We helped my brother with his pond on an emergency basis when we got to his house…and we arrived back to a mess with the koi pond (we are draining and filling as we speak: our big koi are ok, but we don’t know about the little ones—can’t see into it. We have what’s called a green water condition, and we’re fixing it asap. If we’d been a day later getting home, we would have lost fish for sure.
We’re breaching the diet for one night to order pizza.
We have work to do, but so far it looks good.
Good luck with the fish. We all enjoy hearing about them.
Pizza sounds like a good idea for a homecoming. I’m sorry to see that you are having pond problems. I hope everyone comes through in good health. I’m sure with time you will get everything in order.
I wish I could offer some wonderful, sound advice, but Proge is the pond maven. I know it took him almost a year and a half to get our water to a clear amber. But we have goldfish, which is a very different proposition from koi.
Toes crossed!
Good luck on getting the pond back in top form. Hope the tanks are going strong too. This years weather can’t be helping much. But glad you are all home safe and waiting to hear of your adventures.
Ick. Hope you get things sorted and everybody is OK.
We’re doing better. The water smelled so bad that soap, head to toe bath and shampoo, hydrogen peroxide, etc, couldn’t get the smell off my hands. That’s ‘green water’ for you. The fish were at the waterfall gasping for air when we got in, and we drained with one hose and added water with another, and added algaecide, and kept this up from 4pm until dark, then turned the waterfall back on for the night, and they all reported for breakfast, even our littlest. So we were very, very lucky: we opted to come back one day earlier than originally planned because we got to thinking about the holiday traffic, and wanting to get home before alcohol became the fuel of choice in the mountain passes headed for Spokane…
So we left OKC a day early, and in Buffalo WY, we got up at 4:30 am, and hit the road by 5. This let us get to Spokane by 4 pm. This segment is our longest drive—normally we go OKC to Raton NM, then up I-25 to Buffalo, both fairly easy drives; then the long push from Buffalo to Spokane via I-90. And we were pretty tired when we got in and found an emergency on our hands…
Did something get into the water, or is this a occasional occurrence with pods?
I think that the autofeeder (new) was over-enthusiastic, and we had summer heat and probably rain. The rain disturbs the ph, the heat accelerates algae growth, and too much algae and bacteria (overfeeding) diminishes oxygen in the pond, which can kill the fish. Remember algae consumes as well as provides oxygen (at night) and that bacteria suck up oxygen. SO we were just VERY lucky—as well as a little cautious: we were worried about the pond, and that’s one reason (besides the holiday) we wanted to arrive during daylight hours.
we had summer heat and probably rain. Didn’t we! A few mid-90’s here, westside. 🙁 Add several more on your side. Tried to warn ye, but unnecessarily apparently. 🙂
We had no rain, kinda don’t think you did either, but SE OR did have some monsoon inspired thunder storms that might have dropped some in unpredictable places.
How’d the inside tanks do?
Yup, fighting green water here too, its been unusually sunny and warm, along with that ‘monsoon inspired’ gnarliness. The pond I’m responsible for is heavily over-populated, so I did a partial water change and started madly tossing in algae killer a couple weeks ago, and pre-filters get cleaned every day. Lost one smallish fish, not sure why (but I suspect predator) but with the water changes I’ve got goldfish and koi going all spawny, even with the green.
At least with the population pressures in my pond, I don’t really have to worry about spawny making more fish… It just makes snackfood.
Goofy critters.
It sounds like the pond and the koi are on the way back to good health. I hope so. I know nothing about koi and ponds, but even so, or maybe because so, it’s interesting to hear about.
Try vinegar, rather than H1O1 as an odor remover. Bleach also works in rather minor concentrations, but I prefer vinegar….
Hydrogen peroxide? That’s H2O2.
Can you tell that I never in my life have taken chemistry? I was thinking of the name and how to avoid trying to spell it!
As a modest contribution to your education then, this is what happens:
H2O2 —-> H2O + O
It’s that monoatomic Oxygen atom that’s the useful bit. Oxygen hates to be monoatomic! So it goes and very forceably takes a partner wherever it can, e.g. bacteria in a wound, but also damaged cells that said bacteria might feed on. It’s good at ripping into organic compounds, as a deodorizer. But it’s also good as an oxidizer in rocket fuels, e.g. the German V1’s.
BTW, hydrogen peroxide will spontaneously decompose in the above reaction, where one of those monoatomic oxygens will rip a partner away from another molecule of hydrogen peroxide. So that bottle that has been in the cupboard for three years is probably pretty useless and should be replaced. 😉
Sooner if it’s allowed to warm up. Keeping it in the fridge would help. (H2O2 is kind of unstable. Doesn’t like being warm, any more than H2CO3 (carbonic acid), which turns into water and CO2.)
That’s ok, the dad of one of my friends in high school was convinced that water was two parts oxygen to one part hydrogen. Alas I never had high school chemistry, but that’d be H02?