I feel so bad for you. I keep and extra rubber maid tub and pump 'just in case' for these type of emergencies. If he has something like this it would be good to fill it, treat the water and move the fish until the pond could be drained, cleaned, and refilled. There must be a lot of decaying stuff in the pond. At least that way you could save some of his fish.

A tractor store or farm store would have a 300 gal tub on site and it would be a good thing to have for future problems.

Is there someone who has a pond who could help you? Where do you live?

Wow, there are a lot of things that could have happened. When it is the larger fish that die first, you usually look for ammonia or lack of oxygen or a PH crash. Do you have a test kit? Was there a recent rain? Only a test kit will give you real info and even then won't tell you oxygen levels. The bubbler was a good idea for more oxygen, but if it is spitting water there is something wrong with it. Get a new one.

Fish are very good at hiding when something goes wrong. Sometimes they hide for weeks. If you are right about the gallons, that is very little water for koi. If the pond is 6 feet deep then your pond could be only a very few feet wide. Maybe as much as 5.

One fairly rare problem would be stray voltage. This happens when there is an electrical short that puts a charge in the water. There should be a special outlet that must be reset if something shorts out. Its called a GFCI outlet. I assume your electrician would have known this and checked it out. Or there could have been a lightning strike.(it happens)Some of the fish might look bent.

If your DH was aware of a problem so that he got medication he should have discussed it with you before he left. However I don't think Ick is the problem here.

Please post again with more info.

Hi, sorry if this ends up posting twice - I thought I posted this afternoon but it's not showing up.

Thank you all for your kind words and advice.

The fish were looking a little better this morning. I finally found the big fish, unfortunately dead and stuck in the muck at the bottom. So sad. She was a wedding gift, small enough to fit in a bucket back then, but in our pond she grew to be twice as big as the next one. We called her Tiny. I buried her in the back yard. I cried a lot today.

sleeplessinftwayne, you are right - the pond is about 5 feet wide at its widest point, and like 10 feet long but narrow for most of that. Yes, there was a recent rain. I honestly don't know how many fish are in there.

frankielynn, We are in the Los Angeles area. My husband didn't leave me any emergency tech numbers, so I called the fish store he frequents and they referred me to the first guy. I called up someone else today for more info (the first guy seemed totally trustworthy but is not very chatty so I needed more info.)

I imagine we have a test kit around here - I guess I'll locate it and then google instructions. Is there one for oxygen? I am thinking oxygen because of the pump being off. It was definitely off but no one can figure out why.

The first pond guy told me to keep changing out the water (and adding anti-chlorine) and just to keep an eye on it. He said not to feed the fish for a week or so.

The other guy I talked to today suggested adding some hydrogen peroxide - like a 1/4 cup. Do you think that's a good idea?

We also have a lot of hairy algae, which the second guy told me is due to the season, but would suck up a lot of oxygen so I might need to oxygenate more. Hence the H2O2.

He suggested something to kill the algae, but then said I'd have to clean the filters and I don't have the faintest idea where the filters are, much less how to clean them. He said I might be able to get away with it til my husband gets back. I can call the first pond guy (who's close by) but it's expensive. Obviously I'll do it to avoid another kill, though.

I guess I will be on here a lot learning from you guys!

Thank you for your kind words and support, seriously. This has been really stressful and your niceness has helped a lot.

K

This post was edited by uh-oh on Mon, Mar 11, 13 at 23:56

Hey there. I'm sorry about Tiny. We get as attached to our finny pets as we do the furry ones. I've shed a few tears myself at times.I remember being so surprised that some fish had real personalities.

Test kits are important. We can sometimes get away without using them but sooner or later it can catch up with us. I'll give you a very brief explanation for someone without a daily familiarity with chemistry.

The reason I asked about rain is that a heavy rainfall can cause a PH crash which can kill fish rapidly. That is a drop in the acid /alkaline levels in the water which is on a 1-10 scale. Below 7 (approximately) is acid, above is alkaline. There can be other causes but the rain is a fairly common one. The reading in the PH test should be around or above 7.8. Higher is ok, lower is not particularly good for Koi. The important thing is to prevent rapid, wide swings in the numbers. A temporary prevention with a heavy rain is to slowly add a box of ordinary Bicarbonate of soda to stabilize the water. Some ponders add the bicarb before the rain. There are other ways to stabilize PH. Bicarb is for an emergency.

The KH test tells you about the resistance of the water to a change in the PH. If your KH is good according to the test, then it is less likely for the PH to change rapidly. If there has been a PH crash it should be corrected before correcting the KH (aka hardness).

Ammonia is a killer. It shows up when there is a lot of fish poop, mulm or debris on the bottom, too much fish food or the filters need cleaning or any combination. Ammonia drives out oxygen and can cause great discomfort and even death for the fish. 10 to 20% water changes, addition of oxygen through bubblers and splashing of the waterfall helps. I use a combination of Activated charcoal and Ammocarb in a cloth bag in the waterfall tank to absorb ammonia and other toxins, odors and stains in the water.

The nitrite and nitrate tests indicate too many nutrients in the water. If the level is high, the Ammonia levels will soon rise. Water changes, reduced feeding, elimination of mulm and debris and clean filters all help.

The string algae in the water can be removed with a brush like a toilet bowl brush. If there is a lot, pour hydrogen peroxide directly on the algae to kill it. For your pond a pint bottle is about the right size. A quarter cup won't do much of anything. It won't hurt the fish but don't pour it directly on them. Treatment can be repeated in 24 hours although peroxide loses its effectiveness in a few minutes as the water dilutes it.

