Results 1 to 20 of 37
Thread: Fish dying almost daily.
-
24-05-2019, 01:21 PM #1
Fish dying almost daily.
Firstly I no longer keep koi. I used to but decided to return to a "pretty" lily pond. However this still seems to be the best aquarist forum going.
My question is about simple goldfish. I have around 60 goldfish in a 44,000 litre pond which has achieved an ecological balance. No filters, just a skimmer running that feeds waterfalls and a long stream. Around 50% of the pond is thick with oxygenator hence crystal clear water.
For several weeks now I have been losing 6" goldfish. No marks on them, no attachments, finrot, scale damage, fungus, bloating, etc. All water parameters are perfect. All plantlife is thriving. Damsels and dragonflies are appearing as normal.
The water is mainly rainwater collected from the house roof. This is the only possible cause of the deaths I can think of. Around 3 years ago when I changed from koi to a lily pond, I used a moss killer on the roof. I detached the pipe connecting the gutters to the pond for 2 years. I left the pond without fish until late last year. I would have thought any residue would have washed away by now so I reconnected the roof to the pond.
I have now disconnected the gutter pipe again but now the only way to top up is using tap water, but that is a problem with dechlorination. Partial water changes of 44,000 litres is incredibly expensive, as is using a wide ranging medicine or treatment. I have spoken with Tetra and they state anything over 25,000 litres is rated by .gov as being a "non-domestic" pond and they are therefore not allowed by law to sell treatments for larger volumes.
So I have 3 questions fror you guys.
1. Has anyone had previous experience with moss killers and ponds?
2. Does anyone have any other ideas what could be causing the deaths? If it were koi, then post mortem would be tempting but expensive for just goldfish.
3. Have you any suggestions on topping up such large volumes? I am a whisker away from pumping out 90% of the pond and then using a combination of tap water and rain water (not from the roof) to refill the pond over the coming months.
Sorry for the long post.
-
24-05-2019, 01:28 PM #2
First thought to mind is toxicity, but only because there's nothing else to go on based on your description.
Would it be possible to catch and scrape a couple of goldfish just to rule out parasites?
Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
-
freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
24-05-2019, 01:44 PM #3
Hi RS2000. Catching goldfish in a 44,000 litre pond is nigh on impossible, especially with so much plant life. I have looked at the dead goldfish with a magnifying glass and could see nothing on them. Apart from being dead, they looked the picture of health. I'm sure there are others suffering. Some are very stationary amongst the oxygenator, but most of them are feeding well, playing in the stream current and even getting seasonally randy. I am also thinking toxicity which is why I am thinking about the 90% pump out with an emrgency dilution with fresh water of the remaining 10%.
-
24-05-2019, 03:10 PM #4
Have you tested the water. Water test kits are cheap. I would not pump out 40,000 litres to waste without testing it first.
-
24-05-2019, 04:27 PM #5
Surely if the water has been coming off the roof of your house then there will be all sorts of poisonous substances getting into your pond and that's before you add moss killer to the mix as well. I know you said you hadn't been adding the water while using the moss killer but the other stuff will still be there being washed down into your pond and there is likely to be residue of the moss killer left on the roof or in the guttering too.
You need to test your pond water ASAP and may have to get the water company to test it as most test kits are for the basic things in pond water like Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphates, KH, GH, PH and O2. There is very likely to be bird shit all over your roof which has all sorts of toxins in it that tests kits can't detect.
-
freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
24-05-2019, 05:08 PM #6
What are the "perfect water perameters"?
If it's all rain water what's the ph?
What's the daily swing in ph?
-
freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
24-05-2019, 05:35 PM #7
Perfect readings are some thing like this -
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10 - 15?
PH - 7.5
GH & KH may be dependant on the part of the country you are in.
O2 is temperature dependant.
With rain water you may have very low levels of GH & KH I would think? and this will have an effect on keeping a stable PH levelLast edited by Frimley Koi keeper; 24-05-2019 at 05:39 PM.
-
24-05-2019, 05:41 PM #8
You say 50 % of the pond is covered with thick oxygenating plants and crystal clear water, crystal clear water can also
be lethal water with out tests being done, but the plants will compete with the Goldfish at night to give out oxygen in the day
time.....I would get extra oxygen in there somehow even though you have waterfalls going ( any photos ) ? and the weather
being warm at the moment wont help, even a spare pump with a bit of hose on and splashing would help.
1= has anybody had any previous experience with moss killer and ponds...……….think they would have probably gone to
that big old pond in the sky ………………..hope you get it sorted …..
-
24-05-2019, 06:54 PM #9For anyone who wants to know what parameters we should aim for, below is a combined ammonia chart and parameter guide that can be laminated for future reference. If anyone wants a copy, there is one in the document library on my website. Follow the instructions at the bottom of this page to download and print:
I agree. There are often posts about pond problems where the parameters are reported as being "perfect" or "fine" etc. but different people sometimes have different opinions of what perfection looks like so the actual parameter figures are what we need in order to give good advice.
Ammonia chart
-
25-05-2019, 12:05 AM #10
-
-
25-05-2019, 01:14 AM #11
This post is interesting to me ... I have a large female goldfish (one of the kids pets) ... who has started lunking after water temps went over 10oC this year ... without going into every detail my water parameters are really good and coming from a research background I keep extensive records ... this isn't the first time I've recorded this with female goldfish ... nothing on two thorough scrapes with concentration on the area around the gill plates (check my scraping guide for details of how I do it) in the last two weeks ... all other koi, tench and goldfish are fine. She's now taken to regular bottom sitting periods and is starting to develop bacterial symptoms around some scales on the belly which I'm sure is secondary to the lunking (just as an aside with gill flukes and costia that I've seen before they were always immediately obvious on mucus from around the edges of the gill plates) ... I'm gonna sedate and take an internal gill scrape in the next couple of days because of the lunking.
I've seen the lunking and general water surface interest many years ago with Chilodonella too ... but this fish is definitely behaving different (and the only one affected) ... if I get anything interesting to report I'll write it up here.
-
-
25-05-2019, 07:34 AM #12
-
25-05-2019, 07:35 AM #13
-
25-05-2019, 10:45 AM #14
-
Frimley Koi keeper, freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
25-05-2019, 12:35 PM #15
According to Manky's information he gave me an anoxic filter will work best for bio if it is your only means of bio filtration if I understood him correctly. You will have to have a pre filter to stop the muck getting into it and then you can go from there Tom
-
Manky Sanke, freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
25-05-2019, 01:33 PM #16
-
freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
25-05-2019, 02:01 PM #17
Anoxic filtration removes ammonia directly by a process that doesn't turn it into nitrite then into nitrate so, if it isn't run in competition with a conventional (nitrogen cycle) biofilter, you will get very low readings for nitrate. Some people even report near zero nitrate readings after it has matured.
If you build a full size anoxic filtration system, the baskets will also have spare capacity to remove nitrate from naturally occurring nitrogen cycle processes that happen throughout the pond. They will also remove phosphate from the water.
-
Frimley Koi keeper, freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
25-05-2019, 02:07 PM #18
-
Frimley Koi keeper, freddyboy Thanked / Liked this Post
-
25-05-2019, 02:10 PM #19
-
-
25-05-2019, 02:21 PM #20
-
Best plants to remove Nitrate
pug has a very impressive veg filter on his pond, have a look at some of his his youtube videos....