well water and dying koi

[vedalissa]

Well, using the strips: the nitrites and nitrates have run primarily in the safe range. The water does tend to be acidic, so we use the soda to keep it in check. We drained everthing Wednesday afternoon and refilled. It's really pretty right now. We have 1 gold fish and 1 koi that are in seperate holding tanks. Will wait as long as we can to put them back in. The filter media in the smaller filter is about a week old and we just put a new filter online Tuesday. So we'll see what happens. The ammonia spiked once and we did a 50% water change, and that seemed to settle it. The pond is about 2 months old, but with all new water..... I did convince him not to try to scrape it clean on the side walls.

[vedalissa]

While doing the water change out we realized we have a low electrical current in the pond. We think it's coming from the submergible pump. Anyone else ever had that problem? Is it normal? If not I'm guessing we need to contact the pump manufacturer and see if they will replace it? It is about 10 volts according to our meter.

[PapaBear]

Normal would NOT be the word for any detectable voltage/amperage in the pond. Jerk that sucker outta there and get it replaced immediately before you start having serious issues...

[vedalissa]

Thanks Papabear!

[vedalissa]

The 1 koi we have left had a swollen area that looked like a bruise. In the qt tank we have a filter and a air stone. The darkness of his boo-boo has lessened. He still appears to have a "scoliosis" type spine. Now comes the interesting new action: He backs up to the bubbles over the stone and curves his tail section around them. I know he's doing it intentionally because you can tell he is fighting to stay there.... Why is he scrathing himself? The bubbles don't appear to be damaging, for some reason must just feel good.

[PapaBear]

Koi boo boo's are a lot like human cuts and scrapes. The itch when they heal, and Koi attempt to scratch the itch by rubbing them on something. They will also try to rub off irritations caused by parasites, so that might be what is going on. Quite often a parasite will cause an inflammation but the parasite cannot be seen without a microscope.