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    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Yooohoooo :)

    Hello there fine fish people! Apologies for the HUGE post!

    I'm a noob to this forum, so please be gentle My fish 'tale' so to speak, is not your average pond keepers story. It's also an emotional one, but I feel it deserves the merit of being mentioned. (Will come to that in a bit). Here's some history...
    I've been around freshwater fish since being a child and my love of the hobby started when my parents dug themselves a pond in our garden 35yrs ago in Liverpool. My Dad, being the main culprit for my soon - to be obsession; happily let me watch and help when he did anything pond/fish related in the garden (still does now!)..... Fast forward 15yrs and there I am, with my first house and yes!!.... a garden big enough to build a pond! So... 2 ex-husbands later...2 houses later and 4 ponds later, here I am!! Happily settled with my new Chap and on to my 4th pond, but this one was a labour of love, which I will come to now....

    I mentioned earlier i'ts an emotional one. My best friend, whom I grew up with since being in Nursery School, lived in my street. Her mum and dad were also fish keepers and had an amazing pond, which I always admired. She hated it because her dad knocked down her Wendy House to dig a hole in the ground! We grew up, their pond got bigger. Their pond was well stocked with various koi varieties, some that had been with them for 20+ years. It Was always lovely to visit and chat.

    Then 2 years ago, we were shocked to hear her dad had stage 4 bowel cancer and shortly after being ill, he passed away on Xmas eve at his home. Deeply saddened by this, life went on. I used to visit her mum and things were ok for a while. Her next door neighbour was looking after the pond maintenance for her so she could still enjoy the fish. I then got a call one day from my best friend about a year later to say her mum had developed Breast Cancer and Leukemia and prognosis was not good.
    My friends mum, fought and fought with various treatments, went back and forth from hospital, to her home, and eventually a hospice. I went to visit her one day whilst she was having a blood transfusion and she was discussing the pond with her daughters. They had started to re-home some of her dad's smaller fish. This was the first they spoke about it, so I offered that if they were struggling to re-home some of the other smaller fish nobody wanted, like orfe, goldies, rudd etc, I could take them with just enough room in my pond to house them. She was so happy! I was so happy I could her her out. They are like family.

    A month later and I get a call from my friend, her mum was deteriorating rapidly and her mum wanted to see me in the hospice.
    She called me in, we chatted about feeling better and pain relief etc for a while. Everything was pleasant until the realisation set in that I may not see this woman again after this visit. I went outside for some fresh air and to put on a brave face for her family, but was extremely sad. This courageous woman was days away from drifting away from us all. She shouted me in from her bed... wanted to chat. She said, " Wendy, I want you to take all of the fish" !!!!! I was shocked!!! They all responded with, "it was always going to be you they would go to..you're family" Of course I was stunned and so very honoured to have been chosen to continue caring for these stunning family fish. That pond housed about 14 large Koi of varying varieties, some huge blue orfe & large golden rudd.
    So... I cried all the way home. Not for fear of the project ahead, but because they chose me to look after them.
    Hence, it being a labour of love!
    Its taken many hours of planning, manual digging, research, injuries and being out in all weathers, to try and get this pond semi-finished in time for Winter.

    The Pond has now been running for 6 weeks. Fish were all safely transported with no fatalities 4 weeks ago and are settling in amazingly well. I say it's only semi-finished because we decided that getting the liner in and maturing the water well enough to receive fish was our goal this year! Work on finishing off the last few bits will resume in spring. Due to shape and size its roughly between 8600-9000 ltrs. We are still working on an approximate volume, so being cautious with any treatments.
    Unfortunately we didn't have time on our side, due to their house being sold and the need for the fish to have a quick exit. I would have liked more time to introduce the Koi slowly to give time for the filter to build up some more.
    That said, my nitrites are high in the last 2 weeks and some of the fish are flashing; despite recent regular water changes. It's now drip feeding through a dechlorinator, that has been installed on Monday.
    Although having the experience of pond-keeping through the years, does help alot, but I am new to keeping such large Koi. (Some of these guys are between 16-18inches long.) ....I do feel like I'm missing something.
    I'm hedging my bets on being new pond syndrome, but its running their old filter system, with UV and with plenty of oxygen and water agitation, so would have thought it built up enough bacteria to give it a good head start. They are on wheatgerm, feeding every other day or so, a couple of handfulls. Have cut their feeding down more in the last few days to see if it helps.

