Garden Ponds Koi Goldfish Fishy Subject Help

[cher]

Hi Everyone,

I wonder if anyone has a garden pond and can offer me any advise about the water

in my pond.

I posted some time back about my house move to Hornsea from Sheffield and wanting

a pond in my garden as a feature.

Would eventually love to have goldfish and keep Koi Carp.

I was very lucky to buy a second hand pond that is only four years old and is a quality pond.

The pond measures eight foot by six foot and has a depth of two feet and came with a pump

and filter box.

WE installed the pond and planted a few plants then after a couple of weeks I bought six goldfish

and a small but beautiful Koi carp.

It was really a pleasure to watch them and I had to be reminded to come inside to dust.

Third week the water has gone really murky and I can not see my fish.

I asked a friend and she mentioned that she had a UV light in her filter, I looked in my Trident

filter and there was no light and no starter there is a tick in the box lid for 16W but nothing else.

When searching the internet I found a mention of Barley Straw for cleaning Koi ponds and I have

put two of these in.

I wonder if anyone can offer any advise or if anyone has the missing bits to my filter or a filter

at a reasonable price.

Really missing seeing my fish and I would hate to lose them because of my inexperience with keeping fish.

Thanks

Cher

[Jabberwocky]

I had filters with a light and i also used to have one without one.

To be honest there isnt much difference at all in the quality of the water so im thinking the lights are a bit faddish.

The barley straw is ok but it can take up to 6 weeks to start working. Dont expect your water to ever be crystal clear, it certainly wont harm the fish because they evolved to live in murky sludgy water.

[Allen]

You say you planted a few plants.

Are these oxygenaters or just border plants?

You need plenty of oxygenator plants...the underwater plants that look like weeds. The problem I found though was that the fish ate them!!

 

Get the balance of plants right to the volume of water and the fish population and it is possible to have a reasonably clear pond.

 

There's a few water garden specialist around the area that could advise you.

The one at Tickhill is good.

[phawley]

I had a separate ultra violet steriliser in my pond just before the filter and my pond water was crystal clear for years.

I picked it up from a car boot sale for about £3 and just replaced the UV tube (£7).

They tend to be quite expensive to buy new but you may find one at a reasonable price on Ebay.

All the parts that tend to fail are easily bought at most aquarist shops.

If you have the correct size filter for the pond then it will eventually clear of its own accord but it takes time and gets much worse before it suddenly gets better, in my case it cleared overnight and that was after not being able to see a fish for weeks.

Good Luck.

[rothschild]

Hi Cher. We have a pond with goldfish and just the normal pump and filter box. We don't have the uv light thing. My boss keeps very expensive Koi and he has every gismo going to keep them healthy. He tested the water in our pond for me and told me it was much healthier than his own!! I do use barley straw a couple of times a year. I also have heaps of water snails and a couple of muscles lurking around on the bottom. We also have some tench which keep the bottom clean. We also have loads of frogs. We have water lilies and a couple of other planted plants plus some floaters and oxygenators. For most of this year the pond was covered in duckweed which I didn't remove until the tadpoles had grown up. Now we have a duckweed free pond and the water is crystal clear. I can only put it down to the surface of the pond being protected from the sun by the duckweed.

Do you have blanket weed in your pond? This stuff grows like stink if the pond is in full sunlight and it will make the pond look murky. It is easily removed by twirling a rake around in the water and fishing it out.

You can also buy a water testing kit to check out if the water is right or not. Sometimes the pond might look murky but as jabberwocky says......it is ok.

There is one thing I did hear but I don't know how true it is, and that is that you shouldn't keep Koi with goldfish.

Anyhow......if your pond is fairly new it will still be settling down and might look a lot clearer next year. The dimensions of your pond are about right but the deeper the middle is the better. We dug our own and lined it and I think the deepest part is about three foot.

Anyhow.....enjoy your pond and I am sure it will all settle down in time.

[Jabberwocky]

And resist the urge to feed the fish worms from the flower beds. I found my biggest koi dead yesterday with its mouth and gut crammed solid with worms.

My daughter loved to feed them but she went a bit overboard.

[phawley]

And resist the urge to feed the fish worms from the flower beds. I found my biggest koi dead yesterday with its mouth and gut crammed solid with worms.

My daughter loved to feed them but she went a bit overboard.

 

 

I had a large goldfish die from stuffing itself with tadpoles !!

[steevie/d]

\sounds like you just need a new uv bulb for the filter they do work ive got a pond and keep koi and gold fish in fact im over run with babies this year make shure the glass tube is in place on your filter box they are expensive to buy the bulb fits in side the glass tube and get rid off the frogs dont let them breed in your pond because they will polute it and up set the balance of your pond water an air stone will be a good idea for summer months to oxygenate the pond ive have 1 running all year round and my water is gin clear but you will have to clean the filter box out evry 2 weeks or so in summer months hope this helps steve

here is a link for some good tips on keeping fish

http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kennel/fishpond.htm

[cher]

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all for trying to help and thank you for your advice.

When I bought the pond it was second hand but a very quality

pond complete with pump fountain and filter.

When my pond went murky my friend recommended a UV light

but when I looked inside the filter box there was no starter.

Getting a UV light would be simple it's the starter that is difficult

to source or a reasonably priced filter that has a UV light.

I was lucky today and for a second I glimpsed my small Koi

and two of the goldfish.

Think I know how birdwatchers must feel when they make a sighting.

I have planted a few plants oxygenates and three water lilies and some type

of pond grass.

The lilies are just roots at the moment but I believe they are fast growing

plants.

I waited a couple of weeks before adding any fish then about a week

after adding the fish I noticed algae on the pond, my pond went murky

and my beautiful fish disappeared.

Now who mentioned frogs because they might cause me a problem

because I keep seeing them in my garden but do not want them in my

pond.

Don't get me wrong I like frogs but I believe they could spread disease

amongst my fish.

Also apparently one of my neighbours could not go out through her backdoor

last year because her yard had over sixty frogs sounds like that movie the birds.

I wonder if strawberry netting might stop frogs getting into my pond?

Anyone else had a problem with frogs out there and garden ponds.

Ha here was I wanting to relax next to a garden pool gazing at beautiful Koi

and I have murky water and frogs.

I will get there and much faster thanks to the help and advice that has been

offered on this list. Thanks everybody for all your help I have learned a lot

thanks to your replies.

[bluesandtwos]

Hi

 

i have a koi pond of just under 5000 gallons, and yes, I will admit i have every "gismo" going on it, including a stand-alone 55watt UV unit. the pond is 5ft deep and cosistently crystal clear. i would suggest you ring around a few koi stockists (proper ones as opposed to garden centres). One of them should be able to aquire the parts for your filter. Be aware though that UV tubes are not cheap and need to be replaced at least anually as they loose their output over a period of time. to be honest, I have an Oase pressurised filter unit sat in my shed, complete with working UV, no longer used as the current pond is filtered by something approaching the size of a small sewerage works and takes up about as much space. to dispel the myth, Koi and goldfish CAN be kept together, but some of the specialist medications used to treat koi diseases and parasites are leathel to goldfish. Just be aware of that should you need to treat your pond.