My daughter cleaned the pond with dishwashing soap
 

She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Mark B.

Try a de-sudsing agent. I guess you can buy them, but I kind of
thought vinegar was one. Of course, you'll still have to drain the
pond and refill it, but I would think you would need to do that anyway,
to make sure all the soap was out.

Hope you don't plan on putting any live fish in
there for a long time!

N-E-V-E-R put soap in a fish pond.

wow. This is a new one.
I can only suggest keep on rinsing. I ran a google
search and could not find anything that addressed
the problem. Hope someone has some different
advice...

kathy :-)


www.blogfromthebog.com

"mark Bannister" wrote in message
...
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

If I were you I would consider, one of two paths...

1) drain, clean and fill
2) Agitate the water like crazy, and do partial water changes.

I'd go with 2). Might as well use that water to get much of the soap out as
you can. I'd also read the label to see what you are dealing with. I'd be
less concerned with dish soap, then say clothing detergent.

Of course, in my house, we use environmentally sound products, so I wouldn't
worry either way. :)

The solution to pollution is dilution, so get diluting.


--
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Any degreaser will get rid of soap and then a good rinse !

mark Bannister wrote:
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Mark B.

BenignVanilla wrote:


Of course, in my house, we use environmentally sound products, so I
wouldn't worry either way. :)

You should. If the soap creates suds, it creates a hazard for fish. It
doesn't matter how environmentally sound it is.
--
derek

"kathy" wrote:

I can only suggest keep on rinsing.

Kathy hit it on the head, but if you experiment in your kitchen, you
will find that it takes a lot of dilution. If you fill and completely
drain several times, you will eventually get adequate dilution. It is
good to spray with a garden hose and drain before refilling each time.
Don't expect one change of water to fix it. It won't.
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
18,000 gallon (17'x 47'x 2-4') lily pond garden in Zone 6
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA

"BenignVanilla" wrote in message
...

Of course, in my house, we use environmentally sound products, so I
wouldn't
worry either way. :)

The solution to pollution is dilution, so get diluting.

It is my understanding that enviormentally friendly detergents have a low
phosphate content, chlorine free, other things like lack of perfume or
artificial colors are fringe benefits. I bet a 1/2 cup of your product in
the pond would be just as damaging, you just wouldn't get the phosphate
induced algae bloom afterwards.

-S

mark Bannister wrote:

She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but
I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Once it's dilute enough (it probably is already), it'll be bacteria,
not light, that will decompose it. And make it stink in the process.
And consume oxygen.

Robert in the Bronx

"mark Bannister" wrote in message
...
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no fish yet.
The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I just now got the
tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700 gallons, tiled with
granite. My daughter used half a bottle of dishwashing soap to clean it. Now
it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight eventually
break down the soap?

Mark B.

Was it the anti-bacterial kind? If so, you may have big problems getting
beneficial bacteria started, as this stuff takes quite a while to degrade.

Ya'll have this all wrong...

I think its time to get a new daughter...


LOL
just kidding

Keep rinsing...



"mark Bannister" wrote in message
...
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no fish
yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I just now
got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700 gallons, tiled
with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of dishwashing soap to clean
it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Mark B.

Vinegar and time. You would not want fish in your pond until plants had
been in it for a bit anyway. The soap is alkaline (use to be made of lye) -
vinegar is an acid. I would take about the same amount of vinegar as what
had been used of soap, add to some water and a new big sponge to wipe the
entire interior down with. When it is 'squeaky' clean then rinse with plain
water. Fill and add plants but not fish until it has sat for a week and
testing gives you a good Ph reading. Then get some feeder fish and wait
until the survivors look happy and healthy (a couple of weeks). With feeder
fish you can easily loose 50% under good conditions so don't be shocked when
you have floaters. This is advice coming from a plant person and not a fish
person. I am going to get flamed for it and if your goal is to raise fish
you should listen to the flames.

"mark Bannister" wrote in message
...
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Mark B.

mark Bannister wrote:
She thought she was doing a good thing, and fortunately there are no
fish yet. The pond was supposed to be up and running last year, but I
just now got the tile finished. It's a small formal pond, about 700
gallons, tiled with granite. My daughter used half a bottle of
dishwashing soap to clean it. Now it's a great big bubble bath.
I've rinsed and rinsed and still have a bubble bath. Will sunlight
eventually break down the soap?

Mark B.

I'm a newbie ponder and still think like an aquarist so this is probably
gonna sound weird. But I wonder if you could buy a big bucket of
activated carbon (a gallon or so should work on 700 gallons) and filter
over that? You can put the carbon in bags made of old pantyhose and put
it in your filter where biomedia goes. I would expect activated carbon
to pull detergent out of the water very effectively. The main issue, of
course, is the cost of that much carbon.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

What I would do is buy a small pump and have it hooked up to a hose.
Lay it on the empty pond bottom and have the disharge hose feet a long
ways from your pond so the sudsy water would never drain back toward
your pond in a heavy rain. Then I would take a garden hose and start
spraying the entire pond. Once I got about 50 gallons of water in the
pond bottom I would start the drain pump and get rid of the water. I
would repeat this process until I saw that there was no sudsy water.
Then I would do it a couple of more times just to be safe.

After that initial cleanup I would get a large mesh bag and fill it
with Zeolite or Activated Charcoal and then put a couple of rocks in
the bag and sit it into the waterfalls filter. Then I would fill the
pond and run it for a few days. I would then dump the Zeolite/Charcoal
and drain the pond completely one last time. Fill the pond back up and
add another bag of new Zeolite/Charcoal and then let the pond operate
normally.

Paul
www.pondkoi.com