High pH level!

[mellis18]

I tested the water on my pond which is a converted pool (still in the conversion phase but almost there). The pH is about 8.2. I don't have any Koi in it yet but I do have some mosquito fish in it. I want to make sure the pH levels are right when I do introduce Koi. I used a regular pool test kit and it says to put 1qt of acid in to bring the pH level to between 7.2 and 7.4. Does this sound right and can the acid be added while fish are in the pond? Is there a different test kit for fish ponds?

 

[gardengimp]

Mellis, what is the pH of your source water? The water from your tap? And, umm, I would not be adding any acid. In fact, you might just want to let the conversion process go along with the mosquito fish and your filters for a few more months before you think about any other fish. Eastern gambusia can survive just about anything, and I suspect western is the same. Lastly, what kind of filtration do you have on your pond/pool conversion? You sure it is up to handling koi?

 

[Waterbug]

Swimming pool owners want pH to be about 7.5 so the chemicals they add work best so they can use less and save $$$.

There are test kits specific for ponds, however the pH swimming pool test is fine for a pond. Actually all the swimming pool tests are fine for a pond. It's more of a question of what you do with the info. But the terms used are different which can add confusion.

Unstable pH stresses fish and can even contribute to death if pH is allowed to swing up and down. The goal is stable pH. You can Google "pond ph buffering" for more info.

 

[crsublette]

I used a regular pool test kit and it says to put 1qt of acid in to bring the pH level to between 7.2 and 7.4. Does this sound right and can the acid be added while fish are in the pond?

Don't do it !!

They're talking swimming pools. You're talking fish pond. I agree with WB.

Consistent and stable pH is more importanting for a fish pond. If your fish are in a pH range of anywhere between 5.5 and 9.0, then do not worry. Test your pH onces in the morning and again before the evening; if this pH difference is quite wide, then this will stress your fish, but I have never heard of it being the cause of fish kills in ponds like ours. I know of folk where there pH swings a full 2 points within 24 hours and they have not lost any fish, but I would definitely not suggest this to anyone as being healthy for fish.

More important than pH is your KH and GH. API GH and KH Test kit is quite reliable. It is more important to know your KH and GH, and, of the two water parameters, KH is the most important of all.

With a low GH, then your pH could go up to 10 when adding a pH buffer to your water; with a reasonable amount of GH and due to the buffer system that is used in pond water, the GH is what prevents your pH from going above 8.4pH.

If your KH is extremely low, then this will allow several variables to make your pH less stable and less consistent. When Nature or something else pollutes the water, then your KH stops the pollution from making the pH go lower. Generally, "most" folk want to keep the pH in the 7.4~8.4 range. There are folk that have done fine in higher and lower pHs, but, personally, I would not recommend it to beginners.

Mellis, if you're unaware of the process, then read about what is called the Nitrification process. The nitrification process is Nature's way of converting naturally created toxic byproducts to be used by plants/algae and be more fish safe.

Mellis, if you want to keep healthy fish, then you need to be aware of certain water chemistry and biological process that occur by Nature in your water.

In our context with koi carp or other goldfish, these fish "urinate" by expelling ammonia nitrogen from their gills. This ammonia nitrogen is in the form of NH3, also called "free" ammonia. When it is released from the gills, the water's pH and water temperature dissolves only a portion of this ammonia into ammonium nitrogen (NH4+), also called ionized ammonia. The ammonia kits you typically buy at a store often only tests for the Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN), which includes both NH3 and NH4. However, only NH3 is toxic to fish and this is where the nitrification process steps into the picture. Without getting too technical and simply stated, the nitrification process changes the TAN into Nitrite nitrogen, Nitrite nitrogen is quite toxic to fish as well so the nitrification process changes Nitrite into Nitrate nitrogen. Nitrate nitrogen can be used as food to plants and algae and is safer to fish, but, in high enough volume, nitrates can eventually become toxic to fish.

