Hey all you ponders!
I finally got my pond cleared after about a month of doing this and doing that! Firstly my water was green and couldn't see fish unless they surfaced and thought the green would go away! Then I bought 2 new fish (koi)around may 1st and din't quarantine them and they were infected with flukes (parasites) they died and my fish started dying (I lost 1 big koi and about 6 koi fry from last year)needless to say I was heartbroken and finally found a great website and conferred with a koi doctor and he steered me in the right direction to save the rest of my fish I have had for 4 yrs! Thank Goodness I found his site!
I finally had to buy a real bio filter @ 300 bucks and is doing great...I really didn't want to spend that much because I thought our homemade one was good enough but I was so wrong and found out over a period of time the homemade will not work properly!
I tried the barley straw and it didn't work for 6 months but it may work if your water doesn't get to green...
If anyone needs any advice on ponds or koi just give me an email for I am almost an expert now! LOL
Cheers,
Rebecca
Finally got my pond clear!
Oh I'm so sorry about your Koi. You sure get attached to the little guys don't you. Ours are like pets. And now that our pond is clear to the bottom, it's really interesting to watch their habits. They all line up side by side and "rest and relax" or just hang out. It's so cool. They look like they're ready for takeoff or something. It's been a really good pond year for us. Isn't it nice when you get it all figure out and what works? Gee, this is year 3 I think...And I can't believe how big the fish have gotten. I have pics of when they were babies. Now the koi are about 18 inches long. Really big guys...I'll have to post pics...
Vic...the reason my pond was out of balance was because of gunk on the bottom...I got in it the other day and dipped out a 20 gallon bucket full of junk that I really didn't know was in there since then I can see the bottom barely but filter is clearing it more everyday...last year I had too many plants in pond and couldn't see to dip out the gunk in bottom...
The fish followed me around like puppies while I was cleaning...they really like a change in things and get excited at something different happenning too!
I may just get in there every once in awhile to just perk them up some...
We have had this pond for 4 yrs and it has been okay until this year and I blame all my troubles on the infected fish mostly and the water quality didn't help things!
Hopefully all that is behind me now! I have seen the fish laying eggs again and hope for babies again this year!