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    Thread: 9.0 PH Help! am I reading it wrong? Ammonia 1.0 fish laying on bottom

    1. #41
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      Quote Originally Posted by foothill999 View Post
      I think they finally are done. I have done big water changes each day and that has seemed to help. Water quality straight from hose on that tank and I just remembered that is the only hose that uses the softened water from inside the house, hopefully that's ok. I added prime anyways and my kh test is being delivered today, Amazon just emailed about a delay on the powdered safe that was suppose to come. Hopefully that is only a short delay. Will update as soon as I get the kh test results and adjust both ponds as needed.
      The best thing you can do is familiarize yourself with the water parameters of the water you are using. I know you need to get your kits, this is just a reminder in advance of their arrival. Your Prime should last until the Safe arrives.

      To test the water you are using, run the hose for at least one minute before getting your sample for testing. As we've seen, an erroneous reading is very possible. That is because the chlorine can evaporate to some degree. Remember that what has evaporated will only be in the hose itself. That is why you need to run it long enough that the water from the hose is purged out and a true reading of what is in the water is achieved.

      When we tested our water at this location, the testing company said to run the tap no less than 3 minutes and preferably 10 minutes prior to taking a sample. I know water is a valuable commodity there so I'm not pressing for 10 minutes but if you can water some plants that need it for about 3 minutes, you will get a more accurate reading.

      Still learning as I go but y'all can call me Marilyn

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    2. #42
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      Btw, you posted about a koi lying on the bottom in your original post. Did they binder seem to make a difference?

      Still learning as I go but y'all can call me Marilyn

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      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      Btw, you posted about a koi lying on the bottom in your original post. Did they binder seem to make a difference?
      I think it did. The same fish still does that occasionally and almost like he is sucking on the side of the pond or sleeping. But I would say not as often, It has been 3 days without food and since there is no plants yet and pond not established no food or algee to scrounge for, they dont seem to be very hungry or interested in food yet. Pond water is warm.... around 75

    4. #44
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      We are waiting on kits to affirm what we suspect. IMO that is 1) there was no binder to protect them from the chlorine in the water, 2) there was no salt to protect them from the nitrite readings, 3) there is an indeterminate amount of KH/alkalinity which the filter needs to cycle.
      All of the above can make them very uncomfortable and potentially can kill them. One step at a time. We have to get the water as hospitable as possible for them. Koi don't sleep, they rest. Koi in 75 degree water that is healthy and if they are healthy will only do that when all the lights are off at night and not for that long. If the koi is doing that during the day then it isn't feeling well.
      The issue is, any one of a number of water quality issues can cause the distress so we have to eliminate those first. Sucking at the sides is an attempt to find food.

      Does this pond have salt in it?
      What is your current ammonia level in this pond?
      We haven't talked about aeration. Do you have an air pump for this pond and if yes, what size is it?

      Still learning as I go but y'all can call me Marilyn

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      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      We are waiting on kits to affirm what we suspect. IMO that is 1) there was no binder to protect them from the chlorine in the water, 2) there was no salt to protect them from the nitrite readings, 3) there is an indeterminate amount of KH/alkalinity which the filter needs to cycle.
      All of the above can make them very uncomfortable and potentially can kill them. One step at a time. We have to get the water as hospitable as possible for them. Koi don't sleep, they rest. Koi in 75 degree water that is healthy and if they are healthy will only do that when all the lights are off at night and not for that long. If the koi is doing that during the day then it isn't feeling well.
      The issue is, any one of a number of water quality issues can cause the distress so we have to eliminate those first. Sucking at the sides is an attempt to find food.

      Does this pond have salt in it?
      What is your current ammonia level in this pond?
      We haven't talked about aeration. Do you have an air pump for this pond and if yes, what size is it?
      Update with main pond readings.
      High range ph 7.6 much better then same wide range which was reading off the charts at 9.0....
      Ammonia between .5 and 1.0 untrained eye seemed closer to 1.0
      Nitrite between .5 and 1.0 closer to 1.0
      Nitrate 40ppm
      Kh and gh both took 11 drops 200ppm?
      Salt level .27 but don't trust my meter as 4ft away 5 second later it said .36 have added between 50 to 65 lbs of salt over last 5 days.
      Prime was added 3 days ago.

      Just the waterfall, no other aeration.

    6. #46
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      Quote Originally Posted by foothill999 View Post
      Update with main pond readings.
      High range ph 7.6 much better then same wide range which was reading off the charts at 9.0....
      Ammonia between .5 and 1.0 untrained eye seemed closer to 1.0
      Nitrite between .5 and 1.0 closer to 1.0
      Nitrate 40ppm
      Kh and gh both took 11 drops 200ppm?
      Salt level .27 but don't trust my meter as 4ft away 5 second later it said .36 have added between 50 to 65 lbs of salt over last 5 days.
      Prime was added 3 days ago.

