Water quality- In response to Learning Nishikigoi thread.

[lildude]

Not being a know it all, but hear me out.


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Water quality.

water quality I believe is not just chemical readings, but so much more.
Light exposure time, dissolved oxygen, organic matter currently in the pond, fish load, Gallonage ratio to ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, dissolved oxygen

Yes, dissolved oxygen because it would take a whole lot more oxygen to bring a 9000 gallon pond up to 9 ppm/O2 than to bring the same humber or higher to a considerably smaller pond. Then you also have to factor in temperature of the pond to see what the highest attainable DO reading you can get at that temperature at a safe level, given things should not be supersaturated. Then you would have to factor in sunlight exposure time (too little, too much) This I believes ties with much of water quality. DO.

DO usually requires water movement in nature, and in koi ponds too. Water movement is a natural sign that the water is pure, or clean in nature. (Ex. fast moving rivers, creeks) Water movement in a koi pond is a must to get the water pure, even if you have no pump, the water is still moving due to the natural law of equillibrium and chemical balance AKA osmosis. However, this would not suffice for big creatures such as koi in such a small Isolated ecosystem. this is why artificial measures must be taken.
I believe that
DO in my mind would also apply to the 3 main evils to the koi ponders, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. A lake with minimal readings of DO is checked for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Chances are we would find things off the charts, let alone nothing alive in the lake. This applies so much in the koi world too. That is why we must keep our Dissolved Oxygen up, but not so high that we supersaturated, I attached a graph for other members understanding.
Bacterium that do the conversion of hazardous chemicals put off by anything and everything organic require a good and steady level of DO.----

[Another good point, keep any unnecessary organic molecules OUT OF YOUR POND skimmer, filter, and other measures to keep junk out.] let the bacterium work as least as possible, and only on the important stuff, the chemicals that come directly from your koi, no where else. This is why an excellent filter System is so needed.

----only one way to do this effectively is to properly place your pond not fully in the sunshine, but not totally out of it. This in turn affects temperature [and also the color of the koi, but less important right now]
which will, once again, affect the DO.
Anything like copper, lead, and all other heavy metals really should be kept at minimal naturally occuring levels if possible.
CACO3 aka limestone will bring the hardness of your water up. Plaster of paris will also too. This will also affect the koi's development of color. Control this and you can greatly increase your control over different varieties of koi.

All in all, if you want to know water quality. All you have to do is study in depth at nature. Nature is your biggest friend.
I have one belief. "we cannot do anything but follow the rules of nature. Follow guidelines, but we of course can take the power of nature in our hands and make it do what we want.
In this case, water quality.

Am I still missing something on this subject?


Funny, I thought I would be tired at 1 O clock in the morning.

Did any of that make sense to you?

[lildude]

The dissolved Oxygen Chart absolute must for koi keepers.






Taken from: Dissolved Oxygen

[lildude]

Extremely valuabel Information:



Cited from: Taken from Biological Oxygen Demand

Although not identified in the causative factor matrix, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is an important water quality variable that should be included in water quality studies/monitoring. Most organic materials are biodegradable to various degrees. The amount of oxygen used in the metabolism of carbonaceous biodegradable soluble and non-soluble organic matter is termed biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) or carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand (CBOD). Nearly all biodegradable material will be converted via biochemical oxidation (bacterially mediated) to CO2, NH3 and H2O given enough time.
Because of complications measuring this ultimate BOD (BODu), BODu is usually extrapolated from laboratory 5-day BOD bottle tests . BOD should be determined using nitrification inhibited samples to avoid double counting nitrogenous BOD (NBOD) (Tchobanoglous and Schroeder 1986).
Sources of BOD, in addition to direct loading, include decaying algae and macrophytes and other biota. Typically, a fraction of this matter contributes to BOD, while the remainder is assumed to oxidize immediately for energy. Background levels in natural systems range from 0.5 mg/l to 3.0 mg/l. Municipal and industrial wastes can exceed 30 mg/l (EPA 1997). Although BOD is rarely related to biota health, high BOD loads can severely depress DO. Further, it is a required parameter in most water quality simulation models.


Bolded text is something I found important for koi keepers, bolded italic is also important, green is just as important.

[lildude]

So extremely valuable.

http://www.krisweb.com/stream/bartholo2.gif

[lildude]

pH - Hydrogen Ion Concentration also good on explaining ph, alkalinity, etc.


pH - Hydrogen Ion Concentration <-----------link

[JasPR]

Very good. But don't take wild settings as exact/direct examples. The dynamics is different. We are dealing with ridiculously over stocked conditions compared to the wild setting so we need to have giant populations of bacteria to manage the abnormality. This in turn, changes the dynamic of everything else. It's not just the wild setting ' on steriods'. It becomes distinctly different although some of the same dynamics and biological principles exist in the wild on a lower production basis. In short, no wild setting could be as nutrient rich and support life the way we can and do in a koi pond. Still, you are wise to learn the rules and systems of nature and apply them where they are lacking or doing too well, such as in the case of anaerobic activity and algal proliferation. - JR

[dubtaco]

[JasPR]

what confused you chris? JR

[dubtaco]

Most of it has been said before so I will spare everyone, but in general Eric confuses me...Why not reply to the thread you are referencing, I did some searching and finally found it here

[lildude]

Quote: Originally Posted by JasPR Very good. But don't take wild settings as exact/direct examples. The dynamics is different. We are dealing with ridiculously over stocked conditions compared to the wild setting so we need to have giant populations of bacteria to manage the abnormality. This in turn, changes the dynamic of everything else. It's not just the wild setting ' on steriods'. It becomes distinctly different although some of the same dynamics and biological principles exist in the wild on a lower production basis. In short, no wild setting could be as nutrient rich and support life the way we can and do in a koi pond. Still, you are wise to learn the rules and systems of nature and apply them where they are lacking or doing too well, such as in the case of anaerobic activity and algal proliferation. - JR

hmm, didnt take that into consideration when I was doing this. Now that I think about it, if we really followed that, we would have very little fish our ponds.
I was going crazy last night, really thinking about that water quality, and what it meant to me, I wanted to know if I actually learned something about water quality in all these years.

I do agree we have to keep the DO levels at optimum, this would be #2 in the pond, #1 being a good filtration system.

Does anyone think that my entire thread is too abstract for any to understand?