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    Thread: Please help me understand.

    1. #21
      szweier is offline Senior Member
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      Quote Originally Posted by RichToyBox View Post
      If there were a power outage that allowed the water in the filter to become stagnant, anaerobic, and then the power came back on blasting the hydrogen sulfide out, it would be possible, but if the filter were flowing, I don't believe it could have caused the problem.
      Yea I doubt that it would’ve become stagnant long enough to have been the cause in that case. That being said if the filter was clogged to the point that it no longer could keep up with the load in the pond. That combined with a storm that could’ve kicked up the bottom of the pond maybe would effect the oxygen level in the pond? Or what I just came across online was discussion of algal blooms depleting the oxygen. If that were the case would there be anything I could check to see if an algal bloom occurred? Seems like the pond would look green maybe? The bubbles had a green tint but nothing overwhelming in my opinion. Given how much material was suspended in the water column it’s hard to say what the color of the water is. Hoping after my filter cleaning that the water will be a bit clearer tomorrow to check those things. I have short algae growing off of my liner is that something that could’ve caused it.

      Also, I have one water hyacinth plant in my pond as well. Forgot to name that one. It’s incredibly small though but figured I’d mention it.

      Sorry for the rant of jumbled thoughts. Just throwing out anything I think might be remotely important in determining what went wrong.


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    2. #22
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      If the filter was not keeping up with the load, the ammonia level would have been up, as well as the nitrite level. With a strong storm, heavy amounts of acid rain could have caused a pH crash, which would kill the filter, and potentially the fish. It could also have caused the proteins in the pond to foam up, but I would think it could also break the foam so it would not be as heavy as it was. I have never seen a pH crash that killed everything as fast as you describe. Algae will consume oxygen during the night, putting carbon dioxide in the pond through the reverse of photosynthesis, and the high carbon dioxide would have two effects, pH lowering/crash, and problems with the fish being able to expel/release the carbon dioxide from the blood, causing some form of suffocation, but that is typically slow and affects the largest fish first, lots of piping by all survivors.

      The test results you posted earlier don't lend themselves to any of the above.
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    3. #23
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      Please help me understand.

      This is the odd behavior I was referring to from September 30th I wasn’t able to upload a video but at no point were their mouths up out of the water. They just seemed to hang out by the waterfall and then swim away back down into the deeper portion of the pond. You can also kind of tell how clear the water was at that point. Granted I think the foggy water after the storm is probably somewhat expected from the agitation caused by the rain. I saw similar behavior last year before I had issue. I thought adding the bubbler would help with the gas exchange but it didn’t seem to do the trick.



      The other picture I have is of a tree that gives me some concern. Since the same time of year led to issues I’m curious if anyone knows what type of tree this is and if it might be possible that the seeds it releases this time of year could be poisoning my water. I’ll post a pic of the tree and it’s leaves. Granted maybe the seeds are just adding a larger bio load quicker at this time of year than I have the rest of the year. I do try to keep up with removal of the seeds as much as possible to avoid any issue.






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    4. #24
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      Quote Originally Posted by szweier View Post
      This is the odd behavior I was referring to from September 30th I wasn’t able to upload a video but at no point were their mouths up out of the water. They just seemed to hang out by the waterfall and then swim away back down into the deeper portion of the pond. You can also kind of tell how clear the water was at that point. Granted I think the foggy water after the storm is probably somewhat expected from the agitation caused by the rain. I saw similar behavior last year before I had issue. I thought adding the bubbler would help with the gas exchange but it didn’t seem to do the trick.
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      in your thread.
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    5. #25
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      Here’s a link to a video from Sept 30.
      https://youtu.be/ciy2_CjHqkQ seemed like somewhat odd behavior but didn’t look like a problem. But maybe I’m wrong. I assume I am since...

      Anyhow. After cleaning the filter the pond is nice and clear again today. I can see there is some layer of dirt at the bottom of the pond but it doesn’t look like much.

      Can someone link me to one of these bottom drains? I see things that need to be installed into the liner but haven’t found anything that looks like it could just be placed into the pond.


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    6. #26
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      Looks like according to https://www.nassaucountyny.gov/Docum...ter/View/23184 there was Aerial Larvicide sprayed in my town in the morning of Oct 4th. I found my pond dead the morning of Oct 5th...

      While it says it was low flying helicopters aiming at specific areas it makes me wonder.

      Assuming that this is in fact what happened. What sorts of protections are there against this? Seems hard to do anything about.

