treating fish
- Thread starter fishygirl
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strip test kits are notorious for giving you wrong or nowhere near correct readings your best bet would be to buy a API pond drop test kit thats all four test in the one kit Ammonia Nitrite, Nitrate, ph .
These should then give us an accurate idea of just what is going on within your pond at this current tme but remember speed is of the essence
Dave
These should then give us an accurate idea of just what is going on within your pond at this current tme but remember speed is of the essence
Dave
The ammonia looks closer to 2 ppm to me, which is very high. It should always be at zero. You need to do a 90% water change.
WOW that is the ammonia in a 3100 gallon pond? Yeah you have big problems. You need to add a lot more biofiltration or greatly reduce the fish load.
WOW that is the ammonia in a 3100 gallon pond? Yeah you have big problems. You need to add a lot more biofiltration or greatly reduce the fish load.
I will say this, someone like Dave54 will come along and say 90% is too much. And I will disagree. I do 90% water changes in my aquariums often. With that much ammonia in there a large change is the only way to get it to an acceptable level. Maybe wait for a couple other people to post, but im sticking with minimum 75% change. That would leave you around .25 to .5 ammonia, which is still too high, but MUCH better.
If you are using city water, be sure to use a dechlorinator. If you are on well water, dont worry about it.
I have well water...I will do about half today and..then take some out again tomorrow..may e half again...I would clean it all out..I know it's nasty on the bottom but I don't want to stir all that up..since fish are having a time of it...so little at a time....I have had this pond for 15 year's and have never had any problems with the fish...the only thing which might have happened..have a large clump of iris that have kinda grown to the liner..and they are so large now that the wind. Blew them over and maybe it stirred something up ..I don't know
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We are on a well here too, I have to be careful with water added, our well water ph is so darn low if we did a massive water change it would kill the fish.
I assume by now you know your ph of your well water. A big water change can cause issues if it is low.
I assume by now you know your ph of your well water. A big water change can cause issues if it is low.
That's a great point. I forgot to consider a possible ph difference.
ya know what else, you dont want a huge temperature swing either. try to stay within 10 degrees if possible.
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Ours sits around 5.5 or so, I found out the hard way, killed the first group of test fish I put into the pond. I had the pond running for a few months and it still killed them.............THOUGHT all was good lol, learned the hard way even well water can cause issues. Ours is very soft and very acidic.
Yeah that all totally slipped my mind for a moment! Thanks for bringing it up.
"Fact dp", Val and I are the sort of people who come along and give good sound advice and the recomended waterchange ratio for high ammonia is 10-20% on a daily basis not a whole 90% which put the poster back to square one again .
Your talking of aquariums not ponds dp and even then I would only recomend 50-60%
We should be looking as to the reaons why the posters ammonia levels are that high so we can set about correcting them.
"Questions need to be asked of the poster"....
Like when was the last time you cleaned your filter?
When was the last time you cleaned the bottom of your pond ?
How much do you feed your fish ?
How closely do you monitor your water perameters ?
How heavily stocked is your pond ?
How many water changes do you do on a regulr basis ?
All these should be being asked etc not say "someone like Dave54 will come along and say 90% is too much"it. quite simply because it is too much and what your doing quite simply and plainly put undermines the whole process of getting the posters pond back on track things like ammo lock and zeolite need to be discussed to at least lock the ammonia away .
You should know by now that if the posters pond isnt new then the above are the questions that have to be asked to see where they are going wrong in the hope of finding the answer .
Then when the pond is back on track making sure the poster keeps it that way, now I know you just love dissing me but please stop
Dave
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Dave the problem with changing 10 to 20 percent is that it will take a week's to get the ammonia down to an acceptable level. And what do you mean a 90% change will put the poster back to square one? Do you understand the "cycle" is not in the water? Do you understand square one is where this person needs to be in terms of water quality, where ammonia is zero?
Fish weakend by high ammonia nitrates etc have been known first to recover then just days later die of PH shock in that fish have the ability to accomodate changes in water conditions provided that those conditions change gradually and remain within the physiological toerance limits of the species concerned .
I'e the acclimation to the gradual increase of the ammonia levels was in fact less life-threatening to the fish than that of the subsequent exposure to a sudden large change in Ph .
Meaning it is vitally important to aviod subjecting fish to a sudden rapid changes in water conditions .
Hense the advice of 10-20% water changes daily
Dave
I'e the acclimation to the gradual increase of the ammonia levels was in fact less life-threatening to the fish than that of the subsequent exposure to a sudden large change in Ph .
Meaning it is vitally important to aviod subjecting fish to a sudden rapid changes in water conditions .
Hense the advice of 10-20% water changes daily
Dave
So please tell me about this square one concept....