Flashing because of ammonia?

[CometKeith]

Hi kmarcel. I think almost everyone on the forum will tell you the bb you buy in a bottle is not the same as the bb that grows in your pond. I don't think the bottled stuff has a lot of effect. I know some people on gpf like ammonia lock but I have never used it. I just do water changes daily until my ammonia goes to zero. Anything over zero is dangerous and you are setting up your fish to get diseased. I'm not a big expert but to me flashing is an early warning that your fish are stressed out and they may not have a good slime coat. A lot of people here make their own filters. Personally I have always bought mine online. You can get a good mechanical/bio filter for a small pond at azponds for a few hundred dollars. To me that's a good investment. Thanks for the connecting idea.Somehow I need to first convince my wife the pond needs to be a little larger!

 

[kmarcel]

CometKeith, Thanks for the info. I will be looking into some kind of bio filtration and doing water changes over the weekend. They were still flashing yesterday, although a little quieter, but that could have been because it's been cooler the last couple of days. I definitely have an ammonia problem which I think is because of the lack of good filtration. I'm not so sure there's not a parasite problem as well (double whammy) because the Ammo lock didn't stop the flashing. I never had this problem until I expanded the pond, which my husband reminds me of daily since I was never able to convince him our pond needed to be bigger. So I'm guessing my pump/filtration is not up to par for the larger size. Although I didn't go into this without consultation from my pond store.

Hopefully someone from my koi club will be coming by to check the fish for parasites today.

 

[kmarcel]

I had my friend from the koi club come and we sedated two fish and put the slides under her microscope. Based on the moving organisms under the scope and picture online it appears to be flukes. I also did a substantial water change and tomorrow I will go to pond store and buy Prazi along with bio filter materials to put in the waterfall filter.

The ammonia also tested the highest yet at 1.0. I also plan to widen my stream and put the gravel in for added filtration. I know they're not out of the woods, but I feel better with a diagnosis.

 

[CometKeith]

kmarcel, good luck. I think once you get ammonia to where it belongs the fish will be able to fight off any disease that might be affecting them. I have had some problems in the past in the spring with my fish. Some rules of thumb that have worked for me are the following: Until the pond has properly cycled feed sparingly-not more than a couple times a week and only use a spring/fall diet, no heavy cleaning except netting leaves from the bottom, don't introduce anything new to the pond such as new fish or snails, doing a water change on the weekends of about 15-20%. This year I didn't turn on my uv light until about a month into spring so I am going to keep doing it that way. I'm not sure if keeping it off helps with the bb or if having some algae helps reduce ammonia but I think it makes sense not to turn it on right away. Also I keep my water moving all winter now by letting it trickle down my waterfall. This year I had 28 fish come out of the winter all healthy with no sign of any disease so I got pretty lucky. I'm not sure if all these things I am doing are absolutely necessary but it is hard to argue with success.

 

[kmarcel]

CometKeith, sounds like good advice. After doing such a large water change yesterday, I was hopeful the ammonia level would have dropped a little. This morning it's 1.0, same as before the water change. Last night after the water change the fish seemed a bit more lively and there was no flashing. I had put Ammo lock and Ammo rocks in Tues and while I know that it doesn't show a lower ammonia reading, it seems like it's gone up.

I'm not sure what to treat first. If I get the Prazi, I wouldn't think I would do a water change for a week after treating with that. But with the ammonia can I go a week without a water change? And why wouldn't the water change from yesterday, not have improved it a little? It was a substantial water change. I hate to do another one so soon. Want to give the water a chance to warm up. The slower the water change as someone recommended, the longer my pumps and filter will be off. I need to have the water level to the right height for the skimmer before I can turn the pump on.

 

[Dave 54]

CometKeith, sounds like good advice. After doing such a large water change yesterday, I was hopeful the ammonia level would have dropped a little. This morning it's 1.0, same as before the water change. Last night after the water change the fish seemed a bit more lively and there was no flashing. I had put Ammo lock and Ammo rocks in Tues and while I know that it doesn't show a lower ammonia reading, it seems like it's gone up.

I'm not sure what to treat first. If I get the Prazi, I wouldn't think I would do a water change for a week after treating with that. But with the ammonia can I go a week without a water change? And why wouldn't the water change from yesterday, not have improved it a little? It was a substantial water change. I hate to do another one so soon. Want to give the water a chance to warm up. The slower the water change as someone recommended, the longer my pumps and filter will be off. I need to have the water level to the right height for the skimmer before I can turn the pump on.

I would allow thngs to settle down before you think about doing anything else to your pond if I where you .
Adding things may well cause even more problems , you have to remember that though your using ammo lock it doesnt mean ammonia is magically taken away its still presnt in your pond but not harmful at this present time.
If you bought yourself a dechlorination unit you could just leave your water trickling in over a period of time and there would be no need to turn off your filters infact mine are never off when they are isolated from the pond the airstones keep everythhing ticking over nicelty .
Turning your filters off is a no brainer I;m affraid as your killing the good bacteria off when you do this which puts you back to square one "Allow your pond to cycle which I think its trying to do but your not letting it .
As I said these things take patience and can take anything from one to three weeks before the filters are mature your looking for a spike in both ammonia and nitrite when that happens everything is mature filters and pond .
When you got your zeolite did you charge it for 24 hours prior to using it in salted water about a mug and a half in a bucket using boiling water to first melt the salt, then allowing it to cool prior to adding your rockes ?