    Thank you for reading.
    Any help and advice with my water problem is greatly received.


    Last edited by Fishgirl; 28-11-2019 at 01:56 PM.

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  3. #2
    Havent posted on here in a while with work commitments but had to comment.

    What a heartbreaking yet beautiful story.

    Obviously dont know you, but can tell that your proud to look after your good friends fish.

    Testament to you as a person, and im sure they are watching down on you as you care for their fish.

    I hope your pond build all continues well..and the fish thrive.

    P. S.

    everyone loves photos on here Yooohoooo :)

    all the best binary

    Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

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  5. #3
    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Thank you very much indeed Absolutely heartbreaking, but also feel so very lucky to have been given the opportunity to care for these old guys. They are very much adored in their new home.
    Will post some photos when I have the chance.

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  7. #4
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fishgirl View Post
    Thank you very much indeed Absolutely heartbreaking, but also feel so very lucky to have been given the opportunity to care for these old guys. They are very much adored in their new home.
    Will post some photos when I have the chance.
    hi there and welcome. I agree with binary a heartbreaking story. and good on you for taking the project on. Respect.
    I agree with you on new pond syndrome. took my rebuild 18 months to 2 years to mature properly. I understand you have mature filter media on the system, but this is not enough I am afraid. as
    your water tests are showing. the whole pond and pipe work has to mature. and this takes time.
    you say the fish are flashing . more then likely it is the Nitrite problem. you have to feed sparingly now. and do water changes to dilute it out the water. if you can t get it under control stop feeding altogether. and carry on
    with water changes.
    also you will need a microscope for scraping the fish. to make sure they don t have parasites. also check your clorine in tap water and pond water by using dppd4 tablets. also when water changing a lot of us use ST
    Sodium Thiosulphate crystals cheap for adding for water changes. ebay. a lot of us use this site to learn. and it is worth a look. Home

    I know I have mentioned quite a few things here but it is a process of elimination. more then likely it is one of the above that make fish start flashing. and you probably know a lot of the above.
    good luck with the fish keeping and respect to you for doing what your doing. don t be afraid to ask for help. where all here to help. and try to advise people. good crowd on here
    fred

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  9. #5
    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Binary1927 View Post
    Havent posted on here in a while with work commitments but had to comment.

    What a heartbreaking yet beautiful story.

    Obviously dont know you, but can tell that your proud to look after your good friends fish.

    Testament to you as a person, and im sure they are watching down on you as you care for their fish.

    I hope your pond build all continues well..and the fish thrive.

    P. S.

    everyone loves photos on here Yooohoooo :)

    all the best binary

    Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk
    hi binary how s the pond and fish mate. hpe you and the family are all well mate
    fred

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    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Hi Fred and thanks for your reply.
    Yes, we are doing all of what you mentioned. Any time we have changed the water in the past, we ALWAYS use liquid dechlorinator, for the whole volume of the pond until recently, when we installed a drip feed dechorlinator. Tested the Cl today and it's zero. We are using API's master test kit, which is an excellent kit for Koi ponds, but doesn't have anything to test the Cl weirdly enough, so have used some 'Spa' test strips left over from when we had our lazy-spa running and its result was zero. Also have the Tetra strips everyone says are rubbish, just because they were left over from the previous pond & I used them to compare the water from the old pond, the Koi's old pond and our new pond (as I didn't have the API kit until 3 weeks ago)
    Will keep doing what we are doing and will think about getting a microscope to diagnose anything topical. The surface of their bodies are visibly clear and always have been. Gills look nice and healthy and none are gasping at the surface. I have seen the odd scale floating around, which I'm concerned about and hope its maybe one particular fish that is sensitive to the nitrite spike. But obviously its effecting them so want it sorting so not to harm their scales any more.

