Go Fig wrote:

The problem I have is nitrite.... not nitrate as Hal said.

That's odd - but serious. Nitrite is usually a very transient product of
ammonia breakdown. In an established pond, it generally gets converted to
nitrate as fast as it's created. Assuming this is a caused by recent
spawning activity,

It is a new pond going through a trypical cycle... except koi are not a
good choice to cycle a new pond with.


Exactly, and a self admitted mistake I made. We will be constructing a
new and much larger pond next season (big enough for 4 koi), but until
then, I"m trying to make this thing work.

Every night this week I have done a 50% water change. Despite my
efforts, I measured the nitrite today and it was OFF THE SCALE at over
3.5 mg/L. Pardon my language but ****!!!

I'm not understanding how it's getting so high so fast even though I'm
doing changes. Well I know what most of you will say, the pond is
SMALL!! Damn.

So I was forced to remove about 80% of the water for fear that my poor
koi will suffer the extreme.

When I'm doing these water changes, should I be adding more of the
commercial bacteria stuff each time? Or will this just make the
situation worse?

I haven't fed the koi in about a week. But now that there are eggs in
the pond they are eating these. I don't want to remove the eggs
because it really stirs up the pond and they are hard to remove.

sigh

So what I'm going to have to do is do TWO water changes each day. And
test each day and make sure the nitrite is not rising.

Kelly