My goldfish pond

[callingcolleen1]

The excess sludge can create toxic ammonia which is worse. Look, here is my pond tonight, water around 50 degrees, excess sludge gone, fish are swimming around lots and look really healthy....

 

[callingcolleen1]

If you just remove a little at a time and increase the water flow the ammonia risk will lessen.

 

[CometKeith]

okay, I will try that. so a little at a time? It hit 70 degrees today for the first time this year and is going to 80 tomorrow. I'll try netting a little sludge out. Also I started feeding yesterday and again today. Just a little fall/spring food once a day. Colleen your pond looks nice and the fish look happy! Here are a few pics I took this afternoon. You can see the waterfall in the background. I have a Laguna 600, a Laguna 900, and some airstones running so my water flow is good.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Thanks Keith, and your fish look pretty good to me! Water looks great too! That extra pump you got last year must be helping. I think it won't hurt to take the net and just do a little here and there, every other day. Spring can be trouble for everyone, the sudden hot sun combined with excess winter waste, can cause smear algae to rise and water quality to drop. I have been busy cleaning the filters almost every day to get the loose smear algae out of the pond. Once the plants and bacteria are back fully to life, then the filters don't need to be cleaned so much, like once a month, but for now, I keep them cleaned as they were really full of guck and smear alage.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks. I probably over worry. I never have any problems at all except in the spring so that is why i am so vigilant right now. Maybe the new Laguna 900 pump is the thing making the difference because so far all the fish are doing well and much better than the rough patches I went through the last few years. It doesn't got to a filter and directs water to the waterfall. Most of the fish I have I got within 12 months of when I started the pond except for the babies. My oldest two I got from Petsmart about 4 years ago, one is a spotted sarasa comet and the other is all orange with orange long fins and tail. I have two large comets I got from a friend last year. I have three shubunkins that I have had from 2-3 years. The biggest one I bought when he was only 1 inch long for $1.99. There are two that were born in the pond 3 years ago, one that is all white now, and the other orange with a white nose and of course I have something like 20-25 babies that were born last year and are both comets and shubunkins, and about 6-7 of the comets are still all black. I have noticed what looks like soap bubbles. I have seen them before but didn't know what they were. So this means I have DOCs? Now I know I need to clean the organic matter!

 

[callingcolleen1]

The bubbles could be caused by heavy rain as well, as the heavy rain lowers the PH of the pond water and you could be having soft water bubbles. I have had them many times after a heavy rain, they look light big glass bubbles that slowly drift across the pond and take forever to melt! If the ponds PH is too low, the fish will have trouble breathing, and will hang out at the surface of the water and swim slower than normal. You can add fresh tap water and that may fix the problem too.

It is snowing lightly AGAIN!! Starting to wonder if we are going into another ICE AGE here!! Everybody on face book and the news is complaining about cooler than normal temperatures across the praires! I did see a documentary on TV that said we are really entering the first phase of another ice age, as the suns elliptical pattern is actually slowly moving away from the earth, but it is supposed to take like a really long time and not supposed to see this in our lives, however, the last five springs have been cold here.....

 

[callingcolleen1]

The white ones I find are usually female. The black babies can stay black for about one year, sometimes more. The fish with the biggest mouths get to be the biggest fish, that's all I can tell you. What does DOC stand for?

 

[CometKeith]

I still don't know the sex of the white one, but i hope it is a female so I get more white ones like her. Some of the black ones look like their tails and fins have a very slight orange hue. I hope some of them change soon. I don't like having so many black ones.They fish started chasing each other at about sundown tonight. it hit 84 degrees, but is supposed to be cold this weekend. Colleen I think you can blame all your cold weather on Greenland! Somehow the funny weather patterns always start there. I heard this little ditty recently. Greenland is ice and Iceland is green!

I have seen DOC's mentioned on several threads. Here is something on the recent thread: new pond planning, need help to choose.

Settling tanks are not the best filters for removing suspended waste. Mainly because the waste isn't removed. It continues to decompose into such small bits that it once again becomes part of the water column. In that form we call itDOCs (dissolved organic compounds or carbon). It acts like soap and you come out to the pond one morning and see soap foam floating on the surface. I don't like the look of it myself.

 

[CountryEscape]

The "soap bubbles" you are seeing, Keith, are probably because your fish are spawning! When they spawn, I heard that where there is water splashing, it will foam up!
Oh, if your soap foam is green, then I have that in my pond. Sounds like I need to get busy with the net on the bottom, but first going to use the beneficial bacterial product and get that stuff to matt together so it comes out cleaner and doesn't make such a mess. Been waiting for the water to warm up, seems like I've waited long enough, though. Temps are probably above 60 after today 82 or 83 we had.

 

[CometKeith]

oh no!! I still haven't figured out what to do with the babies from last year...

 

[callingcolleen1]

OK, so you have little foam bubbles, not big single glass bubbles, that is different. I get the big single glass bubbles, not the small foamy stuff. I think the small sticky foamy bubbles may be caused by something else, not sure, could be a number of things...

We have had a good rain yesterday, and today I have a few bubbles I am sure this type is soft water bubbles from rain, as I always see these bubbles after a good rain.

Tonights pictures of bubbles on the water ...

 

[addy1]

If you have doc's it looks like foam you get from soap in a washer. White/brown foam, floats all over the pond usually.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Never had those bubbles in my pond before, but I have seen that at the creek floating. I think if you have that kind of foam it would be good to rid the pond of the excess winter waste quickly. I have always tried to remove all that excess waste very early in the spring, and I keep cleaning the underwater filters and washing out the muck lots in the spring so the pumps never slow down.
I never actually take the pond appart to clean they way others do,, but I do net out the excess waste and keep the filters and pumps running fast this time of the year.

 

[CometKeith]

Addy, I think they are doc's. I hardly did any cleaning this year and was taking the advice of persons not to be named... not to touch the pond until the water is 62 degrees. CE, They definitely aren't from spawning because I know what those look like and my fish are just starting to get randy. A few times I actually wondered if someone dumped in soap suds.. maybe the neighbor I don't get along with? It seems like it is from the undissolved carbon waste but they are not white or brown, just good size bubbles that seem to take a long time to pop. Colleen I started cleaning more of the leaves and gook today and will do a little every day from now on. I actually caught one of my bullfrogs today when I netted the bottom for leaves. I was as surprised as he was when he ended up in my net so I just quickly let him go. I don't see any sign of the green frogs from last year. Maybe they didn't make it through the winter.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I think if you try to get most of the guck out the filters can pick up the rest. I do recommend getting a pre- pump filter as they too help suck up the sludge well and most can run good all winter. If you have a good pre-pump filter it will also extend the life of your pump as well. The type I have been using is well worth the money in my opinion, and I have used that type for several years now and am very happy with them. Now that my Koi have grown yet again, it is important to keep the water clean, so I have connected two filters together as my type of model filter can be extended quite easy.

I don't use any after pump filter, and never have, and a good thing too, as I now discovered many people with filters that are not underwater, have problems running them all winter. I am sure they work good during the summer, but never had any of those types, as I always just thought it made more sense to have the filter before the pump, so the pump would run better and not get clogged up. Plus I just hate the thought of anybody getting sucked up the filter. Many years ago, this greenhouse where I worked, used a big "sump" type pump that had no pre-filter and the fish used to get suck head first into the pump, and that really grossed me out bad, having to remove another poor dead fish out of the pump! I know that most big pumps now come with a cage of some type to prevent this from happening, and the Laguna big pumps have that round cage that works pretty good and does not suck up any fish.