    Thanks for the info

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    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fishgirl View Post
    Hi Fred and thanks for your reply.
    Yes, we are doing all of what you mentioned. Any time we have changed the water in the past, we ALWAYS use liquid dechlorinator, for the whole volume of the pond until recently, when we installed a drip feed dechorlinator. Tested the Cl today and it's zero. We are using API's master test kit, which is an excellent kit for Koi ponds, but doesn't have anything to test the Cl weirdly enough, so have used some 'Spa' test strips left over from when we had our lazy-spa running and its result was zero. Also have the Tetra strips everyone says are rubbish, just because they were left over from the previous pond & I used them to compare the water from the old pond, the Koi's old pond and our new pond (as I didn't have the API kit until 3 weeks ago)
    Will keep doing what we are doing and will think about getting a microscope to diagnose anything topical. The surface of their bodies are visibly clear and always have been. Gills look nice and healthy and none are gasping at the surface. I have seen the odd scale floating around, which I'm concerned about and hope its maybe one particular fish that is sensitive to the nitrite spike. But obviously its effecting them so want it sorting so not to harm their scales any more.

    Thanks for the info
    great stuff. I know you know about fish keeping. as you mentioned earlier in the thread how long you have been involved in keeping fish. I myself use the API master test kit.
    microscope is good to have. get it down on your Christmas wish list.
    good to hear your doing all that stuff. I wrote down. good luck with the pond and fish
    fred

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    Member Rank = Nisai Reggiekoi's Avatar
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    Hello and welcome Fishgirl
    Yours is a very emotional story makes difficult reading but really pleased you shared it with us and i am pleased that someone as caring as you will be looking after the koi .
    There are a few products out there that "age " the water by just pouring in the correct dose for the volume of water in your pond . This might assist you in the short term until your system matures as you unfortunately seem to be under a lot of pressure time wise .
    One i could recommend would be Microbe Lift Aqua Extreme as it works straight away and if you read the write ups sorts out the majority of water issues .
    Good luck Fishgirl and all the best with your pond .

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  17. #9
    Echo what every else has said, good luck with your pond and welcome to the forum.
    Nice bunch of lads and lasses on here to call upon.
    No doubt your nitrite is due to NPS.

    What sort of filter etc are you running?



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  19. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by freddyboy View Post
    hi binary how s the pond and fish mate. hpe you and the family are all well mate
    fred
    Hi fred.. not too bad at all mate. Been busy with work commitments for a while so not had much time too post.

    fish are ok.. i lost 1 at beginning of year but all others are fine. im just finished covers a while back.. so fish are covered up at the minute.

    in time would love to get heating.
    miss seeing the little fellas.

    hope all is well your end.
    and a merry xmas to all if i forget to say itYooohoooo :)Yooohoooo :)

    Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

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    Senior Member Rank = Supreme Champion freddyboy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Binary1927 View Post
    Hi fred.. not too bad at all mate. Been busy with work commitments for a while so not had much time too post.

    fish are ok.. i lost 1 at beginning of year but all others are fine. im just finished covers a while back.. so fish are covered up at the minute.

    in time would love to get heating.
    miss seeing the little fellas.

    hope all is well your end.
    and a merry xmas to all if i forget to say itYooohoooo :)Yooohoooo :)

    Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk
    Nice one mate. Good to hear your well and ok. Sorry to hear of your fish loss mate.
    Good to hear covers are on.
    And you and the family have a great Christmas mate.

    Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

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    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reggiekoi View Post
    Hello and welcome Fishgirl
    Yours is a very emotional story makes difficult reading but really pleased you shared it with us and i am pleased that someone as caring as you will be looking after the koi .
    There are a few products out there that "age " the water by just pouring in the correct dose for the volume of water in your pond . This might assist you in the short term until your system matures as you unfortunately seem to be under a lot of pressure time wise .
    One i could recommend would be Microbe Lift Aqua Extreme as it works straight away and if you read the write ups sorts out the majority of water issues .
    Good luck Fishgirl and all the best with your pond .
    Hello, Reggiekoi and thanks for your reply.

    Agreed, time certainly isn't on our side, especially being as Winter seems to be growing closer by the day! It's hard to stabilise in these temperatures. I don't think the fluctuations help either, the fish get confused, so must the bacteria in the water. I will definately look into that additive, thank you.

    Fishgirl

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    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    Echo what every else has said, good luck with your pond and welcome to the forum.
    Nice bunch of lads and lasses on here to call upon.
    No doubt your nitrite is due to NPS.

    What sort of filter etc are you running?



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Hello bigcarpchaser and thank you!

    We are running an Eazypod Air with Hailea T8000 solid handling pump, an Evo Aqua AP70 air pump, feeding 4 air lines; well spaced for maximum surface agitation. A Blagdon Pro UVC 16200 - 18W Clarifier.

