We have a fairly new pond with about ten fish, none of which is bigger than ten inches. they are always very active and hungry; we feed twice a day. today, suddenly we thought they had disappeared. they were all at the bottom of the pond and wouldn't come up to feed or anything. we had the ph tested at our local fish shop and it was high but according to the store rep not a problem that should have caused the fish to die. we got some of the anti chlorine to put into the pond and did that. we had been adding some water when evaporation occurred but not a whole lot.
does anyone out there have any ideas? the fish are moving very slowly so we think they may be still alive. thanks for any suggestions.
Fish dying or sick
Have you checked the ammonia? How about the nitrates/nitrites?
I don't know the tempurature of your water, but I would immediately add more oxygen if possible. A small additional pump of some sort will do.
Try to get the above readings asap if possible. IF ammonia, ph, nitrites and/or nitrates are all good...aside from the added oxygen, I would also add some salt. The water softener salt from Walmart or Lowes is good if you get the one with NO additives. This "may" buy you time while you work on other things....
....have you added new fish recently? If so, did you quarantine them first?
If no new fish have been added....are your fish just trying to conserve energy because of the heat? Do you have enough water flow and oxygen? If your pond is small, do you have filtration to keep ammonia and nitrates out?
Small water additions, even with a little bit of chlorinated water, shouldn't be a magor issue.
Once the water quality has been cleared (or not) then start to look for disease. Any body sores? Prevent them with a good bacteria/enzyme additive such as KoiZyme. It consumes the same things that bad bacteria need in order to invade your pond and fish.
If you see all your fish clamp finned and/or gasping for air...get some praziquantal (available on ebay) and get rid of any possible parasitic problems....
Once your dealt with bacteria, parasites, water quality, and oxygen.....you should be good to go....Salt will deal with a great deal of "bads" and is uber cheap.
Keep us posted with more details, so we can help in a more distinct direction.
for adding oxygen you can also add the peroxide the 3% you get in any store place in a spray bottle and spray under the water until you can get a pump.
If the water temp is to high from the heat, I have frozen water in the plastic gallon milf containers with the top cut off and added the ice to the pond it never bothered the koi as the temp changes slowly for them. The only thing I can think of that MaryMary did not cover was predators.
Our koi come up and feed from our hands even allow is to pick the up out of the water, a few years ago they did the same thing suddenly but we did not have any dead fish. we could not figure out what the problem was then I noticed one of my fish looked like something tried to bite it. We immediately upped the salt level ( by the way if you have plants they are not very happy with salt my husband knows the correct levels not me but there are levels that are okay for fish and plants if you go to high it will kill the plants.) We watched the pond very closely for about a week but not going to the pond we even thew the food in the falls as to not go to close. then finally my husband saw it. There was a snake that has made a home in our stones used to create the pond.
Now some people might not like this but he got his gun and shot the sucker and continued to watch all day there was a nest of them he shot a total of 13 snakes that day.
Thank God we have never had that problem again!
I wish you the best of luck, I know the heart break of not knowing what is wrong with them.
Please keep us posted.
13! YIKES!
Yes my fish were shy for a few days, after my girls decided to play 'teaparty' in the pond lol.
They didn't want to come to the surface for a while.
I would guess predator, or water too hot on the surface.
Thanks so much for all your concern and suggestions. Will pursue. One more thing...we were told to clean the filters with clorox. We've clean them then clean them with lots of water. In the past week or so, the filters skimmer box has sounded as if it needed cleaning so my husband had to clean the filters twice in ten days. the water became very clear and for the first time we could see to the bottom (since we started the pond about three months ago). I'm wondering if somehow the clorox might have been on the filters and leached into the water.
I did see one fish swimming at the bottom this morning. Haven't seen any of the other 9. Will try to get a pump today and follow your other suggestions. Oh, how do you clean your filters? I think we have to find another way.
Thanks again. Ellen
I'm not sure bleach was a good suggestion! Remember, all the things we do to our ponds is to get the chlorine OUT. Maybe add some chlorine remover to the water just to be on the safe side.
Filters need time to get biologically sound to make a healthy pond. TOO much cleaning isn't good. Only remove larger debri until you realllllly need to clean the rest. I just spray mine down with the hose.
Thanks....I did put some clorine remover in the pond last night. the problem re: cleaning the filters is that the skimmer box makes a strange noise if the filters are too clogged up; we were afraid it was going to burn out. So, we will just clean it with water from now on. No more clorox!
It is my understanding that chlorine naturally dissipates out of the water in a couple days. You only need to treat for chlorine when you are adding it immediately. ??
The thing is, I would just clean the filter out with the water hose. Even if there is chlorine in your water, it wouldn't amount to much just using it to clean the filter out. Using straight bleach is a BAD idea, as it kills beneficial bacteria.
If you have lots of algea in the water, and then that starts to die off for some reason, the oxygen content would be low. However in my experince when the oxygen is low, you will see the fish skimming the surface for air. that is for goldfish, I am not sure if Koi do that?
If the fish are too hot, they will go to the bottom where it is cooler.
New report: we removed about half the water from the pond. We could see at least five fish in the bottom, most very still but some moving around. The guy at the pet store felt they were traumatized by a bird or something and they would probably stay at the bottom for a couple of days. We filled the pond back up so hopefully things will be right again soon. We are thrilled that some are alive...and still mystified as to what might have happened.
The fish are back! Today, all of a sudden, our fish were back in the swim again. Still don't know exactly what happened. We even got some new tiny fish but within a few hours they were all swimming happily where we could see them. Some kind of miracle.
Predators are gone! :)
Bleach is a big no-no in ponds. Bad pond advise. It is lethal to all fish. Never kill your filters with bleach-it will kill all the good bacteria that takes weeks and weeks to develop there. Also, any bleached items always should be dipped in an anti-chlorine solution. The only time I use bleach is when I have to net suspected sick fish or dead fish and want to stop cross contamination. It is always in a very, diluted form about 20% bleach/80% water
and I soak the net in the solution for a minute or so. Afterwards I dip it in a solution of anti-chlorine mix just in case there is any residue left over on the net (or in case someone else picks the net up and dips it into the pond before it is dry and transfers the bleach to the pond). My kids are forever throwing GI Joe's into the water fall and he rides the waves to the "shark infested" waters (koi) and then they net him up and repeat it all over again . . .
I'm Glad stings seem to be better, Something spooked them Bad!
Water changes are always a good thing as well!
Darleen