Kathy,

I appreciate your concern and am certainly not offended by it. I would
love to hear how your ignoring the rules came back to hurt you. I would
far ratehr learn from someone ELSE's mistakes than make them myself!

I have thought about the issue of water change, but have not begun any
regular steps. I am well satisfied they do not need 10% per week (read
400 gal = drain one berm pond per week)as we have gone years without it,
but realize that there will be some concentrating of non-evaporating
stuff in the water. I am confident I will never do a regular 10% change.

I should probably do the dilution rate math to see how a regular 10%
change would work out over time, i.e. take account of the increase in
concentration by addition of water and the dilution by draining the
concentrated water and adding fresh water. As I remarked, we do drain
all the berm ponds annually to remove muck. That is one 25% change per
year. Beyond that we have additions and the occasional
pump-stop-drains-150-gal-from-the-barrels events. I am open to the
thought of draining a berm pond per week. I would have to make sure it
did not have fish I want in it! Probably, I would develop a
collar/filter to put over the drain to retain a couple of inches of
water after draining and to keep the fish from going down. I think it
more likely that I would do several 25% changes. The replacement rate
from the toilet filter is slow enough that the chlorine is no problem
when we remove a substantial amount of water.

I am interested that you see us as overstocked. What guidelines are you
thinking about? If I have 10 koi in 4000 gallons, that is 400 gal per
fish. If I applied the 1000-for-the-1st-and-100-per-additional-koi
formula, we have 333 gal per additional koi. If I count goldies as 1/2 a
koi, I might have 14 koi-equivalents in the 3000 gal. That is still
well over 200 gal per additional koi. The water circulates down falls
and streams at a nominal 2000 gal/hr rate (tho my measurements look more
like 1500 gal/hr). The aeration seems fine, even excessive. I was
holding the view that our basic understocking helps with water quality.

Could you point me to sites that will help me see at what point the
growing mineral concentration and not replacing water is a major threat?

Thanks

Jim

~ jan JJsPond.us wrote:
Our pond system has 3K gallons in the main pond and 1K gallons in the
berm ponds and barrels. The pond has about 10 koi, full sized, and
about the same number of goldfish. The berm plants do a great job of
handling the muck...growth like crazy and clear water. We have not done
any regular water changes. The toilet valve does replace the
evaporation on a regular basis...MS is very hot. The koi don't seem to
have suffetred any particular problems from the lack of changes. They
have grown like weeds and are 20 to 28". The ratio of koi per gallon is
pretty good. That may help. Jim


Now bear with me, I'm not trying to be a "I know better than thou" here. It
is just I'm trying to prevent my mistakes passing on to another. I, too,
wasn't real good about doing my water changes as the experts suggest. It
finally bit me in the butt, and that is my concern/worry for you. Some of
those experts would consider your situation on the high end of the stocking
rate. Fish are bigger, pond stays the same, all the more reason to follow
their advice.... or, since I'm suggesting it "go not where I have been".
;o) ~ jan

~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~