      Edit: Looking at the map it doesn't look like it would've been close enough to have gotten to my pond given the low height they fly at.


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      Last edited by szweier; 10-14-2018 at 09:40 AM.

    7. #27
      icu2's Avatar
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      That does seem very coincidental but I'm not familiar with the chemical sprayed so have
      no idea it's toxicity to fish.
      Here's a link to a couple retro bottom drains (Aqua Art and Dream Pond):

      http://www.cascade-pond-supply.com/A...ins-p-474.html

      http://www.cascade-pond-supply.com/D...Air-p-998.html

      Imo those filters look pretty bad, but I think you know that. I don't understand the "handle" cleaning method that
      you said you used but those small filters look like they need a regular cleaning at least weekly.
      The retro BD will work best with some sort of gravity fed mechanical filter, like a sieve or settling chamber before
      the pressure filter. It will help extend the cleaning time needed and keep it from looking like those pictures.

      Welcome and thanks for joining Koiphen and I think you're on your way to improving your water so it will be a
      better home for your fish. Good luck on the journey!
      --Steve



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    8. #28
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      Quote Originally Posted by icu2 View Post
      That does seem very coincidental but I'm not familiar with the chemical sprayed so have
      no idea it's toxicity to fish.
      Here's a link to a couple retro bottom drains (Aqua Art and Dream Pond):

      http://www.cascade-pond-supply.com/A...ins-p-474.html

      http://www.cascade-pond-supply.com/D...Air-p-998.html

      Imo those filters look pretty bad, but I think you know that. I don't understand the "handle" cleaning method that
      you said you used but those small filters look like they need a regular cleaning at least weekly.
      The retro BD will work best with some sort of gravity fed mechanical filter, like a sieve or settling chamber before
      the pressure filter. It will help extend the cleaning time needed and keep it from looking like those pictures.

      Welcome and thanks for joining Koiphen and I think you're on your way to improving your water so it will be a
      better home for your fish. Good luck on the journey!
      Thanks. I’ll take a look at those drains. Yea I’m not a huge fan of the handles to do cleaning. It kicks up some of the junk but seems generally useless. I am about to purchase a second one to help handle the load. Then I’ll just have to open up and hose off monthly while using handles weekly. That’ll probably keep everything relatively clean. The filter is rated for 2100 gallons and I have about 1600 in the pond so I was over filtering. But doubling up might be a better amount of over filtering.


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    9. #29
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      Quote Originally Posted by szweier View Post
      Thanks. I’ll take a look at those drains. Yea I’m not a huge fan of the handles to do cleaning. It kicks up some of the junk but seems generally useless. I am about to purchase a second one to help handle the load. Then I’ll just have to open up and hose off monthly while using handles weekly. That’ll probably keep everything relatively clean. The filter is rated for 2100 gallons and I have about 1600 in the pond so I was over filtering. But doubling up might be a better amount of over filtering.


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      Pressure filter manufacturers rating for pond size can almost always be ignored. There's no way they
      know how many fish you have or how much you feed them. At best I'd divide their rating by 3 and that
      would be with some sort of mechanical filter before it as opposed to being directly fed by a pump.

      --Steve



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    10. #30
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      Quote Originally Posted by icu2 View Post
      Pressure filter manufacturers rating for pond size can almost always be ignored. There's no way they
      know how many fish you have or how much you feed them. At best I'd divide their rating by 3 and that
      would be with some sort of mechanical filter before it as opposed to being directly fed by a pump.

      Sorry but maybe I’m confused. What’s the difference between a pressure filter and a mechanical filter? The pressure filter I have has three sponges that the water is filtered through and a section below with bio ribbon for biological filtration.


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    11. #31
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      Quote Originally Posted by szweier View Post
      Sorry but maybe I’m confused. What’s the difference between a pressure filter and a mechanical filter? The pressure filter I have has three sponges that the water is filtered through and a section below with bio ribbon for biological filtration.


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      My fault... I should have said gravity fed mechanical filter. Your pressure filter is another type of mechanical filter.
      Gravity fed mechanical filters have the advantage of being able to remove debris before being pulverized by the
      pump.
      --Steve



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    12. #32
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      Quote Originally Posted by icu2 View Post
      My fault... I should have said gravity fed mechanical filter. Your pressure filter is another type of mechanical filter.
      Gravity fed mechanical filters have the advantage of being able to remove debris before being pulverized by the
      pump.
      Interesting. I don’t know that I’ve seen that type of filter. Off to google I go.


