Algie, UV Lights, and filteration.

[koifishgirl]

And thanks, the reason I ask was that someone had posted on another forum that his pond water was green and wanted to see his koi so he added a UV light and his water turned crystal clear and then all his koi died. So it was due to him killing off the algia and his filter not being big enough to take care of the poop right?

[butterfly]

Quote: Originally Posted by koifishgirl And thanks, the reason I ask was that someone had posted on another forum that his pond water was green and wanted to see his koi so he added a UV light and his water turned crystal clear and then all his koi died. So it was due to him killing off the algia and his filter not being big enough to take care of the poop right?

Probably, he had a high fish load in his pond and the ammonia production was high and so was the nitrate. When algae were around, nitrate was getting consumed quickly. As soon as the UV killed the algae and floating bacteria, ammonia and nitrate killed the fish. In addition, the high priced high protein fish food also produces much higher level of ammonia. If he was feeding the pricey high protein diet that contributed to the death. I think the lessons to learn would be to do everything with pond slowly, stepwise and keep the fish load in the pond low.

[dick benbow]

Judy,

The UV light timing probably did not have anything to do with the death of the koi. BUT a UV light is indiscriminate meaning it kills good with the bad bacteria.
So it may have hastened the eventual end.

Filtration is so important to the health of our water. I have almost as much in filtration volumn wise as koi pond. I also run a trickle of new water in 24/7 and am way under stocked. As much as it's a pain, I still log in every week( tho nothing changes) my water statisics....temp ph nitrite, nitrate, ammonia Gh, KH
why because as soon as something changes I'm ahead of the curve and can deduct what is happening so i can take whatever steps I have to to make the end results for my baby blues, just " another day in paradise".....

[Steve Nguyen]

Hi,

since UV light kills good and bad bacteria, it's important that the UV light is inline attached to one of return pipes to pond. for example, the 2" return pipe is divided into two 1.5" pipes with one 1.5" feeds to waterfall and the other 1.5" pipe feeds to the pond. inline connecting the UV light to waterfall pipe or the other pipe that feeds to the pond. this way, only half of the water return to the pond goes thru the UV light. the algae will be removed over the time and the water will clear up.

I doubted that UV light was responsible for his koi death. there might be something else that cause the problem.

Steve

Quote: Originally Posted by koifishgirl And thanks, the reason I ask was that someone had posted on another forum that his pond water was green and wanted to see his koi so he added a UV light and his water turned crystal clear and then all his koi died. So it was due to him killing off the algia and his filter not being big enough to take care of the poop right?

[koifishgirl]

Dick I would like to see those baby blues that you have. I remember you saying that you had a few to raise. If you have some old and new pics I would love to see them. How many was it 7 or nine.

Thanks all, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about before I helped the other person. Dont want to look bad if you know what I mean. I do remember the dragon fly deal on here where Luke set me straight in a very blunt way, good ole Luke he just cant help himself


Judy

[junglegeorge12]

Judy- on your comment about the UV causing the deaths, I tend with dick to really doubt that theory. Reason is that if he had decent biological filtration, even if he had small spike, it should have caught up before any deaths occurred. I would look for gill flukes or other causes personally.

When I first started in the hooby I used to throw a bunch of blocks of pond block in and kill all the algae in a dy or two. Even tough my pond was under a covering, it got sun only half the day, and it looked like green pea soup, so I would go buy a bag of pond block and toss it in. That was before UV lights even became popular. It never affected the koi to my knowledge. I did it so many times, if it was going to cause a problem, it would have. I had to really get good in filters quick due to our sun here producing SOOO much algae so fast, then the hard tropical downpours on top of it.....

I would say it's about a 90% chance something else caused the deaths. Algae does eat nitrate, but not that much. Unless he had his bio in his filter wiped out at the same time.

[koifishgirl]

His little pond only holds 150 gallons of water and a very small filter. He does not have good space or filter and killed off the algia and he overfeed his koi I am sure. He was doing regular water changes at 40% every other day and then when he add UV light only three times a month. 150 gallon of water without very good filteration can fall in a very serious mode before to long. Crap city USA.

[dick benbow]

one of the things that always amazed me was as a youngster when i raised all kinds of tropicals and goldfish in aquariums. I had this mind set that to do thousands of gallons with the trouble i first had when learning with 20 gallons was too mind boogling to understand. The truth is the bigger and deeper the water the less fluctuations
in water perameters and the easy it is to care for them.

if we had a magic wand and could wave it over the 150 gals and make it 1,500
they would be amazed at how much easier it would be to maintain the same fish load.

learners always overfeed and under filter. unfortunately some of our best lessons are hardest learned.

I wish for this person that someone who knows the ropes could set aside a little time to pay a visit and help them to understand filtration. somehow this kindness always seems to find a way to return to the sender

[junglegeorge12]

That's too bad. Tell him not to give up. Are you going to help him get going again?

[jacovors]

Hi Judy,
By adding a UV light you're pond will develop blanket weed 100% guaranteed.