Today is the 5th day since I discovered white sores on some of my fishies.
I think it's fungus.

Fishies living in upper pond, approx 1900 gal; total system 2550 gal.
Pond was enlarged last year but smaller pond still not finished, so I
have not added plants and I put up a fish gate at the step-down stream
to keep fish out of it.

Water crystal clear, no algae, plants healthy. No ammonia, no nitrites
or nitrates.
pictures at:
http://community.webshots.com/user/skndeep1

*I have added malachite green/formalin three times on consecutive days.
*I have added rock salt slowly to increase salt concentration from 0.02%
to 0.1%.
*pH over 9. Some mortar must be leeching into the water. I added 16 oz
of muriatic acid, which did not touch the pH but dropped the kH from 80
to 40. I then went out and bought a pound of "pH Down"
(powdered sodium bisulfate anhydrous) and have added a third of the jar
without it lowering the pH, but the kH is back up to 80.
*Today I bought some antibiotic fish food and fed the fishies once. They
are eating well.

The fish whose sores I am tracking appear to be getting a little better-
the sores have less white and aren't getting deeper, BUT I see
previously unaffected fish with new white areas on their sides.

I bought a 20 gal "plantainer" at Lowe's and a 10 gal $9 aquarium at
Walmart, but the fishies are too fast for me to catch, so please don't
tell me to catch the fish and treat them in a hospital tank! I suppose I
could catch them if I drained the ponds, but I would prefer not to do that.

so-
what do I do now?
How high can I get the salt concentration without hurting my flora?
How do I get the pH down without losing my buffering capacity?

thanks for any advice!

Jo Bohannon
Richmond, Va



Gregory Young wrote:
7) The first step, is to test your water parameters (at the very least pH,
ammonia, nitrite, alkalinity (kH), dissolved oxygen, and of course
temperature)