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    13. #33
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      With the foam on the pond, that is an indication of high DOC (dissolved organic compounds/carbons) and they are easily burned up by the use of low dose Potassium permangante treatments. No more than 2ppm one time and then if the foam is still present a day or two later, then another treatment, and when the foam builds again additional treatments. You can also build a phoam phraxionator, which will remove the foam without chemicals.
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    14. #34
      szweier is offline Senior Member
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      Please help me understand.

      Quote Originally Posted by RichToyBox View Post
      With the foam on the pond, that is an indication of high DOC (dissolved organic compounds/carbons) and they are easily burned up by the use of low dose Potassium permangante treatments. No more than 2ppm one time and then if the foam is still present a day or two later, then another treatment, and when the foam builds again additional treatments. You can also build a phoam phraxionator, which will remove the foam without chemicals.
      The thick foam seems to have cleared up since the event occurred. Most of it seemed to go away before I cleaned my filter but I’m sure cleaning it helped. I’ll keep the treatment in mind in the future.

      As I’m sitting here in the middle of the night thinking through what I could’ve done wrong or what signs I should’ve paid more attention to I have some additional thoughts.

      As you saw in the video the koi were hanging out by the waterfall. (The ones I lost around this time last year did the same but were gasping at the surface, these were not.) That being said I thought maybe they just found some good source coming out of the waterfall. In any case the fish seemed to swim around normally but were no longer interested in food. I attributed this to temperature changes and simply cut the amount of food I was giving them down to 1/3 the previous amount.

      Due to my assumption that last year they died of a parasite I decided to do a small treatment of melafix when I noticed their behavior change. I did the suggested dosage for three days in a row. This treatment makes for a lot of bubbles in the pond but that only lasts a short period of time and look different from the thick foam that appeared after the storm when all fish had died.

      Hopefully this new info brings some suggestions to mind. I’ll keep thinking about other things I’ve done. I am assuming based on other threads I’ve read that the problem was oxygen depletion. This is due to the shape the fish were in (rigid bodies, mouth opened).

      Below is a picture of some of the fish I lost. Maybe someone sees something that I missed? A parasite or something.



      Sigh, thanks for the continued help. Hard to stay optimistic for the future and convince myself to try again.

      I’d also taken a pic of one of their gills to see if
      I saw parasites. Seemed fine but I leave it to the experts to tell me.




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      Last edited by szweier; 10-15-2018 at 08:01 AM.

    15. #35
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      Hi szweier, I won't attempt to diagnose fish gills, etc., I'll leave that to the experts like Rich and icu2.

      So you used MelaFix. Any other medications or water conditioners? Salt? Dechlorinator?

      I just want to preface this by commenting on something you said previously about 'everyone being nice to you so far.' There's no reason for anyone not to be nice to you.
      You came here for help and to join with other Koi-loving folk to learn, share, and yes, even laugh and have fun. So relax. No one's going to bite. I've been known to nibble but ..
      Seriously, I still make plenty of mistakes and they haven't kicked me out so don't worry. Just play nice with others.

      re: Filter : As far as filters go, I found a PDF for your model in case anyone's interested: https://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/123p...flo-manual.pdf .
      Your filter is definitely not too big. Regardless of model or manufacturer, none of them are rated accurately when it comes to fish loads & ponds. I think 99% of the folks here will recommend a filter that is double or even triple the manufacturer's recommended size for a pond. If you ever decide to upgrade you can get plenty of help and ideas on equipment just by asking and also by checking out "Pond Construction and Filtration" forum. It's a sub-forum to the Main Forum.

      If you fire up the pond and give it another go I'd probably replace all or most of the water "justin". And I don't know how much splash your waterfall makes but a pondmaster AP-20 may not be enough for you on a really hot summer day or when you're medicating and they tell you to add oxygenation.

      I still lean toward electrical (stray current in pond + electrical storm) or something toxic (pesticide or ?). My reason for suggesting one or the other from the beginning was not only dead Koi and the large amount of foaming, it was the dead worms - on the rocks & on the net. Out of the water, in the water worms are resillient, I know, I used to have pockets full of them as a kid. They fascinated me.