      Just the waterfall, no other aeration.
      Hmm, I am stumped here.

      You said the pond was on day six in the initial post. Without a serious bio bacteria bump, in the form of existing media from another pond or live bacteria, I have not seen a pond cycle in one week.
      Your nitrAte reading is the one that has me seriously stumped. That indicates a very established pond. Were that the case, with your ammonia reading and your nitrite reading, I would say you are horribly under filtered given your water temperature. Again, ammonia converts to nitrite which converts to nitrate.
      Your GH and KH readings are good. Don't really worry about the GH going forward. The KH must be maintained to about 10 drops by your kit.
      In other words, what your readings are indicating is that the pond has fully cycled but can't keep up with the bio load it has. Which puts us back to the nitrAte reading and your pond volume.

      When you added the salt, how much did you add?

      Last thing, you need to list your tap water readings. Complete all the tests like you did for the pond, please. The answer is in here somewhere.

      Still learning as I go but y'all can call me Marilyn

    7. #47
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      Test results are in

      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      Hmm, I am stumped here.

      You said the pond was on day six in the initial post. Without a serious bio bacteria bump, in the form of existing media from another pond or live bacteria, I have not seen a pond cycle in one week.
      Your nitrAte reading is the one that has me seriously stumped. That indicates a very established pond. Were that the case, with your ammonia reading and your nitrite reading, I would say you are horribly under filtered given your water temperature. Again, ammonia converts to nitrite which converts to nitrate.
      Your GH and KH readings are good. Don't really worry about the GH going forward. The KH must be maintained to about 10 drops by your kit.
      In other words, what your readings are indicating is that the pond has fully cycled but can't keep up with the bio load it has. Which puts us back to the nitrAte reading and your pond volume.

      When you added the salt, how much did you add?

      Last thing, you need to list your tap water readings. Complete all the tests like you did for the pond, please. The answer is in here somewhere.

      POND (started up Sunday night) on day 9 salt added very slowly over about 5 days..... Prime added 3 days ago.
      Evening readings
      Salt .276 starting .01 added 65 pounds salt over multiple days PH 7.6 dark blue off chart so I had to use the high range PH and got 8.4
      KH 9 DROP
      ammonia 1.0 or a tiny less
      Nitrite .5 to 1.0
      Nitrate 40-50pmm
      Temp around 75 or 77 degrees



      City tap water from a hose that ran for 5 minutes, one that is used to fill the pond
      Salt .015
      PH 7.2
      KH 7 drops
      Amonia 0ppm
      nitrite 0ppm
      nitrate 10-20ppm
      temp right now would guess around 68 or 70




      Any answer with that information? Seem the city tape water is almost just what i need, should I just drain to above there heads and fill back up to give them some fresh water and relief, or leave it to the filter system to take over. Will changing water flush out good bacteria in the aqua ultima, or can I just drain it from the 2 bottom drains and bypass filter.

    8. #48
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      You should not do more than about a 30% water change. Changes in the water parameters is stressful for the fish, even if the change is theoretically for the better.

      Aerate your tap water vigorously and measure the pH a few hours after it has been drawn from the tap. I suspect that the reason the pH is low is that the water has a high CO2 concentration, and the pH will go to 8.3 after it has been aerated. This is another reason not to do a large water change. CO2 is extremely toxic, even when O2 is saturated.

      High nitrate in the tap water is unfortunate, but there is nothing practical that you can do about it.

      Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

    9. #49
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      Quote Originally Posted by RickF View Post
      You should not do more than about a 30% water change. Changes in the water parameters is stressful for the fish, even if the change is theoretically for the better.

      Aerate your tap water vigorously and measure the pH a few hours after it has been drawn from the tap. I suspect that the reason the pH is low is that the water has a high CO2 concentration, and the pH will go to 8.3 after it has been aerated. This is another reason not to do a large water change. CO2 is extremely toxic, even when O2 is saturated.

      High nitrate in the tap water is unfortunate, but there is nothing practical that you can do about it.

      Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
      Rick, any ideas how her nitrate would have increased to 40-50 unless the pond has cycled?

      Foothill, thanks for the additional info. It does give some answers. How many koi and sizes are in the pond?
      Bottom line, yes, you are very under filtered for the pond. An Ultima 2000 is best on small of ponds. To give you a reference, I was using a 1000 on a pond no more than 600 gallons when I first got into the hobby and it still wasn't doing that good a job of things.

      Still learning as I go but y'all can call me Marilyn

    10. #50
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      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      Rick, any ideas how her nitrate would have increased to 40-50 unless the pond has cycled?