There are different kind of test kits. The liquid/ test tube types are best. The dip sticks are tempting but not always accurate. A test kit will cost about $30.00 and covers the five tests above. It is usually good for a year.

A test for oxygen is available but not often used. The affects of low levels is too readily apparent.

I hope this isn't too daunting. It usually takes about five or ten minutes to do the tests.

Water changes are a good practice. Tap water is different everywhere and you probably shouldn't add it directly. I spray it or add it very, very slowly to moving water to avoid the stuff they use as purifiers. The chemical suggested is usually a good bet to reduce those although I don't generally like to add chemicals off the store shelf,.

Keep us posted.

I'm sorry you lost your special fish baby. I tell myself I am not going to get so attached but I'm hopeless. How many fish are in your pond? Is the bad smell better? When you say muck in the pond, would that be decaying leaves? dirt from overturned plants? or just the algae? If there is decaying matter you will probably need to clean out the whole pond in the very near future (hopefully that can wait until your husband gets home) and then net the pond in the fall to keep out the leaves or whatever.

I know how helpless you can feel when you are left caring for something that you are not totally familiar with. You have done everything you could as soon as possible and are still working on fixing the problem. That is all anyone could ask. I hope things are improving.

sleeplessinftwayne, thanks for your beautifully written suggestions.

I located a test kit - he has several, both strip and tube - but I didn't see KH or nitrate/trite on any of them. The pH tests as a clear 7.2 with the test tube, more like 8 with the strip.

I will pick up a nitrate/trite test kit today. The fish are looking a lot perkier today.

Still not feeding them - how will I know when it's time to feed them again? The water is 57 degrees (found the thermometer!).

Hey there, your fishies don't need to be fed until the water temps are consistently above 55oF. Their digestive systems can't handle it and it can cramp them up. (They don't have stomachs, just a long gut.) They may not eat if they had a scare. They may continue hiding for a while but they will come out when they get hungry.

They have probably been snacking on the algae growing on the sides and bottom. That's ok since it goes right through them. One thing they like if they have gut problems is cooked shelled peas(each pea peeled, not just out of the shell). It has sort of a laxative or tonic effect.

You still need to check Ammonia levels. It can be sneaky.

I suspect that the water change wiped out evidence of a PH crash if it happened at all. The difference in the liquid test and the strips shows what I meant when I said they were unreliable and you don't know how old either of them are.The water change would also reduce the amount of Ammonia.

I forgot to say peroxide breaks down into water and an extra oxygen atom, so yes, it is a quick fix but takes too much to be reliable as an oxygen source.

It really sounds like this is related to the pump going out. Do you know if the electrician had to reset the outlet? Does the pump have a prefilter to keep debris out of the pump? Something clogging the impeller (the part that spins to move the water)could have put a strain on the motor and caused a short, then came free when the pump was checked. I have even had the prefilter clog up only to clear when the power was turned off briefly.

The last is pure speculation but one reason the bottom should be kept as clear of debris as possible.

I hope I am not confusing you. It can be intimidating to have a major problem thrown at you like this. You are doing all you could do.

If you need a pump temporarily, I have one that is not in use. 2600gph. I'm in Tujunga/Sunland.

Hi there,

The fish are looking better now, perky and swimming around almost normally. The ammonia levels are somewhere between .25 and 0 ppm (I am learning so much so fast!). I haven't fed them yet. I love the peas idea!

Yukkuri, thanks for the offer - you are so close, like 10 miles from me! However I think the pump is running and I am very sure I'm not capable of doing any upgrades on my own!

There's definitely something weird going on with the pump, though. The waterfalls are both running but the pond isn't losing water like it normally does. The pond guy who came out said he could not tell enough about the setup to fix it and we should keep and eye on the fish and wait for my husband, who will be back in a week and a half. I put in about a pint of hydrogen peroxide but because the pond hasn't been losing water I haven't changed it out in the 24 hours. I suppose I could get out the wet vac and remove a few gallons at a time - worth it?

Again, thank you for all your support! and your kinds words about doing all that can be done. It's funny, my husband is fairly philosophical about the fish - he kind of expects to lose some anytime we go away and have to have neighbors look in on them - but this is definitely the biggest problem that ever happened in his absence and I don't want to let him down! It is great to learn all about this - better late than never!

If the water quality is stable(according to the tests) and the fish are happy I would leave it alone for now but keep an eye on that pump. Do the tests again in a few days just to be safe.

I am one of those people that whatever can go wrong will go wrong at some point, so I want to know how to deal with it when and if it happens. Hubby would never have gotten away that long without giving me some info first. You are a lot nicer than I am, I guess. I'm glad we could give you some support at least. How did you find us?

LOL sleepless, I wish I had grilled him more too. But, we inhabit very different worlds. He is an engineer and lives for the details of physical systems. I am a psychologist, and though I have many rarefied skills, I can barely screw in a lightbulb by myself. When he would excitedly explain his projects to me I'd listen lovingly because he was so proud, but from lack of background I had trouble retaining anything more complex than "When X happens, which looks like 'this', do Y."

This was really stressful, but the silver lining is that it was kind of great to start learning about this on my own terms.

I found you using my awesome google-fu! You guys seemed friendly and competent and there were lots of posts, so of the various fish boards I found, this looked like a great bet!

Thanks again!

I think if you see this as a Great Beginning, and start learning the basics of how things around you work, you will feel empowered and have more confidence in your ability. It is never too late to learn.