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Looking for Pond Health Tips
Hi,
I have a 15,000 gal pond with Shubunkin and Comets in it. I live in New Hampshire, and the ice has finally melted back here. Water temp is getting up to around 50, so Spring is in the air and the fish are on the move. Last Fall, I had a couple fish die unexpectedly. None of them seemed to exhibit any problems until I found them dead, and one was a 6 year old Shubunkin. Even after they died, they looked perfectly fine--no fin damage, no visible sores, nothing. At the time, I went into a panic and checked the water (it was fine), and changed about 30% of the water "just in case." Unfortunately, due to my water change, the salt I had added was basically rinsed out. No other fish died, and winter set in. Actually, to say no other fish died isn't entirely accurate. In May, I added 14 mosquito fish to the pond on the advice that they were fine for this zone. By the end of summer, those 14 had become about 1,000. Seriously. They multiplied like crazy, and typically had 13 babies at a time. I think they ate the goldfish babies because I didn't see any more after the mosquito fish came. I had planned on having about 35 mosquito fish, but clearly they had other ideas. Well, as soon as the water temp dropped into the 40s, all the mosquito fish started dying. It now appears that they all died off. Since this happened at the same time as the fish I just mentioned, I first thought there was something horribly wrong with the water. But, since the water chemistry checked out ok, I figured that the little guys died of the cold and the big ones were just a coincidence. So, now the fish are active again. A week and a half ago, I noticed a Comet lying on its side. When I went to scoop it out, it swam away. I had thought it was dead so I figured it was *almost* dead and swam away to die. A few days later I saw it somewhere else, again on its side. A few days later it was somewhere else. Every time I went to net it, it swam away. Since it hadn't died on its own, I decided to try to save it. For the record, over the years I've tried to "save" probably 8-10 fish that were pretty far gone, and out of those 8 exactly 0 have survived. Call me an optimist but I keep thinking I'll break that streak. Anyway, I read up on the fish in my handy dandy "Koi Health and Disease" book by Erik Johnson (most of it applies to goldfish as well), and it sounded like the fish was suffering from gill disease, probably due to flukes or something like that. I gave the fish a salt dip in salted pond water, and then put it in a 5 gallon bucket of unsalted pond water with aeration to observe until the next dip. The book recommends giving the fish antibiotics, which I'd love to do, but this fish wasn't eating and my local Petco doesn't sell syringes and antibiotics. So, instead I put some Jungle Pond parasite killer in the water and hoped the fish improved. After about16 hours, it was dead. It appeared to have bled out since blood had seeped into all of its fins. Today, I noticed another fish on its side. This was another Comet and again I figured the fish was dead until it started trying to get out of the net. So, thinking that it's probably got the same problem as the last fish, I gave it a salt bath like the last one and then put it in a 10 gallon aquarium of pond water. I wasn't sure if the bucket was fish safe, being that it was just a Home Depot orange bucket, and since the last fish died so quickly there, I thought I'd avoid that variable. I also decided to bring the temp of the water up so that the fish's immune system would kick in. So I brought it up (slowly) to about 60 or so with an aquarium heater. I also went to Petco and got some Tetracycline to put in the water, since I'm convinced these guys need some kind of antibiotics. And, again I put the Jungle Pond parasite killer in the water. Since the fish was in a glass aquarium this time, I could observe it better. Again, it looked completely healthy except for its behavior. I *believe* I saw some very very tiny thread-like things by the side scales of the fish. I can't be sure though, it could have just been dust or something like that. Anyway, after going from lying on its side to head-down-tail-up to head-up just below the surface, it coughed up some blood and died. My record of saving fish stands. Before I put anything into the water at all, the fish had already gone to head-down-tail-up mode. It would still swim once in a while, but it kept going back to that position. So, the additives I put in the water didn't cause that behavior. After this fish died, I pressed the gill covers open enough to see the gills, and they looked (in my mind) completely healthy. They were uniformly red and not blotchy--kind of like really lean steak if that makes sense. One of them was really clamped shut, and I had noticed that there wasn't much gill activity going on while the fish was alive. I can't tell if this fish bled out in the same way as the last because it's fins were orange, and I just can't tell if there's blood in them or not. However, it definitely coughed up some blood. I'm now expecting to lose more fish, whether I try to save them or not. There's clearly something going on in the pond. After the ice cleared and before the first fish I tried to save, I pulled out another dead fish that was pretty decomposed. I'm not sure when that one died but I'd guess it was a month or more ago. What's confusing me is that the water continues to test fine for things like PH, nitrates, nitrites, chlorine and ammonia and the fish don't show any damage. They simply start lying on their sides and then they eventually die. I suspect some kind of organism is in the water, and for whatever reason I kind of latched on to the idea that there are flukes in it, although I don't have a microscope to check for that specifically. This is a large pond, but there are a lot of fish in it. It didn't start that way, but the fish have been happy and populated the pond. There's probably close to 80 or 100, ranging from 4" to 9" tip to tail. It sounds like a lot of fish, but in 15,000 gallons with 6' deep for most of the pond, it's not crowded. I have an oversized bead filter on the pond because of the fish load, although it hasn't been running since the Fall. The fish that died in the Fall died while it was still running. I'm wondering what I should do to fix the problem. Actually, reading this, I'm thinking I should get a microscope first and see if I can narrow down the culprit. I do have some Trapdoor snails in the pond, or at least I did last Fall. I suspect that they're down at the bottom right now since I'm not seeing them and that's where I'd go if I were a snail. The majority of parasite remedies kill off snails, and if I have to do that, fine, but I didn't want to go that route until I knew more. I'm leery of putting a bunch of chemicals in the water. One pond skimmer ran all winter because I had tadpoles, frogs and at one time mosquito fish in the upper stream. Keeping the waterfall running was the easiest way to keep that from freezing solid since it's only about a foot deep. This seems to have worked very well and I've already seen tadpoles swimming about. The skimmer just feeds the waterfall and I don't believe it changed the water temp dramatically since it pulls from the top foot of water and returns via the waterfall. The pond is over 6 feet deep everywhere except for a shelf that runs around the edge. It has a bottom drain which goes to a bead filter and UV light setup in my basement. That returns to the pond through the waterfall as well, and that system has been off for the winter. Only the one skimmer has been running. A second skimmer has also been off. Anyway, sorry for such a long post. I'm just so completely tired of seeing these fish dying, I'm tired of thinking I can "save" them and I'm tired of having them die all the quicker once I get involved. I did buy some Fin-Quel last year for fish that clearly need to be euthanized, but I didn't put these last two in that category. At least not until I "helped" them. If anyone can give me advice on diagnosing and treating the pond problem as well as advice on better treatment of sick fish, I'd really appreciate it. This is my second pond (the other was about 3200 gallons). This pond is two years old and aside from the mosquito fish, I haven't added any fish to it since it was started. I've been ponding for 7 years now, and most of the time I really enjoy it. Oh, by the way, all the other fish are looking completely normal, are very active, and are already bugging me for food. I have no clue which ones will be the next to drop. Thanks, Dave |
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