Andrew Burgess wrote in news:bh0er4$m4e$2
@athlon.cichlid.com:

(Timothy Tom) writes:

As far as the water parameters,
recently the temp has been around 83 degrees.


I missed the temperature posting, that does seem hot but when looked in the
following discussion
(http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...057203893.html) they
seemed to think that 90F for GF and 85F for shubunkins was OK.
Whereas these guys (http://www.goldfishparadise.com/water/temperature.php)
seem to think that 86F is the max.

Did I read you correctly somewhere back in this thread in saying that the
fish survive quite nicely when placed in a container with your tap water?

I think we need to setup some form of checklist in order to tackle this
problem systematically, but before we get to that. I have some questions:
· How is your pond constructed?
· What furniture does it have (rocks, plants, planters, waterfalls etc)
· Between discovering that the auto-filler hand been turn off and
turning it back on, what if anything did you do (filter cleaning, moving or
changing plants)?
· Where does the auto filler get its water from? I remember seeing
somebody who had an automatic fill system that did not use tap water, it
was connected to a tank/cistern that collected rain water (try to be
environmentally friendly) they ran into a problem when the cistern became
contaminated, I their case it was a dead animal I think.


some ideas on testing to find problem, if anybody has a better one speak
up.

1. Does a fish survive if placed in tap water (say from kitchen tap)?
a. If yes go on to (2).
b. If no you have a domestic water problem (too much chlorine,
municipality using something other than chlorine, contamination of your
water supply)

2. Does a fish survive if placed in water drawn from the auto-filler
(water is put directly into same container use in (1)?
a. If yes, then the problem would seem to be with the pond and its
fitting/landscaping.
b. If no, then the auto-filler seems to introducing some form of
contamination.

3. Fill the pond from some source other than the auto-filler, suggest
same source as in one. Let it stand for 48 hours. Does a fish survive if
placed in a container of water taken from the pond? This test would confirm
test 2.
a. Yes, the problem is definitely with the auto-filler.
b. No, both pond and auto-filler are the problem. It maybe that the pond
and its furniture have been contaminated by the auto-filler. My suggestion
at this point would be to remove all pond furniture and clean the pond
using the water source in (1). DO NOT put the pond furniture back, refill
it using water source as in (1) and try this test again. If the fish
survive this time its some part of the furniture. You could try cleaning
each piece and hope that you've got rid of the offending material, but I
would be inclined to dump them and start with new stuff.

Hope this helps.

Axolotl