Fish Dying

[dachmom]

Hello everyone,
I am hoping some of the smart people can help me. We have lost 3 fish this week. All of them were large gold fish, I don't know if it was from spawning, one had scales missing. My large female had no visible injuries. She ate the night before and in the morning she was bellyup. We knew she was big, but she measured 15 1/2 inches long!!! It tears us up. All the numbers are fine, the only thing that comes up is hard water. I have 7 koi and they are fine. We don't spray anything in the yard and our neighbors do not either. We haven't changed fish food, we cannot figure this out. Any ideas? Thanks

 

[Mmathis]

How big is your pond? Gallons and dimensions?

Approx. how big are your fish?

Other than possible "spawning" behavior, have you noticed anything about their behavior and/or changes in their usual behavior & habits?

Is there a possibility you have predators, such as herons?

Regarding water tests, can you give us the numbers?

What kind of filtration do you have?

Also, where do you live and what have your temps. been lately?

 

[Dave 54]

Maggie has asked all the relevent questions the female could have died from the stress of mating especially f you have the wrong ratio of males to females but the others shouldnt have.
With a ph of 7 your ph is considered neutral ph readings bellow this are termed as acid above ph of 7 they are termed alkaline.
Tell me did you have an air pump running through the summer months if not in future I strongly recomend you do.
The higher the temperature of the pond the lower the oxygen saturation level in total we run two airpumps one that the sole purpose of is to supply oxygen to the pond, the others supplying our second and third filters with three in each the fourth filter our bio filter has six .
How often do you undertake maintenance to your filter/filters also how often have you done water changes.
We do them on a regular basis straight throughout the year at around 40% of our pond water.
Including throughout the winter months using a tricle method where you ever so slowly trickle water back into the pond where the ambient water temperature acctually warms the water as it is going into the pond,so as you see both maintenance and water changes have the makings of a good happy well run pond

rgrds

Dave

 

[dachmom]

Hello again,
Our pond is 7 by 8 feet, 3 feet deep in the deepest part. It's about 1000 gallons. The fish range from 4 inches to 1 koi about a foot long, most about 6 inches or so. We have not noticed any weird behavior with the fish, we have a shubbie that hangs by himself and doesn't hang with the rest of the fish.

We have a 100 gallon bio filter that feeds our waterfall and a pipe that provides oxygen to them. We do water changes regularly about 20%.
The numbers are: nitrate 0, water hardness 150, alkaline 120, and ph 7.

Dave, the water temp is aroung 70, the fish aren't gasping for air. The koi are fine, its the goldies that seem to be having a problem.

Hope the new info helps, We haven't lost any for a couple of days, fingers are crossed.

Thank you for all of your info

 

[CometKeith]

Dachmom, it sounds like you have a lot of experience but it seems that usually when you hear about someone finding a large fish dead in the morning during the summer it's because of low dissolved oxygen in the pond. Also it can be very sudden with no warning. Are there a lot of plants in your pond? They produce CO2 at night and use up the oxygen. There are tests you can do for dissolved oxygen.

 

[dachmom]

Thanks CometKeith,

I have 7 plants in the pond, 6 are marginal plants and 1 water lily. We have a bio filter that is full of water hyacinths, they are crammed in there and about a foot high. I'm wondering if I should take some of them out. We also noticed a lot of snails, would they cause problems?
Thanks

 

[CometKeith]

I would thin out the wh. That could be contributing to the problem. Snails eat decayed bio-matter and algae. I don't think those would be related to low dissolved O2 ratios. Also if there is any way to shade your pond so the water stays cooler that would help. Also maybe the goldfish had damage to their gills and couldn't get the O2 they needed? Do use always declorinate your water before you add it, or do you add the declor after you top off the pond? I know a lot of people add the fresh water first, but for small ponds I don't think it's a good idea. Also if I didn't say it in my other comment... sorry about your fish! :sad:

 

[dachmom]

Thanks for your answer, I will thin out the WH tomorrow morning. Where can I get a test to test the O2 levels? We noticed another fish acting odd today, it doesn't eat and is kind of gasping. I increased the waterfall flow. We shade the pond with an umbrella in the morning, but by afternoon half the pond is shaded.

 

[CometKeith]

I'll check with my daughter to see if she can tell me because she learned how to measure dissolved oxygen for a trip her group from school went on this year. They were able to do it with simple hand held supplies with no electricity because they were in a very remote region of the world.

 

[Mmathis]

Maybe I missed it, but what are your ammonia and nitrite levels?