Flashing Koi

[Sushiducks]

Hi,

We've had our pond running since October, ~3500 gallons. We don't do water changes. A waterfall and a stream opposite their skimmers. We put a dozen rosy red minnows in 2 months ago and 10 rainbow dace. A month ago we added 5 4-5" koi. Water quality has always been perfect until the last week. pH seems high to me, 8.2, but it's always been there and our tapwater is 7.8 and the local pond guy says 8.2 is consistent with this area (West Michigan). Anyway we have noticed in the last week two of the Koi will occasionally flash for a bit. They don't do it often but they haven't at all until now.

These are my current numbers: pH (8.2), Ammonia (0.25), Nitrite (0.5), Nitrate (10-20, hard to tell with the shades of orange).
Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate have always been 0 until last week. But I don't know if it just took a few weeks for the koi load to start to build up.
Each skimmer feeds an EasyPro Melody filter that has 2 pads and 2 bags of media, cleaned at least weekly. Skimmers cleaned every day lately because of helicopters.

Wondering if I need to be immediately worried about the levels or just measure it over the next couple of days to see where it's going. I know I've read about cycles on here but I haven't seen it before and am not super convinced I have a grasp of it.

We do have plants in there also. Some hyacinths floating in mesh islands (I made from a great thread on here) and a few lilies and some junkus or something my wife knows plants better than I do. Only other thing that has happened is the maple tree dumped a lot of leaves in there and the water turned brownish I guess from tannin? We just finished pergola and I hadn't got posts up yet on other side for net I will stretch across.

Anyway just looking for advice thanks.

 

[Sushiducks]

It's kind of messy. Landscaping is still a work in progress as is patio under pergola. It was grass until the first week of September though

 

[Tula]

I wouldn't think five koi of that size wold tip the balance of your pond.

Your ammonia should be as close to zero as possible. I know you said you don't do water charges, but this might be a time to do them and add something like Prime to de chlorinate the water and bind the ammonia . Doesn't have to be huge water changes but I think a few small changes would be helpful.

I would also keep adding plants , it will really help.

 

[GBBUDD]

Lovely layout, I like that you didn't push the height of the water fall to the point where it looked like a volcano. I also love the look of the water coming right up to the thin cap stones along the ponds edge . However this raises a concern about run off. and fertilizers chemicals and such getting into the pond. there doesn't appear to be a lip around the pond keeping run off out . I maybe wrong as pictures are realy tough to see depth perception.

 

[Jhn]

Do you clean the filter media weekly with tap water or pond water?

If cleaning with a hose, you are killing off the bacteria that are growing on the media to deal with the ammonia and nitrite. The media doesn’t need to be rinsed weekly. The filter pads are fine to rinse off with tap water. You could be going through a mini cycle as the bacteria pop. in the pond is only enough to deal with the little minnows you have in there.

To cycle your pond their should be an ammonia spike from either adding a source of ammonia ( fish, or ammonia added directly if doing a fish less cycle). As the bacteria population builds up on all surfaces in the pond converting the ammonia in the water to nitrite (ammonia should return to zero), nitrite spikes as bacteria pop. builds up to convert nitrite to nitrate ( nitrite should return to zero). Ammonia and nitrite even at low levels are toxic to fish, nitrate isn’t as toxic at lower levels. Adding lots of plants can shorten the cycle as many will consume ammonia to grow, but mostly they consume nitrates which are the end product of the cycle.

Nice looking pond by the way.

 

[IPA]

The pond is still cycling and your local weather will have an impact of the time it’s going to take. Continue to monitor pH, ammonia and nitrite and only lightly rinse of the biological media in a bucket of pond water when necessary to maintain water flow in the system. Get a KH/GH test kit; proper KH is important to the nitrifying bacteria and stabilizing the pH. The pH you stated is fine, proper KH is between 75 and 200 and you can add baking soda at 1/2 cup per 1000 gallons of pond water to raise the KH.

 

[Sushiducks]

Thanks for all the replies!

We don't use chemicals at all in the back yard because of the ducks. And I know people are going to comment about having ducks and the pond, but they are 3 Muscovy and only jump in there maybe every couple days to bathe for 5 minutes or so. They have no interest in hanging out in there. Seem to prefer their kiddie pool for bathing anyway.

The yard slopes up a bit to get to the pond and there is a plastic border along the grass, we are going to gravel the dirt but haven't gotten to it yet.

I'll get a KH/GH kit, wasn't aware that was a thing, guess I need to look at chemistry posts again. And we are probably overdoing it on cleaning the filter media. When we pull them up to look and they don't look new we are like eek we have to rinse them off.

Thanks again for the advice!