      Foothill, thanks for the additional info. It does give some answers. How many koi and sizes are in the pond?
      Bottom line, yes, you are very under filtered for the pond. An Ultima 2000 is best on small of ponds. To give you a reference, I was using a 1000 on a pond no more than 600 gallons when I first got into the hobby and it still wasn't doing that good a job of things.
      I would say that it is in the middle of the cycle. Ammonia is being processed, nitrite is being processed, but neither one is completely caught up. Even in a very established pond, with good filtration if you have sensitive equipment, you will measure ammonia and nitrite being present. In my ponds with the Micro 7+, and 8, I was getting ammonia at 0.04 and nitrite similar. With this pond being new, I would say it is too early to determine if the filtration is going to be adequate, but if the ammonia and nitrite don't go down with time, it is a strong indicator that additional filtration is needed.

      With the amount of salt added, and the change in salinity it looks like the pond volume is 2832.296 gallons. Check the salinity again before changing any water to see if it changes anymore.
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    11. #51
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      Quote Originally Posted by RichToyBox View Post
      I would say that it is in the middle of the cycle. Ammonia is being processed, nitrite is being processed, but neither one is completely caught up. Even in a very established pond, with good filtration if you have sensitive equipment, you will measure ammonia and nitrite being present. In my ponds with the Micro 7+, and 8, I was getting ammonia at 0.04 and nitrite similar. With this pond being new, I would say it is too early to determine if the filtration is going to be adequate, but if the ammonia and nitrite don't go down with time, it is a strong indicator that additional filtration is needed.

      With the amount of salt added, and the change in salinity it looks like the pond volume is 2832.296 gallons. Check the salinity again before changing any water to see if it changes anymore.


      Shoot just seen this and today I let some water out using the waste setting on the filter and added fresh water back in and forgot to check salt level again, . In doing that I dropped my new cell phone in the pond and had to send my husband in the stinky water to retrieve it while he was in there I had him feel the suction on the bottom drains by closing the skimmer and opening only bottom drains, we put some dirt by it they did not seem to have good flow or suction even while the valve was all the way open. The skimmer has great flow when opened, you can see stuff flowing to it like crazy but stuff on bottom just seems to sit there even when pushed near it. Is that normal? Got the powdered safe in the mail today and added 15tsp. I did notice my large white koi and the white pregnant koi are both now rubbing on the rocks "flashing" I see a red spot on the side of one of them where you can tell it was doing this before today's water change. Do you think it's the poor water quality or parasite. Would it be safe to treat for parasites just to be sure since they are all new fish from the same pond.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      Rick, any ideas how her nitrate would have increased to 40-50 unless the pond has cycled?

      Foothill, thanks for the additional info. It does give some answers. How many koi and sizes are in the pond?
      Bottom line, yes, you are very under filtered for the pond. An Ultima 2000 is best on small of ponds. To give you a reference, I was using a 1000 on a pond no more than 600 gallons when I first got into the hobby and it still wasn't doing that good a job of things.
      I didn't know any better and was so excited the pond was finally finished that we added 4 large 18" to 22" koi and 2 medium 12" koi. I still have more koi in a seperate tank in the back that need to be added but holding off until it's safe to do so. So I defiently don't want to be under filtered. I am going to tell him again that if his water meter is correct and it's 3300 gallons then he needs to put in the Ultima 4000.

    13. #53
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      Whoops, just threw off your water parameters again. Keep checking them and adding your SAFE/Prime







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    14. #54
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      Quote Originally Posted by Marilyn View Post
      Rick, any ideas how her nitrate would have increased to 40-50 unless the pond has cycled?

      Foothill, thanks for the additional info. It does give some answers. How many koi and sizes are in the pond?
      Bottom line, yes, you are very under filtered for the pond. An Ultima 2000 is best on small of ponds. To give you a reference, I was using a 1000 on a pond no more than 600 gallons when I first got into the hobby and it still wasn't doing that good a job of things.
      Part of the issue is that the source water had 10 to 20 ppm of nitrate on the day foothill measured it. I suspect that nitrate in the source water changes at least seasonally, if not daily. Also, as Rich pointed out, there could be some bioconversion, but just not enough to keep up with the load. As you well know, source water in California can be less than ideal, so my guess is that the bulk of the nitrate came from the source water and was concentrated by evaporation.

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      Quote Originally Posted by RickF View Post
      Part of the issue is that the source water had 10 to 20 ppm of nitrate on the day foothill measured it. I suspect that nitrate in the source water changes at least seasonally, if not daily. Also, as Rich pointed out, there could be some bioconversion, but just not enough to keep up with the load. As you well know, source water in California can be less than ideal, so my guess is that the bulk of the nitrate came from the source water and was concentrated by evaporation.


