Onyxia Onyxia
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  • Posted on: 1/6/2013 11:40
Office pond #1
You may have noticed that Ive been a bit quiet recently. I have a new job keeping me busy! Unfortunately the office has a little courtyard with a pond which has been given the the apprentices to look after. Neither of them know anything about fishkeeping and every time theres another spate of deaths one of the directors just throws in a new batch.

I think I can stabilize it a bit just by doing proper maintenance and putting more media in the filter but I have a few questions:

Is an all in one pond food pellet ok for a mixture of coy and goldfish? It seems to be mostly wheatgerm and spirulina.

There is a large sterlet in there and it doesn't even try to compete for food. There is a lot of algae but would I be right to put in some veg for it as I do for my plecs?

Are there any plants that may help mitigate the overstocking issues but not be eaten by the carp/goldfish?
Coralline Coralline
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  • Posted on: 2/6/2013 13:15
Re: Office pond #2
How big is this pond? And how many koi and goldfish are in there, and how big are they and the sterlet?
Sounds like a complete disaster already, well done for trying to get involved and help fix things! I think the biggest job on your hands is trying to convince the buyer of the fish to stick to a sensible stock level, as I'm going to assume there is no consideration to what's appropriate if they are happy to just add more regardless when deaths occur. Point out that full grown koi carp can (should) reach almost 3 ft in length... And Goldfish should reach approx 12" long. I'm guessing there's too many fish in there anyway...
Goldfish will eat greenery.. The best thing you can do is just add elodea, it is cheap, so won't matter if they eat some, and will be good for them if they do eat it. If its a good quality pellet, should be ok for the main bulk of their diet, but I'm guessing its a cheap one. Veggies will help them diet wise, but depending on how many fish are there I would say getting stock level and filtration right for the size of the pond is a slight priority over feeding them better quality food, only because the waste level will increase with more food, potentially creating a worse environment for the poor fish. Do you have any pics of the pond and residents?
:o)
Gill

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Onyxia Onyxia
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  • Posted on: 2/6/2013 14:24
Re: Office pond #3
It is horribly overstocked but I can't really fix that so for now I'm just trying to mitigate the problems as best I can. I hope I can stop any more fish going in there but since the fish buyer is a lot higher in the company than me there is a limit to how far I can push this right now.

I don't have any photos but I would guestimate the pond is about 2.5m long x 0.5m deep x 0.75 meters at the widest point of the crescent. The filter is clearly undersized but both filter and power supply are concreted in so getting an additional filter will not be trivial. I haven't counted the number of fish but even not accounting for growth it is still ridiculously overstocked. The sterlet alone is about 30cm and presumably just a juvenile.
Coralline Coralline
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  • Posted on: 3/6/2013 0:29
Re: Office pond #4
Omg. If there's too many too count without trying, that sounds more like fish soup than a pond! Sterlets can easily reach approx 1m in length, but are not vegetarian, they search for small creatures on the bottom of their habitat, I'm not exactly sure what it's finding to eat in a pond supplied with wheat germ pellets! He needs to be in a lake along with the koi carp! Maybe have a chat with the people appointed to monitor the pond? Maybe you can put some good ideas into their heads that will filter up the chain.
Let us know when you have counted the fish, and have a look at the filter and give us a better idea of how bad the situation is, sounds like all we can really do is help you figure out how to get this info accepted!
Gill

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Onyxia Onyxia
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  • Posted on: 3/6/2013 12:16
Re: Office pond #5
Ok I count about 16 fish (mostly small). I will admit to knowing nothing about sterlets but the 'sterlet sticks' here are also wheatgerm based so I'm rather confused now. Presumably there are different breeds of sterlet?

I did nitrite and ammonia tests this morning and both were surprisingly good. 0 nitrite and .25 ammonia which shouldn't be too toxic as I've added a load of ammolock (post test). Hopefully once the extra filter media arrives the water quality will clear up. That only leaves issue of inappropriate stocking.
Coralline Coralline
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  • Posted on: 3/6/2013 17:58
Re: Office pond #6
No, sterlet is the common name of Acipenser ruthenus, which is a small member of the sturgeon family. If the food is specially for the sterlet, it should be ok, as long as it gets to eat it without the other fish hoovering it up first, but I think it's pretty safe to say the sterlet and the koi should not be in such a small pond anyway. Going on the dimensions you give, the volume comes out at 200 gallons, but as its not rectangular, it will be less, allowing around 40 gallons of space for each full grown goldfish, I would say there should be 5 goldfish in that pond... Doesn't sound a lot when they are small, but they can grow very quickly into impressive specimens when they have room , good diet and clean water.
How many of them are goldfish? and are they standard goldfish or fancy?

Many people don't realise that fish release ammonia through their gills as well as their excretions... Maybe a good point to raise if discussing how many fish should be in there!
Gill

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Onyxia Onyxia
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  • Posted on: 4/6/2013 16:55
Re: Office pond #7
You're preaching to the choir. I wouldn't have put fish in at all given that no one knows anything about ponds or has any interest in maintaining one! The goldies look like comets and have done ok over the winter. There are more goldfish than coy but I've only done a quick headcount, I didn't take note of how many there were of each.

I have gotten enough money from HR to buy some dechlorinator, a full test kit and a few other bits to help us clean the pond. Its still far from ideal but things are looking up at least.
Coralline Coralline
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  • Posted on: 4/6/2013 18:01
Re: Office pond #8
Lol, we are the choir!

At least HR have given you some cash and let you buy stuff, that is a good sign that they are willing to make things better!

Maybe you could find a few people willing to rehome a few of the fish? Do you have a office notice board? If you get permission, you could always put a poster on there to ask if any colleagues have pond space available?

Keep us posted with any developments! :)
Gill

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