    We are also still running our starter Filter, (which we used for the 1000ltr pond previously mentioned in my first post) which is an OASE Biosmart 14000 (11w UVC) filter with an OASE FP3500 filter pump.
    We thought that running that additionally with the Eazypod (at the other end of the pond) would be more beneficial to them; than not running it, to speed up the process, because that filter had been running all Summer.

    Fishgirl.
    Last edited by Fishgirl; 01-12-2019 at 04:20 PM.

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  27. #14
    Hmmm..my thoughts would therefore be this...you’ve put a lot of fish in at once with a new/unmatured(?) eazypod.
    Ignore your previous filter as that’s probably unsuitable but will be a good house for existing bacteria to feed your new one.
    I think maybe a pod might be borderline for the volume/fish load ultimately and being filled with K1 it will take a fair time to mature and this cold weather won’t help matter.
    I don’t think you’re doing too much wrong, you’ll just have to ride the storm with regular water changes I suspect but in the long term you may have to consider adding some addition biological filtration like a shower.
    You can run a smallish, well stocked pond ok, you just have to be on the ball as things can go wrong quickly due to having less water.
    Frim is an easy pod expert so hopefully he’ll be along sooner or later with some helpful advice.
    You could try adding some Aqua Source Vitalize. I’ve used this and it seemed to help steady things down when I first set my pond up. It’s also a dechlorinator.
    If you need some advice on use, I’m sure Dean at AS would give you some pointers.
    Good luck with it all Yooohoooo :)


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    Junior Member Rank = Fry Fishgirl's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigcarpchaser View Post
    Hmmm..my thoughts would therefore be this...you’ve put a lot of fish in at once with a new/unmatured(?) eazypod.
    Ignore your previous filter as that’s probably unsuitable but will be a good house for existing bacteria to feed your new one.
    I think maybe a pod might be borderline for the volume/fish load ultimately and being filled with K1 it will take a fair time to mature and this cold weather won’t help matter.
    I don’t think you’re doing too much wrong, you’ll just have to ride the storm with regular water changes I suspect but in the long term you may have to consider adding some addition biological filtration like a shower.
    You can run a smallish, well stocked pond ok, you just have to be on the ball as things can go wrong quickly due to having less water.
    Frim is an easy pod expert so hopefully he’ll be along sooner or later with some helpful advice.
    You could try adding some Aqua Source Vitalize. I’ve used this and it seemed to help steady things down when I first set my pond up. It’s also a dechlorinator.
    If you need some advice on use, I’m sure Dean at AS would give you some pointers.
    Good luck with it all Yooohoooo :)


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Yes we've put a lot of fish in at once; due to my reasons above (I would not have under any circumstances done that if it could have been avoided) I haven't had time on my side.

    The Eazy pod is a mature filter as is the K1 micro (years old), which handled the fish that I have just acquired (including more), with no issues at all. Their pond water was zero for ammonia & zero for nitrites running on that filter, as it was very well matured. Unfortunately we have had to replace most of the pipework due to age, so we are missing essential biofilm there also.

    Doing our best to ride the storm, with regular water changes and the dechlorinator drip feeds the pond when we've dumped waste water. We know its borderline at present, but added some Pure Pond gel balls to the K1 micro in a filter bag (as I'd already ordered that), to see if it helps as its meant to be a good one for colder temps. My list of additives is growing

    Thanks for your input and advice

    Fishgirl

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  31. #16
    Extreme Koi Member Rank = Adult Champion anne's Avatar
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    [QUOTE=bigcarpchaser;312749]




    Frim is an easy pod expert so hopefully he’ll be along sooner or later with some helpful advice.

    Whos Frim ??…………..

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    Senior Member Rank = Mature Champion smartin's Avatar
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    hi and welcome to the forum,
    A lovely story and can understand why the fish are obviously very important to you, I am relatively new on this forum too, I had a new pond built earlier this year and went through NPS myself, its a worrying time especially this time of the year, I wish you well and hope your pond and fish settle in, its going to take time for the bacteria to build up but using a mature filter will certainly be beneficial are you heated ? sounds like you have some good experience so that's a big help the ladies and gents on here are super they helped me a lot and still are, its a great forum.... all the best Steve,

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