In our context of freshwater koi carp and other goldfish, as the fish breaths, they expel carbon dioxide through their skin. Also, other stuff (i.e., plants, bacteria, decomposition) releases carbon dioxide into the water as well. With a low KH, this carbon dioxide (CO2) can make your pH be different from morning to evening, which is called a diurnal pH swing. With a high KH, then the presence of this CO2 will create less of an effect on the water. Plants will remove some of the CO2 out of the water, but, due to days being shorter in Winter, plants release more CO2 through respiration versus what the CO2 they consume through photosynthesis. So, appropriately installing an air diffusor in the water will help dissipate the CO2 out of the water, which can increase your pH if your KH is low.

Is there a different test kit for fish ponds?

Swimming pool test kits are fine, but you must keep in mind that they are talking about swimming pools, not fish ponds. I would use a swimming pool test kit to know your chlorine or chloramine levels.

Most of the big pet stores sell the API line of test kits and I have had zero problems with them.

Personally, I would recommend two test kits, that is the API Freshwater Master Test kit. Due to the importance of KH, I would not use the paper test strips for testing your GH nor KH. I had to online order the API GH and KH test kit.

Paper test strips are fine for certain tests, but, ultimately, the paper test strips only give a general view of what is happening, which can be misleading. The liquid drop test kits are much more reliable.

It is also important to know the water parameters from your source water and to know if the water has chlorine or chloramine.

When starting a pond, it is important to know this stuff and to test your water. Once your pond becomes established over the years, then testing the water becomes less of a concern. However, whenever you start having problems and asking for help, then you will need to test the water to share this information since it is still very imporant.

 

[Dave 54]

mellis 18 I'm take it your a novice yes, as such I'll be keeping things simple for you, so your converting your swinmming pool to a pond is that right ?Ok if so how many gallons is this pond in total (Imperial) I dont operate in the US eqivulent sorry .Now yo the nitty gritty what are you using as a filter ? is it a pool one or a fish one?If a fish one how many gallons is it capable of per/hr, if you intend to use your existing pool one I doubt whether this is going to work out for you....Have you an air pump if so have you put any airstones in your filter or in your pond if so how many in each (we run 9 in our filter setup and our secondair pump is resposible for air in the pond via what is known as a spindrifter bottom drain bubblerWhat depth is your pool if your going to keep koi ir is recomended between 4-5ft deep nothing less...Do not use acid on the pond to bring it down 8.2 is within the range for koi who like it up to 8.5 nothing higher.For the time being what are the following Ammonia. Nitrites, Nitrates dont worry about the KH and GH for the moment, that as a novice can very confusing and can come in later when your established and have a greater understanding of things.Have you fitted a U/V-C yet, if so is it man enough to work on your pond, as we dont know the gallonage we cannot suggest which one you should use.Test kit wise there are a number of good drop test kits on the market API is one, the other I would reconend you use is the Tetra test kit /( which is the one we use on our pond the test stip ones I dont trust to give you an accurate reading and as such are not orth buyingWhat exactly are your plans for this conversion are you going to use a liner or just use the pond walls as they are, which I take it are tiled ?Lots of questions I know but your answers will give us all an idea as to how we are going to help you get establishedrgrdsDave

 

[crsublette]

KH should definitely not be ignored, regardless of being a novice. KH will determine whether your fish will be alive or dead after the first couple of months. It is better to know this now while building and establishing a bio-filter rather than later.

It is not confusing at all. No reason to make it out to be more complicated than it actually is.

Please ask questions when there is something you do not understand.

