View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Old 24-07-2004, 05:16 PM
Grubber
 
Posts: n/a
Default help needed please - just inherited a koi pond

"Robin" wrote in message
news:G8mMc.174112$XM6.135587@attbi_s53...

"Ka30P" wrote in message
...
Hi Brendan!

Welcome to rec.ponds.
I'm going to ask you some questions and that will help us

get you and your pond
up and running.

- Where abouts do you live? general area is fine.

- About how big is the pond, length by width and how deep?

Or better yet, did
the former owner say how many gallons it is?

- About how big are the 4 or 5 fish, in inches?

- Does the pond have a fountain or waterfall?

- Does it have any sort of filter? This would be a box or

large container
filled with foam pads, brushes, small balls, stuff like

that.

- Are there any plants in the pond? If so, what do they

look like? In the pond
garden plants are either 1) completely underwater 2)

floating on the top of the
water like lily pads 3) growing on the margins of the pond

with most of the
plant above the water.

First off I would go to a large pet store that sells fish

and buy
- a pond test kit
- some water treatment that treats chlorine and

chloramines. - a good quality
koi food.

You can add water to the pond if you add the recommended

amount of the
treatment product. Add it as you add the water, run the

water in slowly over
the waterfall if you have one. Stay with the pond while

you do this, don't
leave the hose running as forgetting the hose in the pond

has killed a lot of
fish. Chlorine and chloramines will kill the fish without

the water treatment
product.

Read the directions that come with the pond test kit. And

then you can report
the results here.

Feed the fish sparingly. Only as much as they can eat in

five minutes. Net up
the uneaten food.

Read the algae primer site in my signature. You don't have

to do everything
listed right away but it will give you a good idea how

algae gets out of
control in a garden pond.

kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html


Sorry to horn in on your thread Brendan, but I have a new
pond as well, and have similar questions.

I just put up a pond kit that was given to me. It is a
kidney shaped preform with sloped edges, about 8ft at the
longest, 5ft at the widest and 2ft at the deepest. There is
a small waterfall form, a box filter and a 300gph pump. I
live about as far south in Alabama as you can go without
having to swim. The pond is in full sunlight, as I have no
shade trees yet. I surrounded the pond with slate slightly
overhanging the edges. I covered the waterfall with about a
foot of slate making a cavern over the small waterfall form.
The hose sprays from the top of the slate with about half
falling directly into the pond and half going into the
waterfall form. There was a lot of extra hose so I coiled
it under the slate cavern hoping for a cooling effect for
the water, which seemed to work. I set the pond up 3 weeks
ago. There are three lilies and a lotus and some anacharis.
I got two shubunkins about 4 inches long a few days ago.
There were quite a few tadpoles until then LOL. The pond
started turning pretty green about a week ago. The ph runs
about 6.0-6.3. I have well water and do not have to
de-chlorinate.

I have read alot of methods for fixing green water. There
are so many and sometimes they conflict. I don't want to
use chemicals, and was hoping to avoid having to use a UV
filter for such a small pond. The plant filter sounds like
an interesting idea. Does it sound feasible to use my top
waterfall form (it is about 2ftH x 2ftW x 1ftD) and fill it
with something like the anacharis? I assume I'd have to
allow light into the cavern for the anacharis?

I've read that it is good to let the algae cycle through a
bloom and find its own balance. Is this true, and how long
does it take?

TIA for any advice,
Robin

http://community.webshots.com/user/robinandtami
You can see a few shots of my pond here.




Short answer: You're right on schedule for a bloom. It could take a couple
months to clear, or less. Your plants will grow and suck up more of the N
that the algae is feeding on and you'll be fine. Enjoy the pond and donut
worry about it.