Topic: Help-Filter advice

[Ishard]

Yes its a good idea to widen this discussion Andy I was thinking about that earlier :)

It will make a change for everyone if I just shut up now.  :-X

[Andy H]

NO don`t shut up! I have learnt a lot in the past week.

I was guessing that there are not many koi owners on A4A by the responses.
Any info can be taken in and digested. Any info on products is always useful.

I have started feeding the fish again, 6 tablespoons a day, slowly does it.

Must find a source or dechlor soon.

Will buy an air pump mid week.

Keep the info flowing as I am sure others are reading it too.

[labrat]

I use several Kusuri health products for my Koi. Their Ulcer Treatment Kit has everything you could need in future.

http://www.kusuri.co.uk/index.php

Other internet retailers I use:

Richdon Koi - http://www.richdon-koi.com/ + help forum - http://www.richdon-koi.com/koihelp/ (requires registration)
Boddington Koi - http://www.boddingtonkoi.com/
Koizone - http://www.koizone.co.uk/

Koi magazine help forum - http://forum.koimag.co.uk/
Koi Quest help forum - http://www.koiquest.co.uk/forum/

cheers

[Ishard]

I too use Kasuri stuff :)
You can always phone Kevin and ask his advice about his products and how to use them. Hes a nice guy.

This link is great, register and the world of koi is yours for the taking  ;D

http://www.koiquest.co.uk/


And with this link you get some really amazing koi

http://www.yumekoi.com/


Enjoy

Jackie  :)

[Ishard]

Now youve done it!!!

Ive just spent the last half an hour looking at Mike Snadens koi and

I WANT

I WANT

I WANT!!!!!!!

 ;D ;)

[Andy H]

Just took Mother in law to northampton and popped into a garden centre and came out with air pump ;D
8 airlines in pond now and working well with 34metres of pipe!

Just cleaned filters and got a bacteria booster which I havent used yet.

Pond still crystal and started feeding again a little bit at a time.

[Ishard]

Andy take that bacteria booster back its waste of money as the bacteria are usually dead by the time you add them.
 Get a credit note and spend it on something else.  ;D

The very best, and I mean the very best, bacteria producer you can ever have is (for the pedants lol) YOUR KOI!  ;D

I am very pleased that you now have an air line and your koi will thank you :)
Which pump did you buy?

Keep a close eye on your water perams if you are feeding  ;)

[Andy H]

ok forget the money, is it worth throwing in anyway, will it make a small difference bearing in mind new foam and lava rock meaning its like a new filter?
Or should I give it to mate who has just built a pond?

Refund not worth the fuel to take it back.
Bacteria boost was A.B.A. natural bacteria boost.

pump was Blagdon KA65

2 air stones 5 air balls and an air disc running from 8 of the 12 ports, seems to be pumping fine in various places around the pond.

will do a test in the morning,started feeding 6 tablespoons then 7 and upped it to 12 a day, fish went mad for it.

I figured they needed something even though we cant get dechlor. I figured out that must be a de-chlorinater and if only available from pool guys then it is for people who put too much chlorine in a pool???

[labrat]

There's a Kusuri Dechlorinator available to order over the net. You must use it every time you put tap water in the pond to neutralise either chlorine or chloramine.

http://www.kusuri.co.uk/shopping.php?class_id=97



cheers

[Andy H]

Test this morning

PH  7.4 now 7.6
Nitrate 80 then 90 now 40
Nitrite .25 now .10
Ammonia was .25 now safe

Silly question time......

Cleaning the 3 foam layers I squeeze each one in a bucket of pond water and do each one twice, the water is still very green so do I need to do each one until hardly any green comes out?

Does just adding say 10% tape water really do that much harm?
I have never added anything for the tap water in 15years but yes we have lost fish but some are that old too.  Learnt a lot on here in the past few weeks!!!

[labrat]

at high doses the chlorine can kill but smaller amounts will cause irritation and may damage the gills of your fish. The irritation can also cause flashing (when the fish flicks and jerks itself against the sides of the pond) which can damage the protective mucus and fish scales leading to further possibilities of infection. Your water parameters are getting there, ideally the ammonia and nitrite should be undetectable (allowing for the general lack of sensitivity of home test kits).

In the past tap water was treated with elemental chlorine which when added to a pond with good aeration would bubble off the chlorine into the air and out of the water. Now many water companies (check the website of yours) add chloramine which is persistent and can't be removed from water like elemental chlorine and therefore the fish will come into contact with it for longer.

Just to check what in the end did you do with the last chamber? Did you put flocor or some other kind of bacterial support at the bottom with the foams over the top? The foams are essentially for mechanical filtration whereas the flocor is biological filtration. The foams will however become colonised with some beneficial bacteria. So there is a mid-point in cleaning the foams where you wash out most of the detritus however you don't want to clean them too well so that all the bacteria is gone. It's up to you to decide. However the flocor should be the primary source of biological filtration so bacteria in the foams shouldn't be that important. First you might want to do a test and take one of the foams and wash it a third time to see what else is washed out.