 

[Dave 54]

KH in a well maintained pond isnt an issue true but your expecting this person to know what your on about straight away, when we dont even know what sized pond he has, what filtration he has U/V-C etc, this is what I mean about keeping things simple to start with.
KH and GH can be brought in later when he has a little more undertanding.
He hasnt got any koi at the moment just a few mosquito fish.
Lets get the basics out of the way first i;e what filtration he is running is it the pool filtration which wont be suitable etc.
Then when weve found out what he has, if his pond filteris man enough to do the job, what wattage of U/V-C that he requires, only then we can start talking about KH GH and what he requires to keep them stable.
When that is out of the way and he is ready for his koi then we can talk him up from being a novice koi keeper to a koi keeper propper
Your running before he can walk you have to remember not everyone is as advanced in the fish keeping world as others.
We dont even know if he has ever kept fish before nobody has bothered to ask him yet???
Try to think like a novice go back to when you first started out "what happened"....... with me it was death to any goldfish.
why because I truely didnt understand what I was doing, what were you like and if you tell me you didnt loose fish I'd say thats total BS everyone does its how we learn.
Val was the one that turned me around, I didnt know what GH meant or KH I didnt know about anything.
I just knew that I had kept a goldfish as a kid in a bowl which lived for ten years with plants and some pebbles in the bottom of the bowl, the plants were weighed down with lead and fed it ant eggs.
I changed the water each week and I didnt even treat the water ( back then fish seemed to be a darn sight tougher).
He is doing one of the hardest conversions going, a swimming pool to a pond which doesnt always work out.
You havent even ask him if he was in a hard water area or soft which I seriously doubt he knows because I didnt to start with......
Paper test strips are all but useless,yet you say they are to use, drop tests are fairly accurate which nearly all of us use, digital ones even more so.
To say ask questions if you dont understand is all well and good, in the mean time you've scared him off.
I'm not the one complicating things I've gone back to basics thats all.
Weve all told him not to add acid which is about the only thing we are all in agreement with at the moment.
His first words test kit wise is he uses a pool test kit which recomends he put a qrt of acid in the pool so that says to me one thing, he's thinking pool not pond, it also says he is an absolute novice fish keeping wise, so you direct him to the net all fine and dandy provided he finds the correct site..
But then becomes confused because someone else says different on another site, far better to direct him to books which he can read at his leasure fully taking in what is being said.
Personally I would Direct him to The interpet book of Fish health it being the first book I started out with, which is easy to understand and takes him though everything essencial you need to know about every aspect of keeping fish...
This way at least he can learn from what we are saying but remember when dealing with novice fish keepers Keep it simple and dont loose site of your fish keeping roots the place where we all start because this guy needs to understand that, as does any other novice hense my thread about it.

rgrds

Dave

 

[gardengimp]

Actually Dave, we do know a bit about Robert's pond. Take a look through here to start: https://www.gardenpondforum.com/topic/10792-intro/ then if you go into his profile and search on his posts, you can find some more about his filtration. Being a bit of a novice myself, I'm not qualified to determine the filtration for koi, but it seems in good shape to me for goldfish.

We also know that he is in Central California, in an area known for hard water and for annual average rainfall of less than 10 inches, the majority of which falls in a few winter months. We can take a look at a recent water quality test http://www.gswater.com/download/water_quality_reports/WaterQuality_Nipomo.pdf We can also look at recent months precipitation and see rainfall has been below average and now he is going into 10 months or so of virtually no rainfall.

Also, Robert told us he has kept small fish ponds.

I think Charles may have the right of it, what is going on with KH and GH may be very important to him. I actually don't know the answers for him, other than acid is a perpetuating shock to an inorganic system which I don't think has a place in a fish pond. I think the answers are going to lie in understanding what is happening with the water parameters and how to naturally buffer them. I suspect alot of the answers are going to lie in encouraging plant growth, and specifically getting a good growth of algae and oxygenators, If I had more spare time right now, it would be quite the interesting research project.