      Fish are all still alive and thanks to everyone's help I have been trying not to worry so much and just let the cycle run it's course. Adding a dose of seachem safe every 2 or 3 days. Water was starting to get what I thought was green algee growing on the rocks around day 7 but now it looks way more brown yellowish, mostly on the rocks and you can still see 4ft to the bottom but it gets worse everyday. When looking from surface water looks like dark tea but when you collect a large amount in a container it's clear looking and not yellow or brown. Hoping it's a normal healthy part of the cycle. I did change about 20 percent of the water 2 days ago and tested the water today and for the first time the ammonia was much lower at around .25 nitrite a tag bit darker maybe at 1.0 and nitrate at around 20 to 30ppm. Ph back up to 8.5.

      Rookie mistake #1 on day 1 of new pond when we added all the new koi from the guys pond we dumped about a total of 30 gallons on the water we transported them in along with the koi. His pond was not the clearest water and hopefully that is not where this agree came from. I know know and have read why this is never a good idea for lots of reasons but at the time it seemed harmless.

    16. #56
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      Algae happens no matter what you do. A fine carpet of algae over the liner is a good thing. Green water from free floating algae is unsightly, but as long as there is adequate areation, it is not a problem for the fish. Most new ponds go through periods of green water. A UV light will keep green water under control, but even without a UV light, the water will clear eventually.

      Brown water usually is caused by tannin from leaves that fall into the pond. Grey water is often caused by bacterial blooms. This is not uncommon in new ponds. It takes a few years for the microorganisms in the pond to balance out.

      Do not be tempted to add chemicals to control the algae, especially now. The algae is removing ammonia, and until the biofilter matures, algae can be your friend. Long string algae can be pulled out by hand. The short carpet algae is a good thing and should be left alone.

      You mentioned rocks. Rocks covering the bottom of a koi pond end up trapping debris and eventually will cause problems. I would not recommend them.

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    17. #57
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      Quote Originally Posted by RickF View Post
      Algae happens no matter what you do. A fine carpet of algae over the liner is a good thing. Green water from free floating algae is unsightly, but as long as there is adequate areation, it is not a problem for the fish. Most new ponds go through periods of green water. A UV light will keep green water under control, but even without a UV light, the water will clear eventually.

      Brown water usually is caused by tannin from leaves that fall into the pond. Grey water is often caused by bacterial blooms. This is not uncommon in new ponds. It takes a few years for the microorganisms in the pond to balance out.

      Do not be tempted to add chemicals to control the algae, especially now. The algae is removing ammonia, and until the biofilter matures, algae can be your friend. Long string algae can be pulled out by hand. The short carpet algae is a good thing and should be left alone.

      You mentioned rocks. Rocks covering the bottom of a koi pond end up trapping debris and eventually will cause problems. I would not recommend them.

      Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


      Thanks each and every rock inside our pond is mortored Into place so things cents get under. I recently added shade is that good or bad for a new pond trying to establish. The pond is in a courtyard and wood beams already over the second story over a house so I found the perfect huge shade sails from Costco and hung 2 of them and the pond is about 75 percent shaded now. The brown algee started prior to this. It it seems the 3 days they have been up it has gotten even worse. But like you said seems it's only helping since ammonia levels have gone way down. I will just leave it alone and see what happens

    18. #58
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      Shade is good.

      Brown algae (which is actually diatom colonies, and not a true algae) is a very good thing to have growing in the pond. People pay a lot of money buying products that are supposed to promote the growth of brown algae. A healthy growth of brown algae will compete for the nutrients needed for green algae to grow and will cut down on the possible development of green water and string algae - both of which are very unsightly. Brown algae will thrive in the shade, whereas green algae prefer bright sunlight.

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      Quote Originally Posted by RickF View Post
      Shade is good.

      Brown algae (which is actually diatom colonies, and not a true algae) is a very good thing to have growing in the pond. People pay a lot of money buying products that are supposed to promote the growth of brown algae. A healthy growth of brown algae will compete for the nutrients needed for green algae to grow and will cut down on the possible development of green water and string algae - both of which are very unsightly. Brown algae will thrive in the shade, whereas green algae prefer bright sunlight.


      Awesome information! Glad to hear this.

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      I just noticed that my 16" savio skimmer has a floating door and the builder has it set I would say a good 3 or 4" below water level. I looked under there and the floating door just stays laying flat and it's sucking in the top 3 or 4inches of water. Is this the correct way? It seems to work great when perfectly clean, you can see bubbles or leafs ect on top of pond flowing fast toward the skimmer from across the pond. but as soon as a small layer of foam or a few big leafs get built up in the skimmer the skimmer notiably comes to a very low skim of the top layer and stuff on top starts to build up ( I am assuming the floating material inside skimmer slows the surface tension on top and it just starts pulling water from underneath instead. Any ideas ?

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