Koi Fish Information Centre

In a message dated 7/14/2008 10:08:46 P.M. Central Daylight Time, jminn5702@yahoo.com writes:
I have a pond full of Koi and at Fleet farm its like a Menards they had a jug of this stuff to help get alge out of ponds. My pond is about 10,000 gallons. On the bottle it look like it was safe for fish and all and it was near the pond area so i felt it was ok. I have lot of Alge and i have a vac i use weekly to help keep it under control but someone told me about this Jug its a Alge cutter type stuff your suppost to put some in so i just put a little bit and then i red on the find print it said maybe be toxic to Koi but i did not put alot in and they seem to be doing ok. Just wondering if a little bit in a 10,000 gallon pond would affect much or not really. they seem to be doing ok and i have a air pump that mixes air into the water as well. I have about 5 Koi in the pond and about 10 gold fish. Joe
Joe, welcome to the board first of all!!! You need to be very cautious when using anything that “kills”. If it can kill plants it can cause damage to you fish. When they say “it’s safe for fish and pets” that mean at the dosage suggested it SHOULD not kill an animal. Does not mean it won’t. Let’s discuss what causes string algae and see if there is a more permanent solution to this problem. Algae loves fertilizer. It cannot survive without nutrients and sun. So let’s look at the likely suspects. NitrAtes and Phosphorous are commonly associated with string algae. Have you called your city to see if you have a high phosphorous level in your source water? If you do, carbon will help remove it. The same can be said about Nitrates. That you can test using your pond test kit. You should always test your tap water to see what you might be adding to the pond. Run the water from the tap for a few minutes, then draw up a sample. Let it come to room temperature and then test it for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Just for giggles see what you get. Also make sure your test kits are replaced each spring with new fresh ones. Old test kits won’t give you accurate results.
Once you’ve ruled out fertilizers, then having a pond with very few organics in it will also help the string algae. Another more natural remedy is to use Koi Clay routinely. Great to string algae and the fish benefit greatly from the trace minerals in it. Wonderful product and CHEAP too. Filtration is another answer to algae of any kind. If you have good filtration you most likely will not see this problem unless this is a new pond still maturing. Sue

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Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society