 

[Dave 54]

Thanx for that at least now I know he's kept fish before and as such be up to understanding things told to him by Charles.
However keeping a few mosquito fish and keeping koi are polls apart and going off what he said about adding acid to his pool/pond says alott to me.
He is thinking swimming pool not koi pond he talks of turning the jacuzzi into a bog filter I seriously dont think a bog flter will work in such an area
Koi are by their very nature messy fish they require constant vidulance on behalf of there keeper.
My idea was to make sure he knows PH, Ammonia, Nitrite , Nitrate before talking him on to KH and GH
This in the way of maintenance to filtration, water perameters and water changes etc he dosent come across as someone who at this moment knows what they are doing no offence to him intended
So keeping it plain and simple is the correct way of explaining things to him.
He lives in an area with as you say very little water even more so because of that it has to be got across to him exactly what koi are like, goldfish are a much more hardy and forgiving species of fish koi are not so it has to be explained in a way a person can unnderstand .
Then when the basics are known and you know that he we can move things up a notch.
A very wise fish keeper and water expert coined the phrase become a keeper of water before becoming a keeper of koi by explaining to him as a novice then we get across this message I cannot see anything wrong in that

rgrds

Dave

 

[crsublette]

You can not be a keeper of water if you want to ignore the basics KH is definitely quite basic and is not complicated at all and is much more important to know than pH.

Test strips are only good at giving a very quick snapshot view of the water quality. I would definitely not rely on them.

The owner is talking about pH in this thread, not filtration and rest of it. Lets try to stick on topic.

KH is extremely simple to understand. You don't need to know the elaborate details, but aware of how easy it is.

The intent is to have koi or goldfish so this is extremely important.

 

[mellis18]

Thank you to everyone for all the advise. My pH has pretty consistently been around 7.8-8.2 so I guess I'm alright. I use a dechlorinator when I add water. I have installed an Aqua Ultra 10,000 gal biological filter with an Advantage pump that will pump 8,500 gph. My pond is about 8,000 gals. I will also be filtering the water through a falls at the other end.
Again thanks for the advise. I will be adding photos of the project in my profile soon.

 

[crsublette]

Thank you to everyone for all the advise. My pH has pretty consistently been around 7.8-8.2 so I guess I'm alright. I use a dechlorinator when I add water.

Yep, you're alright as long as your KH stays good.

After looking at the water test Dianne shared, then you are ok with your KH as long as you continue to do water changes or do a trickle water change system (also called a flow through). A total alkalinity of 52~200 is quite a huge range; 52 might cause problems, but you are completely fine if it is 200.

Eventually, heavy rains and the acids created by Mother Nature will consume some of the KH; eventually, the KH could be depleted low enough to cause problems.

If KH becomes low or nonexistant, then, once you put more fish in the water or if you get a heavy rain or other pollution is introduced to the water, your pH will dramatically change, which will stress the fish's health.

Get a KH test kit. Once you put bigger fish in the pond, then you will need to know this. The test is very easy. Simply take the vial that comes with it, fill it with water, and count the number of drops (shake vial after each drop) you put into the vial until the vial's water changes color. No need to wait for results. Simply multiply the total number of drops by 17.9 and you know your KH level. Each drop of solution is marked as one degree.

Personally, for a beginner, I would recommend to never have the volume lower than 4 degrees and to have it closer to 11 degrees. Ya don't need to know all of the chemistry details. Ya just need to know how to do this extremely simple test. This will keep your pH at around a constant 8.4.

Also, personally, I would stay away from the pond store pH products since it is the expensive way to fix the problem. If your pH is changing on you, then all you need is good old cheap household baking soda to raise your KH level, that is your typical cooking baking soda. For an easy reference, one pound of baking soda per 1,000 gallons of water will increase your KH by approximately 4 degrees. Let it sit in your pond water for a day before ya test your water. Repeat it as necessary. Simple.

The test for GH is just as easy, but there are more products involved to raise it and the GH test kits, even the liquid drop kits, can be deceiving, but KH is more important. From looking at your water test that Dianne shared, looks like your GH might be a little low. Once you've done this test, give a yell. You might be fine with your GH as long as you keep up with your water changes and look into adding minerals to your fish food such as koi clay. In the wild, koi (which is a carp), actually eat the mud to get their minerals.

