My Koi and goldfish are right under the waterfall and at the edges of the pond. They appear to be gulping at the surface. Any idea why? Lack of oxygen in the water possibly? The waterfall is more of a slow trickle, not a fast moving one.
Thanks!
Fish at waterfall
oxygen! Get them help fast. A water change will help. put a bubbler in. Work fast! This is a very dangerous issue-they are under a lot of stress if they are gulping.
Thank you! We are working on that now. Poor fishies! This has never happened before.
give them what they need now-oxygen and after figure out why they are gulping. Did you spray any chemicals around the pond like for weeds or bugs (or did a neighbor close by possibly spray)? Consider filling up a small kiddie pool or your hospital tank and put them in fresh water there and drain your pond down in case of run off.
Many time the change in water temperature can set off an imbalance or dissolved oxygen. I know you had high temps last week, so even now that they have dropped a bit, the ground is still warm enough to hold a higher temp in the water. Add an oxygen pump asap! If you can turn up the power of your current pump, so the water fall is more intense, do so! It's an easy fix, you you need to do it right away! (Assuming you don't have gill flukes or anything else that burned their gills)
No chemicals from us. I don't think any of our neighbors are close enough to affect the pond. We did increase the flow of our pump and set up our hose to add addition fresh water and agitation. We also added hydrogen peroxide. The fish seem a lot less stressed for now, not gulping. We will keep at it to try and get the right balance. Thanks for all your great advice.
I want to thank everyone for their great advice. The fish seem to be fine now. Whew! What a relief. As I said this has never happened before. It is a small liner pond, but the Koi and goldfish survive the winters. The one Koi is 4 yrs old.
Thanks again!
Celia: glad to hear it all turned out well. I wonder what caused them to gasp at the waterfall all of a sudden.
when you say a small pond, I am assuming not very deep and that leads me to assume that the water could heat up easily.
The warmer the temp is, the lower oxygen.
Also if there by chance is alot of rotting material in the pond, leaves, dead squirel? or plants ect. or even a dead fish, can deplete oxygen as it rots.
They are seeking the waterfall because of the splashy water that has richer oxygen.
I would change out 1/3 of the water.
clean out the filter, maybe it's clogged.
I don't know if there is any way to actually check the oxygen level of the water?
Frilly, I think you're on to something. There may be alot of sludge at the bottom of the pond. Yes the water was quite warm. I don't know how warm is too warm. We are planning to drain the pond and clean it as soon as the weather allows. It's storming here in Cleveland today. Maybe Sunday. It'll be a job, but I hate to see the fish suffering.
The pond is only about 24" deep. And there are shelves. It's a hard liner pond.
We'll clean it and try to start over.
Thanks so much for your input!