"KarenZ" wrote in message
om...
snip
My pond is very small (about 50 gallons or so I think) and I had two
cute little 3" koi. They lived for about a month. When the second
died today, I took a sample of water in to where I bought the koi and
they tested it, and told me it was too acidic. The other levels were
OK.

Two Koi in 50 gallons is about 950 gallons too little. If your fish were
small, you probably were OK, but were destined for bad water problems as
they grew, and grew. You may want to stick with a goldfish or two. They are
more tolerant of water problems, and as such don't need that larger volume
of water.

I had just done a forced water change of about
half the pond water in the week before the last koi died; one of the
pumps got bumped and pumped half the pond water out into the garden.
I replaced the water over several days; each batch of water I added
to the pond sat out 24 hours before adding it. It also rained heavily
the day before the last fish died.

This paragraph rings a bell for me. My county uses Chloramine not Chlorine
for water treatment. Chloramine does not evaporate out as readily from water
as does Chlorine. I NEVER add water to the pond without dechlor. I did this
to my pond when I first built it and killed all six minnows that I had in
it. My guess is that your fish suffered either from chloramine, or possibly
from a temperature shock from the water change.

My advice to you is to buy a test kit. Here is a nice one at PetSmart,
http://tinyurl.com/33539.

BV.