Hello everyone,

My fiancee and I made the mistake of "wanting a pond and wanting it
now" and ran out and bought a pre-formed liner, pump, and biological
filter/waterfall and four koi fish. I dug the hole and we set the
whole thing up.

The big problem is.... we were dumb and rushed into it. And
immediately we began to run into problems. WIthin a week after setting
up our 125 gallon pond, we wanted it bigger. This is mostly for the
kois sake after we read that one full grown koi needs as much as 300
gallons of water. We have one 8 inch koi, and three 4 inch koi.

Ammonia levels quickly rose along with the nitrite. The ammonia levels
are now under control and reading zero. The pond has been "cycling"
for 2 weeks now. But the nitrite levels are still out of control.
For the past 3 days I have been doing 15% water changes, to no avail.
Today I checked the levels and they are 1.0 mg/L. Even higher than
yesterdays reading. I did a 50% water change and they are down to 0.3
mg/L.

Today I have also noticed that two out of the four koi are scratching
themselves on the pump and plant baskets.

Here are my questions,

Are there any other strategies to reduce the nitrite levels other than
being patient? Enough bacteria has been added.... I used this really
expensive "Microbial Lift" stuff from the fish shop. The guy there
said I was doing everything right in the meantime.

Should I be concerned about the fish scratching themselves today?
Could this be caused by the nitrite levels?

I really want my koi fish to make it through until next year when we
can do things right. They were expensive and I would hate to lose
them.

Thanks for any advice!

Kelly