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  1. #1

    Koi flashing - will Lincolnshire pond detox help

    Hi all,
    Out of the 6 seasons of koi keeping this one has been a nightmare (the pond has been running for 20 years).. the latest saga has been treating trich with 3 PP treatments which resulted in losing 2 koi a week ago.
    Out of desparation I added Fluke Pro F some days later as the fish were still flashing .... as they were after the treatment... it was a stupid thing to do.

    So the issue is either water quality or parasites/bacterial problem.
    Therefore i've done a 10% water change today using a Big Blue with catalytic carbon as a slow rate + added some ST just in Case
    Have also reduced the food..
    Readings the KH value is 4 .. the other nitrate & ammonia readings were fine however the tests are years out of date....so i'm flying blind which is stupid.
    The stocking levels for a 3000 gallon pond are very low ..6 tosai and 6 larger fish.
    The filtration is a 500 litre vortex > 500litre brushes > grundig type pump to 4 tanks above pond level > 3 x 200litre jap matting > 200 litre K1 tank

    As well as trying to scrape the fish, however the couple of koi I've scraped have almost no mucus on them ...surprise surprise after all those treatments!

    So unless I can scrape and check for parasites i'm left with option to do water changes until the bio filters recover.

    I wanted to ask about the Pond detox product, will that help trying to recover from this scenario as well as going forward?
    And are there other options?

    Thanks for reading,
    Harvey Uppal
    Based in Leicester





  2. #2
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion RS2OOO's Avatar
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    I'd recommend not adding anything for now. Get a new water test kit covering as many parameters as possible, see what the test results are and go from there.

    If all test results are perfect the next step is to monitor koi behaviour and check them physically and if there's signs of parasite infection then scrape and check under microscope to see what you find.

    If after all that you are still at a loss then you may have cause to try the PDF but I suspect you'll find the cause before getting to that stage.

    Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

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  4. #3
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Yeah I agree that not much to be gained by addicting Pond Detox Formula at this point- it is useful if the cause of their flashing was chlorine or another irritant chemical leaching into the pond, or if you had ammonia and nitrite issues. But your dechlorination sounds very good so I don’t think that is likely to be an issue here.

    Have you done a thorough nooks and crannies clean of your filters, with a full strip down yet? Trich is often a marker that there is something festering somewhere, so always good to rule that out.
    Your water changes sound a good idea until you are able to get a new test kit to rule out water quality issues.

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  6. #4
    Thanks for the replies and interest ... it must get frustrating for knowledgable keepers to see a stream of really bad rookie mistakes.
    Purchased from Queni which is just 10mins drive away.
    Predictably the readings for one parameter in particularly worrying....

    pH 8.0
    pH tap water 7.8
    Ammonia nil
    Nitrite 0.1
    Nitrate >= 100

    The description in the Kisuri panflet seems to descibe the condition of the fish quite well ... they are likely to be quite lethargic unless at feeding time.

    Can I ask if there is a water treatment to bring the nitrate levels down faster than purely water changes?
    One driver for this is being on a water metre and being a tight fist (which is the reason i've ended up stupidly using a test kit way out of date).

    Feline, the filters have been cleaned pretty well (although i haven't necessarily stripped down to the level you may be implying is required ...but the jap matting has been cleaned approx every 2 weeks & the vortex every week and the brushes every 2 weeks.... one of the main problems is I haven't been doing enough water changes....one reason for which is giving the bottom drain a really good clean. The start of the year the filters were in a really bad state .... that problem was then compounded by a leak in the pond (6 " from the bottom) with lots of tap water which wasn't then dechlorinated until a couple of weeks after.
    The pond is quite pretty, but it's a figure of 8, so there are endless creases in the butane liner .. ideal crooks for gunge and parasites.

    I'd love to go the scale of some of these pond keepers ...your own project being a good example (my jaw dropped and stayed glued wide open whilst viewing the pics of the build)...but it's beyond me.

    Just read up on lowering nitrates in ponds (Dazzle Koi on youtube gave a very good description) ... it sounds as though water changes are required ...although a viable long term solution is a bakki shower with ceramic media to create an anarobic environment to remove nitrates from the water in a low oxygen environment.

    BTW The Koi seem be alot more relaxed with less flashing.

    Thanks again,
    Harvey

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  8. #5
    Moderator Rank = Supreme Champion Feline's Avatar
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    Your options for nitrate removal are really:
    • Water changes
    • add plants/ veggie filtration
    • go for a high flow Bakki shower with genuine BHM or anoxic filtration with laterite and cat litter etc.
    • use pond water recycling RO (this is my current approach- I do have a Bakki shower but also have dancing plastic that generates a fair bit of nitrate)


    I wouldn’t rule out a nitrite of 0.1 being an irritating factor for the koi- it’s not very high but still higher than ideal.

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  10. #6
    Thanks for listing the options ... i will need to research which would work best with my setup which is old school with a very slow flow rate ....which may rule out the bakki shower.
    Andy Finch has some pretty reasonably priced setups ... i will definately give him a ring to discuss.

    The best fish in my pond is the oldest kohaku ..normally he's very graceful when we swims with the tail just slowly moving and no head movement ...however at the moment he's not looking right at all.... his tail is flapping a little more heavily with slight head movements and then the glide .... definately no where near as graceful as he would normally be.

    Is there any tonics which could help (maybe that's my problem always thinking there may be a quick fix)...and that's why i mentioned the lincolnshire pond detox originally. Or maybe the bio filter needs a boost to help recover after the treatments?

    One minor thing (i think) i forgot to mention was, originally when i took over the pond ...the 3 tanks with the jap matting had air stones in ...which i was advised to remove and just put in the last k1 tank. I had for some reason left one airstone in the 3 rd tank before the K1 (which i have now removed). Can adding oxygen to a mechanical filter do harm?

  11. #7
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    You wouldn’t want to be adding air to a mechanical filter, but your jap mat should be biological not mechanical? It’s the devils own work to clean the stuff if it gets full of crap- I would personally add air to it.

    The only thing I might be considering adding if there’s nothing on the scrapes but your gut tells you something is wrong is salt. This is a very controversial subject- some people are totally paranoid about salt and will say things like ‘you can never dilute it out’. I always think ‘well why would I want to do that when I have chosen to put it in there?’ It will usually help them cope with a slightly high nitrite, help them replace lost mucus coats, and may help tip the balance against parasites. I am not advocating permanently salting the pond here by the way.

    If you did decide to run recycling RO, you have to turn it off if you salt the pond or it will be working overtime removing the salt again. What I generally do if I have to salt the pond or add any treatment is change some valves over to feed the RO system from mains temporarily so it can keep the pH down without stripping stuff out of the water and just act as a top up.

  12. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by harvey singh View Post

    pH 8.0
    pH tap water 7.8
    Ammonia nil
    Nitrite 0.1
    Nitrate >= 100


    Can I ask if there is a water treatment to bring the nitrate levels down faster than purely water changes?

    I suppose you could try zeolite, as a temporary measure, to reduce nitrate levels.


    Just out of interest, have you measured the parameters of your tap water?




    For further reading on nitrate, here's a recent thread on the topic:

    https://www.koiforum.uk/water-treatm...0-nitrate.html
    Last edited by MustBeSomethingInTheWater; 12-07-2021 at 10:46 PM.

  13. #9
    Closing down the pond... just got to work out exit strategy

    Had a great conversation with Alex from Kusuri and it's pretty clear that i'm not commited to the koi keeping hobby to give the koi the best quality of life.... it's an extremely demanding hobby.
    Have been lucky ehough to have had several enjoyable years.

 

 

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