Koi loss update:
Here are some of the things I discovered.
1. I got the new shipment of koi 96 3 1/2″ to 5″ Koi from Japan tweo weeks ago. I put them imidiatly into a 200 gallon holding tank for observation. As with al new shipments of gish I treated them wim Fruan in case they were carring any undesirable desease. I had found Furan a good overall remedy.
2. Every night in the pond I know Ilost 3 to 5 fish to racoons. Therefore after 4 nights I moved 48 of the best fish into my main pond. These were mainly 8 Tancho, 12 Showa, 6 Sanke, 6 Kohaku, 8 HIKARI MUJI, and 8 Susui. All these fish were fantasticly colored with great Paterns. They were all perchased as Salect 1A and the total shipment costed my over $10.00 per fish after shiping costs. The remainder I left in in the temporary pond for hopeful resale to help reduce my over all costs.
3. Prior I had 8 koi in the main pond 1 pure black 8″ one pure white 7″ and the remainder were Tancho of various types especialy Shiro Utsuri about 6″ long. The main pond is 1,800 gallons.
4. About 3 days after introducing the new fish I started to see losses of 2 to 3 every night.
I have finaly found several reasons for the losses. 1./ A fungus infection that only showed up the last two days. 2./ A filter pump 4600 gph at the bottom of the pond would grab the fish and hold them there from its incomming the suction. 3./ A hawk that I cought this morning flhing off with one of my somaller remaining fish.
Besides this I have a suspicion of the alkilinity and pH of the water. The alkilinity had been fairly steady at about 280ppm the last few weeks before adding any fish, Yesterday it measured at over 400 ppm.
The Ph while always high usualy ran around 8.2 to 8.3 with the exceprtion of when there were thunder storms. Then it would drop to near or just under 7.0 for a day or two before returning normal. Today I measured it and the pH was around 8.7.
Now without fish my normal means of reducing pH was adding muratic acid. But I hesitate in using this in a stocked pond. The other thing is I added 14 lbs of salt in the last 3 days that could have raised my KH readings as well as my pH.
Presently I started 200 gallon water changes twice a day until things stabilize down.
My next big project is to create a permenant skimmer, water fall type filter. My present one is an eye sore. suggestions on ideas for this would be apreciated. I like the pond Builder PB1083 and PB1137 but the price is a little out of my range had I want something with a lower profile. I’m also hoping to increase my flow to colse to 5,000gph total in the lng run for a better effect in my stream and mini water fall.
Dennis
Dennis
Category: Worldwide Koi Club
