What does quarrantining accomplish?

[buckry]

Confused about the water in my QT and pond. I fill the pond with a garden hose and the QT with my utility sink. Both of these faucets are on the same copper line in the basement, but the pond is showing as very hard, and the QT as very soft. I didn't worry about it too much because I tested the water in the bags and it came back very soft, so for a transition that worked out great, but I guess I'm going to need to start bringing pond water to the QT for my water changes to harden it up.

So confusing why it's different coming from 2 different points of the same pipe, they're only about 30' feet of pipe apart and it's all copper, it's not like one is all plastic and the other is copper.

 

[fishin4cars]

Glad to hear your taking the extra effort and using a QT tank. I just read on your other thread and meant to mention it there. That's really odd on your water. Only thing I can think of is one possibly hooked to some type of filter? I know some filters have water softening cartidges.

 

[buckry]

I don't think so. The plumbing is really odd. I have 2 outdoor spigots. One is hooked up to the outpu of my water softener the other is not. The hot water inside the house is soft, but the kitchen and bathroom sinks are hard. The spigot that is soft is in the backyard and if I use it for anything like watering the yard or filling the pond it immediately uses up all of my water and it recharges the softener making me go through tons of salt. If I use the spigot in the front yard for this stuff we can go months without having to buy salt.

The front yard spigot, cold water in the kitchen, and cold water in the utility sink are all plumbed within just a few feet of each other on the same copper line. There is no place for a filter anywhere in there.

I think that's a good thing though, I think bringing pond water down to the QT is the best way to get the new fish ready for the pond. The QT is only 20 gallons so 2 gallons would be what I need to bring, i can do that easily with a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[Mudbugnla]

Buckry, what kind of rocks, concrete, or pottery do you have in your pond? It is possible that something in your pond is helping make your water hard. Do you have any limestone in your pond? This would cause the ph to go higher. If you have rocks or pebbles at the bottom of your pond that have a high ph then they will leach into your pond water over time and cause the ph to rise. Possibly this is what you are seeing with the pond water.

 

[buckry]

Nothing in my pond but fish. I have plastic planters, I guess a few areas the liner allows some of my flagstone to touch the water, probably 8 rocks out of 80 touch the water when it's full to the brim, usually though the water level is down and the rocks are dry.

I have a preformed liner with a piece of slate in it and aquarium gravel and it tests hard as well and it's filled from the same hose. I'll fill a bucket tomorrow with water straight out of the hose, I suspect it will come up maxxed on hardness. I'll do the same thing in the basement.

Honestly the obvious answer here is there are two sets of pipes in the basement, one has to feed the spigot, one feeds the sink. I bet they criss cross above a duct or something so I can't see what is truly going on. I've been eyeballing where pipes go, but I haven't gotten up there and followed each one. I bet if I do that I will find out that my cold water in the basement is actually coming from the water softener.

 

[buckry]

So weird, adding salt made all of the fish act bizarre. They're floating around like zombies, their dorsal fins are laid flat and they just let the current take them. I just fed them and all but the one I'm worried about was eating, but I almost feel like they'd be better of in my pond straight away.

Anyway, what is everyone elses salting procedures for new fish?

I have them in a 20g tank, which all tests have been great, haven't seen a single ppm of ammonia show up on any tests yet so for now my tank is a good size for these small fish.

I added 2 tablespoons of salt which I believe should have given me the .3%. The label didn't tell me what percentage I was dosing, it just said 1tbs per 10 gallons. All of my shubunkins are acting perfect, not skittish, very healthy appetites, and they are not drifting at all. I believe their dorsal fins are flat though.

There might be a couple of koi not acting weird, but there are at least 4 koi hiding in the cave at all times, and they're usually the same 4. I definitely think there are some fish in there that I haven't seen since I opened the bag.

I just did a major water change just in case the salt was messing them up, changed out about 50% of the water, so now i should be at .015 salt. Once I did that most of the koi started acting a little better, just 3 are free floating now.

At this point that means I did 12 hours at .3%, and am going to do another 8 hours at .015%, then I'll probably just do 10% water changes every day for a while.

So what would a normal salting routine be for you guys?

 

[buckry]

So after looking at my plumbing I did find out the utility sink's cold faucet is soft water. The outside spigot and cold faucet in the kitchen are together on their own special line. Whoever plumbed my house was an idiot.

My first fish is about to die, and even though logic tells me he was sick to begin with or the stress was just too much for him, I can't help but blame myself. I feel like it was most likely something I did.

The water has been perfect, but it started out soft and over 3 days I slowly hardened it up. It's not maxed out on hardness, but it's getting close.

The main thing I did was twice daily 10% water changes, and a couple of 25% water changes. I have to wonder if this made things worse.

Of course the other side of this is all 13 of the other fish are acting pretty good. There are 3 more that are drifting in the current, but that leaves 10 fish that have acclimatized just fine, so again, it's most likely the stress, but it's so easy to second guess yourself when you're killing poor defenseless creatures.

I think I've diluted the salt enough I'm just going to maintain the 72 degree water now, no more fresh water for at least a couple of days. Need to see if those 3 floating fish will calm down if I keep the water the same.

 

[HARO]

My outside spigot and the kitchen cold water line also share the unsoftened water line. I don't like the taste of softened water, and use that tap for coffee, tea, and drinking water. And the plants in the back yard (and my pond) don't get soft water either. The front yard is served by a yard hydrant, direct fron the well. I did all the plumbing myself, and don't consider myself an idiot.
John

 

[buckry]

Cold water is supposed to be hard though, for them to go out of their way to make certain faucets soft is stupid, and to make a spigot in the yard soft, I guess if you are watering your flowers with that you have more money than sense because you're going to tear through bags of salt.

Everything you said you did sounds exactly right, my house is fragmented and ridiculous. Plus they used this weird kwest brand fitting system that takes a special crimping tool, so I can't make any changes to it, I either have to leave it alone, or redo it all with copper.

 

[buckry]

Ok, so I'm 4 days into my first quarantine of koi. I lost 4 to stress, 1 was awesome, so bummed about that, but the other 6 have all stabilized, 5 are acting totally fine, one is acting just a little bit zombielike. He could take a turn for the worse, not sure. I hope he makes it, he's a really nice Kohaku, probably the 3rd best in the batch.

I ended up moving the shubunkins out of the QT and put them in the goldfish pond. They've been rock solid since day 2 and the ammonia level was like 1ppm, I think getting them out along with 4 koi deaths should bring me back down to zero.

But as my fish load decreases it has got me wondering, what happens to my QT after my 3 weeks is up and I move my 6 happy fish to their new permanent home? I can't have that aquarium running forever without fish in it can I? With no fish I'll have no ammonia and with no ammonia won't my bacteria die off?

Or will the QT be ok with no fish in it as long as I keep it oxygenated?

Is the solution here to keep 2 goldfish in this tank forever?

 

[koiguy1969]

if you really want to keep an active bacterial colony in the tanks filter....an ocassional (as needed) few drops of common household ammonia will suffice