my waterfall pit as well. My pond is 3400g, and I am moving about 5000g an hour, not counting whatever water the air stones are brining up. That's probably neglibible though, or maybe it's not I have no idea.

That's it, nothing else in the pond except for fish, and possible an invisible fish assasin.

Oh, an the water tests I've done for the last month have all been the same, this is either great news, or it's a defective test set. I'm giong to a pet store today and buying whatever they have and testing with it to verify.

I'm also going to call the vet that is 2 houses down from my house and see if they can help me out at all. I wouldn't mind a koi autopsy at some point.

BUT, I'm keeping a positive frame of mind, I'm not going to lose another fish today. It can't happen, the fish I have left are strong like bull. This problem is officially behind me.

And thank god Koi are not hardy, if this is the definition of hardy, I weep for the world.

 

[Waterbug]

I also said I wasn't going to water the grass tonight in case water on the bridge was the problem, and I did it anyway, the bridge got all wet, and a fish died. So tomorrow I definitely will not water the grass or bridge and we'll see what happens.

The only toxic chemicals I know of that would be on wood are long lasting. They would build in the water, not dissipate after 24 hours.

You could test the wood on a feeder fish in a small tank. Add tap water to a tank to simulate the sprinkler water. Floating piece of the wood in the tank for maybe a weak. It would be best to test to make sure chloramine and ammonia was zero. Add a feeder goldfish. In theory the fish should die pretty fast if the water was toxic. The test would have to be perform several times if the fish died in order to rule out the fish dying from other causes. You could also have a control tank.

Simply not watering the lawn one night and seeing/not seeing another fish death is not exactly telling. Misleading, but not telling.

That's it, nothing else in the pond except for fish, and possible an invisible fish assasin.

You mean like parasites, bacteria and viruses?

 

[buckry]

Yeah, that's the direction I think I need to explore. Calling some vets in the area later today to see if koi are something they have some expertise in.

 

[buckry]

And this morning all of the remaining fish are fine. Gave them a little bit of food and they swarmed on it. They were hanging around the spot that I feed down on the bottom of the pond. I think they've figured out where the food always lands on the water.

But anyway, no issues now, the assassin is sleeping, won't be on the job until this evening, we'll see what happens.