Overdosed my pond - panic!

[Aoife cleary]

Hello,
We recently bought a house that came with a pond of 19ft x 13 ft, 4.5ft deep. Roughly 30,000 litres I think. Gold fish, koi, tench, hybrids I too I think!

Anyway, we have a heatwave here in Ireland (surprisingly!). Through research (I’m a complete novice at this) I figured out my pond was low on o2, I bought an aeration device.

Problem starts here - shop told me to treat for parasites as I Showed him pics of my fish, BUT I completely miscalculated the dosage and gave three times the amount of Blagdon anti parasite treatment. It’s currently 1am and I have the hose running to try dilute it somewhat.

IS this a COMPLETE disaster and are my fish going to die? Raging with myself

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our group! Does it say anything in the dosage instructions about dangers of using to much?

I have never used it or heard of it.

 

[Aoife cleary]

It’s says that it’s a 5 day treatment, 660ml per day, but today I put in 1500ml, my mind was elsewhere when doing the calculations unfortunately. It was only when I settled down tonight it dawned on me that my math was wrong.

It doesn’t say anything on the back about overdosing. Blagdon seems to be a pretty popular brand here as that’s all the shop stocked and they had lots of different varieties of treatments.

Hopefully with the aeration and the current (very slow water change I’m doing) it’ll be okay. We are in drought here at the minute, which is crazy, all we typically get is rain, so I’m being a right brat doing a partial water change.

Hopefully all will be okay, and thanks so much for getting back to me. All this pond stuff is a massive learning curve!

Aoife

 

[Tara]

How's things. Where in Ireland are you? I know down in kerry years ago water was fine from the tap, as it had no chlorine or not much that it harmed fish. Now a days your water needs to be treated as the additives to pubic water has changed some. If adding a lot of tap water treat with something to remove chlorine. Not sure about the parasite meds though. Someone here may know. Don't be raging at yourself, sure mistakes happen, and we all learn as we go. Hopefully things will be grand in morning. Watch the tap, heard ye all have meters now a days.

 

[Tara]

P.s. There is a shop in Tralee kerry. Not sure if its still there or not. The gentleman there was very knowledgeable about all fish related topics. He used to import a lot of fish, and was the go to person for fish related problems. Maybe if you call a place in the morning they may have some advice for you. Or look up up the Shop in Kerry. PS. My sister in Spain said the weather in Kerry is hotter, I simply can't believe it.

 

[Aoife cleary]

Hi Tara,

I’m in Laois. We have our own well so we are lucky enough in that sense, but the water in my area has a naturally very high ph, but the fish are here 13 years (according to previous owner) so they don’t seem to mind too much! When I tested water yesterday ph was 8.5 but it definitely does be higher at times.

Husband will go bananas if I run the well dry, we are actually on a nationwide hosepipe ban!

Are you originally from Ireland? Tara is a very Irish name, one of my favs.

Hope the fish are still happy tomorrow. I have a favourite koi, no idea what type he is or anything but he’s very friendly. Would hate to stress him out. I think I’m too soft for this pond malarkey!

 

[Aoife cleary]

Just spotted your second message - good to know about man in Kerry. Only one place, aquatic village in Dublin, that seems to be any help re ponds that I have come across. I’m not sure that it is a very popular hobby here?

 

[Tara]

I don't think so. I used to live not far from Banna. Lucky you have a well though in this day and age as their all raging about the meter. My friends Dad in Ballyduff kept fish and would order from this fella in Tralee, and he was very good about importing all manner of fish. My Dad used to get sent to Listowel water plant in Kerry to check it, and drag me along, never seen anything like it. Not kidding it had rock and dirt filter on the roof, like a crazy antique system. Now you need a meter to use it. Strange times

 

[carolinaguy]

Not familiar with the material. Does the label discuss symptoms of an overdose? Do we know the chemical involved? The simple solution would be to do a 70 percent water change which would dilute the remain8ng chemical to about the appropriate dosage. That’s a pricey solution if you are using metered city water. If the symptoms involve respiration issues there are several approaches to counteract the effect. Some treatments cannot be overdosed. Some are deadly in a short time, I’d go with a water change to be safe.

Looked on line myself and the instructions suggest it is a mix of several ingredients not including formalin. The formalin comment comes from customer reviews but nothing about the chemicals in the mix. The comments suggest introducing a lot of air as a precaution.

 

[Tara]

By the way sent pictures of your pond. Would love to see a pond in Ireland.

 

[sissy]

did you try to contact the company online to make sure you are doing it right

 

[Sparky]

Along with water change I would perhaps introduce some charcoal to your filtration. Odd that they would want you to treat for parasites. What were the symptoms?

 

[Gemma]

Welcome to the forum @Aoife cleary
I hope your fish are fine!
I too have a very high PH, my fish don't seem to mind so I leave it alone.

 

[Aoife cleary]

Hi all,

Thanks so much for all your replies. Fish were fine after, thank God! I did 30% water change, they don’t appear to have suffered any ill effects... The guy in the pet shop said some of my fish have white patches on them caused by parasites, but to be honest, I can’t see them but I’m so new to all of this that I just took his advice. I see one white tench (or hybrid of gold fish/koi/tench maybe) with a sore red eye, but that’s all I can spot.

I have looked for a filteration system in the pond but I don’t think it has one. It has an aquamax 10000 feeding a small water fall type thing, I emailed the company (Aquamax) last week to see would that have a filteration function, they said no, it’s just a pump. Aside from the airstones I bought last week I can’t see any other device attached to pond so I’m assuming there isn’t a filter system in place.

I checked for nitrates with new pond stick things I bought and it reads zero. I am definitely looking into getting a filter system in though, something easy to install I hope.


Aoife

 

[Sparky]

No canister filter or in the waterfall box maybe? Time to get out the camera. Let’s see what you got.