You are such a better person than I am. I would have shot the painter.....
I assume it was latex paint. I can't imagine them surviving oil.

"Lynn Strickland" wrote in message
ink.net...
My pond & waterfall, just "finished" in September are by my patio. It
looked so fantastic, my patio needed to be repainted. I hired a
professional painter, with only one instruction: make sure you cover the
pond.

Yada yada yada -- I come home from work and the pond is milky white, my
Koi
are flipping out, jumping out of the water, etc., and there is overspray
of
white paint all over everything. We tried turning off the pump and letting
the paint particles float to the top, then skimmed them off with towels.
It
worked some, but you still couldn't see the bottom.

The next day we netted the 6 fish (no small trick in milky water), pumped
out 100% of the water, hosed down the sides and bottom, and refilled.
During the process, one of the fish jumped out of the tub and flopped
around
in the dirt for who knows how long - but we put him back in the water with
a
good dose of the slime coat stuff.

I refilled, used water treatment, more slime coat stuff & put the fish
back
in the water the next day. Two weeks later, all is well [but the fish are
still po'd I think]. They act like they're going to swim up and say 'hi'
then turn their backs and swim away. You know, diss'ing me. Can't say as
I
blame them.

Anyway, the painter is crediting me all costs (but not my time or lost
sleep). He scrubbed paint off the leaves of my plants, and we'll see what
happens. Now get to start from scratch with balancing the water out, etc.
Sheese! Then two days later the wind kicks up and blows black ash from
recent wildfires all over everything.

One thing I learned -- at least so far, Koi are tough little buggers! By
pumping out and hosing down, did I lose any start I had on bacteria
colonizing?