Re: Beginners "bad" luck
#13
Oh dear! What a mess! Well it most certainly sounds like the shop you go to is trying to fleece you for money rather than save your pond.
Changing the water as everyone has suggested is definatly a good idea! but there are some other things you can do aswell. As people have suggested sepparateing the ill fish to treat in treatment tanks would be a good idea and save your fish swimming in a soup of chemicals and save your wallet from being empty!
As for the fish, im sure your gold fish with "fan like" tails will be fine if they are normal shaped goldies with commet tails although it may be an idea to bring them in for winter as ive notced that commets sometimes dont survive a harsh winter. As for the sterlets, they realy shouldnt have even sold you them if your pond is only a couple of months old! Sturgeon take alot of looking after and they also do better in a stable, settled and mature pond. The water has to be kept clean and all blanket weed removed as this can get stuck in their gills and cause them to asphixiate! I used to have sturgeon but unfortunatly they were stolen when our house was burgled a few years ago. How they did it ill never know!
My pond has been running for well over a decade now and is beautiful! The only chemicals i introduce are anti-chlorine (which is rare as i have a water butt and fill the pond with rain water which is far better!) and i add a small dose of Tetra medifin in the spring as the water warms up. I have only ever had one ill fish and unfortunatly it must have been ill when i bought it
New ponds allways take a long time to settle down and mature. A general rule of thumb is to leave the pond with no fish in for 2 weeks with the filter running and all the plants in there just to let it settle. Then after 2 weeks or a month add some small goldfish and see wether they survive with no illness for another 2 week to a month period. If these small gold fish thrive then you know its safe to add more expensive fish. Sorry this advice is coming a little late for you! It is important that you know this for when u expand your pond though i suppose!
As for your feeding problems, i have them to! I have 22 fish in my pond (tench, ghost carp, koi carp, grass carp, blue orf and gold rudd) and they hardly ever want to feed on what i give them! I think this may be because i have a huge ammount of wildlife in my pond which im sure the fish prefer to eat rather than the processed food i get from the shop. Sometimes they do eat it but if they do it will be in the evening as the light begins to fade.
If your water turnes green rather than just relying on the UV, buy a pack of barley straw and either stick it in your filter or even wedge it under a plant pot in the pond. The effects wont be immediate, it will take about 3 weeks for them to start working but when they do they realy do help! Plus it stops you using chemicals like 'greenaway' ect which im convinced harms some of the wildlife in my pond.
I think the biggest thing you have to have with a new pond is patience. It took ages for mine to settle down and for a while i had only 2 cheap carp in there to test the water. safe to say they were fine until mr heron saw them.
12 years later the pond is full of fish, the water is as clear as day and the heron has left the area lol. Times are good for another year but then im going to be back in your shoes as i will have to move house and set up another pond elsewhere