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oups.com...
## It's odd that you have no ammonia after only 2 weeks. Your pond
cycled
unusually fast??!?!?!!?!
Honestly I have no idea what's going on with the pond. It's been filled
with water for 2 weeks, 3 days and had fish/plants for 2 weeks, 1 day.
## Usually the ammonia shows up in less than 48 hours when fish are present.
In my experience anyway.....
I've been testing ammonia and nitrites daily for the past 8 days and I
haven't seen a single drop of ammonia.
## I'm wondering about your ammonia test kit. Is it NEW and FRESH? Did you
recently purchase it at a shop where things sell quickly? There's a store
in a nearby town where stuff sits for months and months, if not years. The
companies who make these items should be required to date them.
After the fish death last week I
added some starter bacteria, for what it's worth, supposedly it was
good stuff guaranteed to be alive kept refridgerated during shipping,
etc. Maybe that has kept the ammonia at bay?
## Who can say....
Meanwhile algae has grown like crazy, and my plants look like crap. I'm
going to take the iris' out tonight and add fertilizer pellets, because
they look like they're about to give up. The water hyacinth are brown
and ugly and doses of potash haven't helped at all. The anacharis are
growing like crazy however.
## Sometimes dumping out the water and starting all over again is the only
answer. We once had some kind of disgusting blobby, slimy blue-black algae
invade our 2000 gallon pond. It was growing everywhere and on everything.
It was clogging the filter and spitter heads. It had a bad odor. We
finally drained down the pond, hosed everything off and started again. It
never came back and we never knew what it was.
## Were these feeder fish? I suppose they weren't quarantined before
you
added them to the little pond. After bringing in all kinds of parasites
in
the past I quarantine EVERYTHING I purchase now - for at least 21 days!
Even the cleanest Aquarium stores can have infested fish. I learned
that
the hard way. :-(
No, I didn't quarantine, I figured they were all new so why bother? Of
course now I see that it would be easier to disinfect the little tank
than the big pond...
## Exactly! Keep any diseases or infestations contained in a smaller tank
or tub. No use letting them lose in your pond where it's harder to
eradicate them. It's also cheaper to treat them as you'll use a lot less of
the medication. I hold them for 21 days and watch them carefully. Since
breeding my own fish I don't often purchase any anymore. :-)
I wonder if the lily I mail ordered came with some
parasites... It had some worms on it, but they fell off when I soaked
it and died after 30 minutes in the water. Maybe there were some other
buggies on there...
## There's no way to know. Some pond-plant places I've been to keep
goldfish or other fish to keep mosquitoes down. How healthy these fish are
is questionable.
## Advice will vary but I would do a partial water change and remove
the
remaining fish for treatment. I now go by the rule "If one fish has a
disease - they all have the disease."
Ok, I bought some dimlin to kill the anchor worms. We'll keep an eye on
the fish and hope they don't catch anything, if they do we'll do an
immediate treatment. I'm tempted to salt the pond, but I'd have to take
all the plants out. Not sure how much damage that would do to my
nitrogen cycling. Plus we're having a big outdoor party this weekend
and I'd like the pond to look somewhat presentable (I already have my
algae is a natural part of the balancing ecosystem speech down).
## I would definately do partial water changes .... and check out how FRESH
that ammonia kit is.
--
McKoi.... the frugal ponder...
EVERYONE: "Please check people's headers for forgeries
before flushing." NAMES ARE BEING FORGED.
My Pond Page
http://tinyurl.com/crtso
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