GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

[email protected] · 15-04-2008, 03:24 PM posted to rec.ponds

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:49:02 -0500, wrote:

you dont say where you are,

Sorry. I'm in the South of England, Brighton.

but in spring the immune system of GF isnt up and running
until about 8 days after the water temp hits about 50-55oF. the cooties wake up
sooner. as a natural habitat, the birds and everything else will bring cooties into
the water, altho lots of stuff just lives on the fish. finrot is often due to a
bacterial infection secondary to parasites. something is suppressing their immunity,
or, something has brought disease into the pond.

I cover my pond in winter. I have a heater to keep the water warmer longer into
fall, earlier in spring so I can feed my fish nutritious krill and keep them healthy.
my pond is netted to keep other animals out of the pond. I have a veggie filter to
clean the water, there is even a veggie filter in the pond to clean the water in
winter. I have a big air pump to keep the water oxygenated. I do not introduce new
fish into the pond anymore. So far every spring my fish have been clean and healthy
for the last 6 years.

I would suggest you add a bit of salt, around 0.05% or about 1 lb of salt per 200
gallons of water. Dont add it all at once. this will help stimulate the slime coat
of the fish. at that concentration it wont hurt the plants either. Ingrid

Thanks for your help Ingrid

On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:57:27 GMT, wrote:
I've noticed recently that a couple of my fish (goldfish) have lost
their tails. I'm assuming this is tailrot\finrot. I've googled the
subject and discovered that it's quite easy to treat by medicine and a
partial water change but is there anything else I can do to make sure
it doesn't happen again? My pond is an outside manmade pool which
contains about 40 fish (4ft x 3ft x 4ft) which is about 10 years old.
I tend to leave the pond alone to develope as a natural habitat, so no
feeding. They live on the plants that naturally occur in the pond and
til now they seemed quite happy.
Thanks for any suggestions.