      It's interesting that there was pesticide spraying just the day before. I downloaded the link to the 'notice' but I was unable to see a map. No matter. They sprayed. Even if it wasn't sprayed over your pond directly. The stuff goes everywhere - not just on trees and shrubs but on roof tops, cars, streets, gutters. Then it rained / stormed that night, wind blew, water washed a portion of that spray off those surfaces and it traveled along with the rain to ....... ? Anyone's guess. But the possibility is there.

      Is there any way to check back and see if they sprayed around the time your fish died last year also? You have what looks like the same 'kind' of foam on your pond in both pictures - only a lot denser and more widespread this year. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head?

      Or maybe this was a very unfortunate combination of things, perhaps the fish were already having some difficulty (whether due to water parameters, organics, low oxygen, etc.) and then something else happened that brought it to the point of no return.

      You should still be able to test for stray current. You could also take a water ample to find out if there's pesticides in the pond, assuming the test is wide-range. We have well-water we test for pesticides periodically, among other things.
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    16. #36
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      Please help me understand.

      Thanks for the feedback. I don’t recall exactly when last year the fish died but I can check to see if maybe that adds up. It would be a kick in the head but my analytical mind would be happier having an answer than just chalking it up to nature.

      As for the waterfall. It drops down onto rocks and then splashes in. So as far as the oxygenation from the pond is concerned it is minimal at best. The air pump I have seems to move quite a bit of water around so I thought that’d be enough. As for the pictures above that was from only two weeks before the fish died. The amount of bubbles was similar but the type of bubbles was different. Before the death it was airy bubbles that would simply pop when touched. After the death the bubbles were thick and would allow me to scoop them into a net.

      The dead worms is my big focus as well. Seems like killing fish is one thing but killing worms would require quite a bit more of a catastrophic event to occur.

      I actually have a second 2100 filter coming that I plan on connecting to my UV pump. So that will allow me to have filters rated for 4200 gallons attached to my ~1600 gallon pond.

      As for stray current. I tested my GFI and upon clicking the test button everything turned off UV and two pumps. So I doubt it’s a stray voltage problem.

      Thanks for the feedback. I’ll keep thinking about what else I may have done and answer any questions anyone has. The melafix finished dosing about two weeks prior to the event.

      I hadn’t added any salt (was planning to do it that morning when I saw what had happened).

      For what it’s worth the pesticide spraying was done on marshes and they say they use low flying helicopters as to not allow the spray to reach residences. The closest marsh I found listed as one of the places the spraying occurred on was 4.5 miles from my home.

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      Last edited by szweier; 10-16-2018 at 03:40 PM.

    17. #37
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      I'm no engineer or scientist, but I do have a very curious and analytical mind. It drives me crazy if I don't know when, why and how things happen.

      For what it's worth, I live on 7 acres. We do not spray anything for any reason. Not even "earth-friendly" stuff. I'm all about sparing Animals, birds, bees, butterflies, etc.
      I have a well. Over the last 15+ years we have tested our well water multiple times. 3 times it was positive for pesticides. Just saying.
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    18. #38
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      Quote Originally Posted by DarkStar View Post
      I'm no engineer or scientist, but I do have a very curious and analytical mind. It drives me crazy if I don't know when, why and how things happen.

      For what it's worth, I live on 7 acres. We do not spray anything for any reason. Not even "earth-friendly" stuff. I'm all about sparing Animals, birds, bees, butterflies, etc.
      I have a well. Over the last 15+ years we have tested our well water multiple times. 3 times it was positive for pesticides. Just saying.
      Wow. That’s interesting... I would assume that could only come from above? Granted I know nothing of the earthly mechanics that may or may not be involved in pesticides entering a well through the ground.


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    19. #39
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      If the spray was toxic enough to kill all the fish and even the worms, I would be very concerned about my own health and that of my cats and dogs. This needs to be reported, somehow, and personally, I would be thoroughly hosing down my yard and structures, and soaking the lawn my pets walk on.
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      Quote Originally Posted by DarkStar View Post
      I'm no engineer or scientist, but I do have a very curious and analytical mind. It drives me crazy if I don't know when, why and how things happen.

      For what it's worth, I live on 7 acres. We do not spray anything for any reason. Not even "earth-friendly" stuff. I'm all about sparing Animals, birds, bees, butterflies, etc.
      I have a well. Over the last 15+ years we have tested our well water multiple times. 3 times it was positive for pesticides. Just saying.
      I actually had one additional question here. I assume you have a pond with koi in the same yard? If the well tests positive for pesticides were the fish killed when you got that reading?


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