A calcium carbonate product (such as crushed coral, aragonite, or crush oyster shells) can be put into the water, where the water will pass over it, and these products will slowly release the material needed to raise your KH. Lithaqua is another extremely good product, but the availability of it is quite limited here in the states and it can be quite expensive sometimes. Keep in mind that these products are just to maintain KH and are extremely slow release at pHs above 7.4 so you might need alot of it. These products will help you reduce the frequency of using baking soda, but you will eventually need to use the baking soda if you ever get an extremely heavy rain or when you notice the KH significantly drop.

 

[crsublette]

Mellis, also read the manufacturers instructions of your bead filter. With some bead filters, the manufacturer will highly recommend a KH of 200ppm, which is 11 degrees, for optimal bio-filtration efficiency.

 

[Dave 54]

You can not be a keeper of water if you want to ignore the basics KH is definitely quite basic and is not complicated at all and is much more important to know than pH.

Test strips are only good at giving a very quick snapshot view of the water quality. I would definitely not rely on them.

The owner is talking about pH in this thread, not filtration and rest of it. Lets try to stick on topic.

KH is extremely simple to understand. You don't need to know the elaborate details, but aware of how easy it is.

The intent is to have koi or goldfish so this is extremely important.

As I said before the guy is a novice we both now about KH GH and the rest ,but terms but to talk ionized ammonia NH3 NH4 TAN it mean's nothing to a person starting out
All they know are terms like PH Ammonia Nirite Nitrate they pick it up as they go along and only then because its writen on the bottle.
But filtration is part and parcel of a pond without it pretty darn soon everything in the pond would be dead get the wrong size filtration and again you'd see all his fish dead to say its unimportant filtration is one of the main things we should be asking.
I have to ask as should you what filtration he intends to use which is the answer to all our questions about water quality.
Spike even states if your having problems with your pond then water change, water change, water change is that an over simplified way of looking at things no its logical.
There are folks in our club who dont bother with KH and GH, just using Ammonia PH Nitrite, Nitrate test kits, they have no problems whatsoever with their ponds or their koi.
I know this as I've talked to them and asked them why they dont use it their anwser because they dont feel it necessary ( each to there own ).
We are not here to score points of one another we are here to help but in helping we have to keep things simplified until your sure that the novice has a grasp of what you are saying
I'll bet that there are folks on here that dont use KH or GH and have a far differing veiw of fishkeeping than ourselves.

rgrds

Dave

 

[crsublette]

I leave it up to the reader to decide what they are capable of learning. I'm not going to talk down to them... I'm not going to assume their level of understanding... If they don't understand, then this is why questions are asked...

I agree with you on the filtration aspect, but this thread is about pH and not filtration. KH is the prime determanent of pH.

Personally, I think it is a huge overlook to be looking at pH.

pH is simply the result of the KH and its salt. There are two variables involved in creating your pH and KH is one of the primary variables.

I will even go so far as to say I think it is a mistake to be using pH as an indicator of water quality. Why do folk think pH is easier to understand than KH ?? My guess is that everyone tells them it is easier and are told they do not need to "overcomplicate" things, which is quite unfortuante. KH is absolutely no more complicated to understand than pH. KH drop test takes about 2 minutes longer than a pH test, that's it. Heck, I doubt folk know the exact algorithm used to derive the pH. Folk don't need to know all of the chemistry details, but I don't not mind sharing what I know when I get the impression to give more detail when a particular question is asked.

You'll be fine if ya just test your pH, since it also takes into account of the KH most of the time.


Sure, there are folk that don't test their KH as they should, much like pH. There are more folk that simply don't test the water until problems happen. Sure, if you have hard water, then you can get away with not testing much at all.

I'm not one to follow the crowd, that is to follow them off the proverbial bridge. If folk don't want to test the appropriate water parameters, then that is fine with me.

Again, I leave it up to the reader to decide what they are capable of learning. I'm not going to talk down to them... I'm not going to assume their level of understanding... If they want to know more or don't understand, then this is why questions are asked...

Too much is written in this hobby out of a concern of "over-complication", that the reader is a "dum dum", and simply will not understand, which I think is a bit offensive.