Fish keep dying :(

kilohawk

kilohawk

kilohawk

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11 Dec 2011
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Hull-Oxford
I had 8 10" Koi in a large pond which sprung a leak, so while re-lining it (lots of reconstruction work) they're in a holding tank which is a quarter of the size of the pond.

The tank has no filtration system as we originally intended to patch the holes, but that was unsuccessful, it just has a 600gal/hour pump and 3 airbubble thingys. with some plants ect.

we've had trouble with the lights so I turned off the electric for the garden to investigate and forgot to turn it on until the next morning.

When returning to the pond around 15 hours later (left over night) all the large Koi were floating on the top, some had their scales flaking some didn't :(
The water had a low lying cloudy reddish colour to it at this point.

So I turned everything on and cleared the fish out, added 10-20L of fresh water to get some oxygen in there.

Now we just keep losing 2 a day, this happened 4 days ago, the new pond is ready to fill but I don't want to do it until i know the holding tank water is safe to use.

We were using render and PVA among paint etc around the tank, would small amounts of this getting in there cause a problem? There was no large amounts we noticed going in, but inevitably the odd splash would have, but nothing significant.

PLEASE HELP, this is over £500 worth of fish gone already :confused::mad::(
 
Fish are commonly regarded as having a affinity with water, this is false.

Fish are amphibious animals and enjoy being able to spend some of their time on surfaces such as rocks.
 
^ Is that part of a "fish are not animals" argument

My dad thinks fish aren't animals, he also thinks birds aren't animals.
 
When the first batch died you need to replace all water. The cloudy reddish colour thingy, I suspect, is blood from the dead fish.
 
This sounds serious.
There may be a couple of things that may cause the Reddish/Brown water. One cause is caused by algae dying off en-masse. That depletes the oxygen levels which usually kills the fish outright.
The other assumes that you are keeping them in water from your pond prior to draining. Cold-water fish are pretty messy due to lack of a proper digestive tract and need massive amounts of filtration when kept in tanks. Ideally, you need to be filtering the water and not just pumping it around. Detritus can mess up water quality incredibly quickly as bacteria go absolutely beserk feeding on it and as with the algae, deplete the oxygen levels, killing the fish.

I suggest either getting some filtration and a complete water change and add some water conditioner like Aqua Safe for the holding tank, or alternatively, check to see if the render and sealant have cured in the pond. If so, then fill it and get them back in there.
 
Eames said:
^ Is that part of a "fish are not animals" argument

My dad thinks fish aren't animals, he also thinks birds aren't animals.
Click to expand...

No and it sounds like you dad is confusing the term 'animal' with 'mammal'.

What is a fish?

No such thing as a fish? This really means that unlike mammals and birds, not all the creatures we call fish today descend from the same common ancestor. Or put another way, if we go back to most recent common ancestor of everything we now call fish (including the incredibly primitive lungfish and hagfish), we find that they also were the ancestor of all four-legged land vertebrates, which obviously aren’t fish at all. So, it’s a term to use with caution. After all, in the 16th century, seals, whales, crocodiles and hippos were called fish and cuttlefish, starfish, crayfish, jellyfish and shellfish still are.
Click to expand...
 
So you dumped some prize koi into a small tank with no filtration then turned off their life support system and then spilled some chemicals in to said tank?
 
Thanks for your advice datinz, I posted in this forum because I know a lot of people keep fish, and that most people don't just have one hobby ;)

We've had the fish for over 10 years with no problem, so this has shocked me a little.
 
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