eddie244
Koi Lover
Jun 22, 2007, 4:28 AM
Post #58 of 133
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hehe.. no, im not tired of answering pond questions, well we are here to help, one way or another..
seems like your owls like fish for its diet. hehhee.. i do have that animal problems when i had my pond running. worse, these are the local heron (bangau) white color birds, long legs and pointed beaks.. solving the problem is using my trusty old super soaker. (had them since i was a kid) dont want to hurt them 'bangau', just scare them.. and strong yet safe gush of jetting water seems to scare them in a safer way, rather than using BB guns or slingshot etc. they always come in the afternoon at 12pm-1pm. i'll just stalk them during these time, after a whole 3-days i dont see them stalking the pond anymore, until now.. hope you can solve the owl problem, the motion detector thing seems like a good investment like-wise..
great you like the skippy.. you wont regret it. now, my calculation, your 18-kois comes up to 360cm all together. that is 141.7 inch of fish. based on your pond size of 30' x 5' x 2' = about 8494-litres. your surface area is about 150'square. your ideal stock is 114-inches of fish, max is at 147-inches. as you can see, you almost overstock you pond. your nitrite says it. your ammonia-eating bacteria is coping up with the amount of ammonia produce by your fish. but your nitrite-eating bacteria is still establishing itself. stop stocking up your pond, i know its tempting & you feel your pond looks empty...
i didnt quite see your pump specs, and new skippy filter dimensions from the waterfall. did you get the pump i recommend? get the trickle filter running, as you got that planned already. as it'll cope with your nearly overstock pond. and get airstones running in-there.. well, it can help the 'owl' problem by making the owl not see the fishes clearly.
about the test-kits, are they not expired or you did the testing wrongly?? maybe you ask some pond member to test your water parameters & compare together, you might see a differect testing technique etc. why you putting salt in your pond? salt are ONLY to be added in-case of emergency illness or first sign of illness. stop doing it. adding salt when your fish are healthy, would harm them instead of good. what salt does to kois/goldfish is to activate the mucus membrane to produce more slime. slime is good, as a protective defence layer for the fish (useful when parasite/bacteria are just starting to attack the fish, the mucus will protect the fish from the parasite/bacteria. the parasite/bacteria attack the fish because it got a low immune system, so now when it's healthy and you add salt, the mucus membrane will produce more slime. Incase your fish are ill, it will produce more mucus, but the fish has already producing additional mucus, which then stresses the mucus membrane.. stress fish is sick fish + attack by illness = very sick fish.. sorry for long explaination but you get me?) are you using anti-chlorine to top-up or condition your water?? another way of promoting protective layer to fishes without triggering its mucus membrane is using aloe-vera. im using interpet safe-start. its the most economical $/ml. it's an anti-chlorine and got aloe-vera in it. well, you can shop around and see which brand is cheaper at your area, as long as it got aloe vera in it. my pond is about 1200 litres. and i remove about 240-ltrs (1/5 of my pond volume) every 2 weeks or so. i just place in 25ml of safe-start. a 1000ml bottle would last me for about 3-mths.
as long as your kois are eating & active.. that will be alright. No, fish alone at the corner etc? water plants dont contribute to high nitrite. remember the water cycle, i told you at another post long ago??
nice to see your pond, all up and running... very nice, set-up. (thinking of building a same concept, once i get my own house). keeping post them pictures...
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. However all my kois look healthy and active as usual but worry of acidic water may kill them soon.. 
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