Dave

Dave

 

[CometKeith]

kmarcel, I have never used any type of ammonia lock. From what I understand a pond still will test positive for ammonia when you use it but like what Dave is saying it is the harmless type of ammonia. I would recommend to keep doing 15-20% water changes until the ammonia goes down to zero. Note its not like you do a 100% water change when you do 5 ea 20% water changes. It takes many more times to do that.

 

[kmarcel]

Dave, we pulled out a few large rocks that we used for a tunnel for the fish because I got thinking that was the one area that may not have been cleaned very well. We couldn't see and get to this area easily until we removed these rocks then shortly after we saw a fish carcass floating. It's one that we knew was missing from over the winter. It was a small one maybe 4-5" but I assume that could have been part of the cause of the ammonia spike, along with pond not cycling? We did a good cleaning again and another substantial water change. Then we did do the Prazi treatment.

We got lava rocks, read a lot of debate about those but the person at our pond store recommended them. I rinsed them but did not put in salt. I added them to the waterfall filter and the skimmer in our expanded section. I put them in laundry/utility bags inside those filters. Also, added some to the very small upper pond at the mouth of the stream that goes into the main pond. So they are submerged where water goes over them, but they're not in the pond.

I will do an ammonia test in the am and if it's still high I will get some more Ammo lock as that does not interfere with the Prazi treatment, so I read. I'm hoping I can wait the 7 days before doing another water change as the Prazi treatments recommends. Afterward I thought I should have waited to do the treatment and resolved the ammonia first but I felt the fish were flashing due to the parasites because the Ammo lock did not stop the flashing. So (knock wood) they have not flashed since the treatment. They did within a couple minutes after the treatment, but I read that was the parasites dying off which causes the fish to flash after treatment. Nothing since then.

 

[crsublette]

You might be correct due to the fish carcass you found would be one the sources of the ammonia climb.

I still do not think the ammonia is the reason for the extensive flashing.

Sounds like your koi club friend knows how to properly scrape/scope so I bet the flashing was due to the discovered fluke parasite. I'm not going to say the Prazi is the fix, cause then I will jinx ya, but it is what I would have done.

 

[kmarcel]

Charles, I treated with Prazi Pond, twice in fact as the flashing was still occurring occasionally, although my less. Did a treatment, then 10 days later another one, which was this past Tues. Did a water change in between the treatments. I will do another one on this coming Tues.

Last week I noticed one of my koi had red spots and it turned out to be ulcers. My friend came back again, sedated him and treated, but he only lasted another day afterwards. I saw some reddish marks, but unfortunately didn't know what it was. Turned out when we pulled him out that he was in bad shape with ulcers. Poor thing. Needless to say I'm watching my other fish like crazy. The ammonia is much better, today it looked like .25 but otherwise it's been zero. The koi with ulcers was treated Wed evening and by Fri am I couldn't find him. My husband couldn't find him until this am (Sat) when he got in the pond and checked under all the overhanging rocks along the parameter of the pond. It was this am that the ammonia had gone up to the .25. Could the dead fish, that must have died sometime Thurs night have caused an uptick in the ammonia that quick, albeit as small as it was?

My one koi does still do an occasional flash, which unnerves me. He doesn't break water though. I can't imagine that I should have to do 3 Prazi Pond treatments? I hope the ammonia goes back to zero and I can hold off on the water change until Tues, and ammonia goes back to zero and no more flukes and ulcers. It's been a tough few weeks.

 

[crsublette]

Yeah, just one dead small fish can shoot up the ammonia like crazy. Often times, if there is an ammonia spike that you can not explain, then it is either a dead fish hiding somewhere or a bunch of plant decay somewhere.

3x Prazi treatments are normal and be sure you are performing the recommended water changes between each. Three treatments are done due to the fluke parasite's life cycle and you want to be sure you have killed them all.

 

[kmarcel]

Thanks Charles. Tues will be 7 days since last treatment. The two fish that we scraped have been flashing a bit. The ammonia is up a bit as I wrote previously, but didn't want to do any water change before the 7 days. I think I may do it at 6 days because it looks as though it will be raining when I get home from work on Tues so I may do it tomorrow night instead.

I have been trying to find information on how many times you can do the treatments and was concerned about doing 3. So it is safe to do it again? Should I do it right after the 7 days is up or give a few days in between? I don't want to over treat them if that can do anything to them. The directions just say a second treatment may be needed.

Glad to know that the dead fish hopefully is the reason for increased ammonia.

 

[crsublette]

Just doing 2 treatments as the directions might be ok.

I know most just do 2, but 3 is safe. Yes, doing it 3 times is safe and it is common practice as long as the directions are being followed. Do the next treatment after you have done a significant water change from the previous treatment. Due to the parasites life cycle, there is a possibility that some could have survived the 2nd treatment. I view the 3rd treatment as the final nail in the coffin for the fluke parasite.

After the 3rd treatment is done, see if your koi club buddy can come over again to do another scrape/scope on the fish to make sure they were killed.

 

[kmarcel]

Thanks again Charles. I will do a big water change tonight and make sure the ammonia is down before I do another treatment. Hopefully I will be able to do the treatment in the next day or two.