For a little further info I recommend Blagdon's ceramic bio media as an alternative to flocor but it is much more expensive.
http://www.richdon-koi.com/shop/?prodid=876

Also if your water is soft I'd especially recommend Lithaqua which is a porous mineral which acts not only as a biological support but also adds carbonate to your water which acts a buffer and therefore inhibits pH swings in the pond water and will help bring stability to your water parameters. In addition the bacteria involved in processing ammonia and nitrite need carbonate as part of the biochemical process they perform.
http://www.richdon-koi.com/shop/?prodid=471

cheers

[Andy H]

Thanks for that, we have hard water here. I put flowcore in the last chamber with the foam on top.

The water clarity is looking good although now the air stones are in it has disturbed some dead areas I guess but that will make its way to the bottom drain.

How expensive are "non at home" test kits then! :'(

[Ishard]

Andy if your friend has NO FISH in his pond tell him to pee in the pond once per day for  week. That will season the filter.  ;)

[labrat]

a non at home test kit would be a proper laboratory analysis. They don't cost all that much but necessitate more hassle delivering samples. Otherwise you can buy some pretty expensive electronic testing equipment to use at home.

As for peeing in the pond, I'm not sure that is such a great idea. The easiest way to provide food for bacteria is to simply add fish food to the filter or pond water.

[Ishard]

Im sorry to disagree but urine starts the nitrifying process (nitrogen cycle) by adding direct ammonia ( have you smelt a baby's wet nappy?) but food will just pollute the water and add to the TDS.

[labrat]

urine doesn't contain ammonia. Urea is the primary result of removing nitrogen from humans. Urea itself is a good source of nitrogen. If you have ammonia in your urine you need to see a doctor immediately because your kidneys are not functioning correctly.

The protein (amino acids) in fish food go through the same process as urea which is mineralisation followed by deamination which results in ammonia.

The other problem with urine, though being sterile, it will pick up bacteria and sometimes viruses from the skin around genitalia and introduce new and problematic cultures to your pond water.

[Ishard]

Normal urine contains water (90%-95%), and organic as well as inorganic constituents. Organic constituents comprise of : Urea, Ammonia, Uric acid, Creatinine, Amino acids, Hippuric acid, and Allantoin. Inorganic constituents are chlorides, phosphates, sulphates, sodium, potassium, calcium etc


The conversion of urea (CO(NH2)2) to ammonium (NH4)+ is a two step process.

When the urea combines with water (hydrolyzes) it forms ammonium carbonate (NH4)2CO3. Ammonium carbonate is unstable and decomposes to form ammonia gas (NH3 ) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The ammonia gas produced is chemically identical to anhydrous ammonia. If the ammonia gas is in physical contact with water, it reacts to form the ammonium ion (NH4)+.

This is why a baby's nappy smells of ammonia and why urea converts to ammonia in the pond.

There are two reasons why I don't suggest Andy uses the food route to seasoning a filter and these are;

1. We don't know if there are any 'dead spots' in the pond where the food would just lie and rot and so cause unwanted pathogens in the pond.


2 The food would add to the TDS and that aint good.

But hey, I'm not arguing with anyone as its not my pond and each to his/her own.  :)


Jackie

PS yes I was assuming that the person to pee in the pond is relatively healthy.

[Andy H]

Well the Dechlorinator arrived today so will use it when adding tap water.

I also got 2 more air stones and put in filter...

I popped one down the overflow pipe in 4th chamber so it bubbles under the flowcore but it seemed to be making Big bubbles through the foam so I popped them in the 3rd chambed under chinese matting. I guess the matting is also biological filter rather than mechanical. but it dis-lodged stuff which landed on the foam.

Q: Has it just dislodged stuff that got past the brushes or the biological gremlins that live there that we want???

Also, is it common to have worm things and tiny shell-less nails and small weeny snails in vast quantities in the filter or is all the monsters that do the biological stuff microscopic and cant be seen???

[Ishard]

Hi Andy,
Oh good you have the dehclor, approx 10% water changes weekly from now on then, winter and summer.  ;D
 
 The air line in chamber 3 is disturbing the dirt that the matting has caught. Matting is a mechanical removal system (only a little bio). Please remove it or we wil never get your water clear.  :D

Just cos you have 8 air lines you dont HAVE to use them all you know lol in fact the pump will last longer if you dont use all 8.  ;)

Little red worms in the filter are normal to most ponds but if the worms are brown or black these are usually leeches which are an altogether different story.
 Koi love to eat the red worms so feel free to scoop some and throw in the pond.
 PS These red worms are generally what is used in the freeze dried tubifex stuff you buy at pet shops.

Koi like to eat the small snails too but I prefer not to see them as they can be an intermediate host for a type of flukes, Sanguinicola inermis, if the snails are infected with the eggs.

Are you sure the "shell-less snails" you have seen are snails and not snail eggs?

Hope this helps

Jackie

PS oh and a tip about how to remove snails without chemicals. Lay cabbage leaves on the top of where the snails are and remove the cabbage in the morning and with any luck you will have harvested a good crop of the snails.

[Andy H]

OK gonna do water change today when I work out the water flow rate.

The air pump has 12 taps of which 9 I am using the other 3 are closed.

What gives on the pump? motor or diaphram?
Is it correct to lift air lines in winter to about a foot above the bottom to keep bottom warm?