newish pond

In most of the literature, salting to 0.1 is good for the fish. Reduces
stress, increases thickness of slime coat, which is beneficial in both
healing and making the fish less susceptible to parasites, due to thickness.
Salt should not affect the pond if it has a sealer system on it. Unsealed,
it is possible that the salt could cause corrosion of the reinforcing steel
in the concrete, but it would require years of salting to penetrate 2 inches
of concrete. Some of the current thinking is salt belongs on french fries
and should not be used in the ponds. Low levels cause resistance of
parasites to the use of salt as a means of erradication, but many of the
parasites are already able to tolerate high levels of salt, so I don't see
an issue with low dose. Higher levels will interfer with the use of some of
the formaldahyde type products for killing parasites, but at 0.05%, it
should not be an issue. As soon as everything has settled out and the fish
have settled down, healed, and no further losses, then the salt level can be
reduced by normal weekly water changes, which are needed anyway.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html

wrote in message
ups.com...
I did contact the supplier. He says they've had ulcer issues in some
of the smaller fish due to stress (to note: I've not lost any larger
then 4-5" yet) but fairly certain no KHV-- what can I say... He
recommends I add salt to .05. Seem like a good idea? We have a lot of
solar salt lying around that we use in our water softener system. It
seems some use it here w/o objection. Any idea at what dosage I should
be using for a 3500-4000 gal system?

btw- our pond is concrete with a multicoat system applied. we have a
waterfall that runs down some boulders as well. i'm hoping salt will
not adversely affect this?

Thanks very much everyone. You all have been a tremendous help.

frogs? good grief. they arrived before the fish. there are probably
10 or more that inhabit the pond :-/

wrote in message
ups.com...
I did contact the supplier. He says they've had ulcer issues in some
of the smaller fish due to stress (to note: I've not lost any larger
then 4-5" yet) but fairly certain no KHV-- what can I say...

## Ulcers are caused by a bacteria, not stress as such. Any injury and the
aeromonas (sp?) move in, create an ulcer and kill the fish. This was a
pathologic problem we and many others were dealing with back then. The
Koi-Zyme prevents it by out-competing the pathogenic bacteria. Stress is
never good for fish but it doesn't cause ulcers. Somepeople say they're not
contagious but I believe they are. It started with a few fish and spread
rapidly. There was no undue stress on these fish and I was hearing about
pondkeepers around me dealing with the same problem. As mine koi and
goldfish died off one by one despite antibiotic shots and creams - the fish
behind the house that never came in contact with them remained unaffected.
When the man replaced all the koi he told me about Lymno-Zyme (same as
Koi-Zyme). I've used it ever since and now even when they're tearing
themselves up spawning there are no infections and no ulcers. It's worth
the $16.00 a year as far as I'm concerned.

He
recommends I add salt to .05. Seem like a good idea? We have a lot of
solar salt lying around that we use in our water softener system. It
seems some use it here w/o objection. Any idea at what dosage I should
be using for a 3500-4000 gal system?

## Salt in the pond is useless as far as I can see and the plants hate it.
To use enough to do any good (for certain parasites) you lose your plant
filtration. Salt does nothing for ulcers.

btw- our pond is concrete with a multicoat system applied. we have a
waterfall that runs down some boulders as well. i'm hoping salt will
not adversely affect this?

## Salt is useless unless you have high nitrite levels meaning there's a
nitrogen cycle problem - or it's not established yet.

Thanks very much everyone. You all have been a tremendous help.

## :-)
--
McKoi.... frugal ponding since 1995...
My Pond Page http://tinyurl.com/cuq5b
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

wrote in message
ups.com...
frogs? good grief. they arrived before the fish. there are probably
10 or more that inhabit the pond :-/
====================================
It's never been proven to my satisfaction that they can carry disease from
pond to pond but you never know. These diseases have to have some way to
spread themselves as do all diseases and parasites.
--
McKoi.... frugal ponding since 1995...
My Pond Page http://tinyurl.com/cuq5b
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:26:47 -0500, Reel Mckoi wrote:

wouldn't the uv lower/eliminate this risk?

$$ No. I don't believe this light eliminates risk but will kill whatever
tiny parasites get pumped trough it. It will never get all of them. It's
better to KNOW who you're supplier is and then quarantine and treat for a
minimum of 14 days.

UV's for ponds aren't strong enough to act as sterilisers. You need
5W/gallon to sterilise and you need to pass all the pond water through
at least twice an hour otherwise you are giving pathogens a chance to
multiply. Also with pond UV's the water is too far from the UV at the
outside of the tube to kill things. They don't even kill the green
algae but disrupt the cell surface so that they stick together and
either sink to the bottom of the pond and die or get filtered out.

There are some aquarium sterilisers at
http://www.aquatics-online.co.uk/Z371193.asp and you can see the sort
of intensity and flow rates required on that page.

It's hard to suggest what to do since we don't know what the problem
is. Salt is one thing you can try but it will affect your plants in
higher concentrations but may help your fish cope with stress at lower
strengths.

Potassium permanganate is also another possibility that won't affect
your plants but will kill your filter bacteria. You can bypass your
bead filter but the bacteria in there may die from lack of oxygen
anyway. If you register at http://www.click2roark.com you can get
details of how to use both of these treatments.

Can you get Medi-Koi where you are? This is a Koi food treated with
antibiotics and is one of the best ways of getting them into your fish.
The UK government doesn't trust us to complete the 10 day course so we
can't get this here but a quick google shows a few suppliers in the US:
http://www.tsekoi.com/medications/medi.html
http://store.watergardenweb.com/med125pounba.html

Cloudy eyes are caused by bacteria but it could have occurred after
death although I would have expected it to affect both eyes then.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk

I seem to have a mental block about bicarb and can never remember but I
think it's a cup per 1000 gallons (am I close Jan?) so 1 cup a day may
well take a couple of weeks to get it up. First it will stop the
overnight drop and then it will start to gradually increase the ph.

Not ignoring you, it is back to work time (school started Monday for me,
Tuesday for the kids).

I usually tell people to start with that and remeasure their KH after 24
hours. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 19:39:05 -0700, ~ jan JJsPond.us wrote:

I seem to have a mental block about bicarb and can never remember but I
think it's a cup per 1000 gallons (am I close Jan?) so 1 cup a day may
well take a couple of weeks to get it up. First it will stop the
overnight drop and then it will start to gradually increase the ph.

Not ignoring you, it is back to work time (school started Monday for me,
Tuesday for the kids).

That's OK, you usually turn up :-)

I usually tell people to start with that and remeasure their KH after 24
hours. ~ jan

Great, I'll try and remember, that's what he's started with.

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail ngpsm4 (at) infohitsystems (dot) ltd (dot) uk