Hi All

Here is a nice debating point.

A client’s koi pond was contaminated with oil. Now the question is how would you decontaminate the koi and koi pond? The pond is about 1000L and I estimated that there is about 200ml of oil on the service of the pond.

I know you penguin lovers will know the answer to this easy question.

Remember the idea is to safe the koi.

Not sure how to get it off your koi but the easiest way to get it off the surface of the pond is by overfilling the pond with water so that the water can simply push the oil over the sides of the pond. Oil is less dence than water so it floats on water and wont mix with the water.

The koi will only only be covered with oil if they broke the surface of the water. That is what happens to penguins - as they go in and out of the water they get covered with oil not actually from swimmng in the water.

What type of oil are we talking about? Olive oil? Motor Oil?

With a pond of 1000 liters, I would just replace ALL the water. With my 36 000 liter/hour borehole, it will take me 2 minutes to fill again. But, the filter will have to be cleaned properly, and that will take a while.

Who keeps koi in a 1000 liter pond?

If it is 10 000 liters, then Wayne's suggestion makes sense.

Hi All

It is a QT pond and the pond was about 200mm from the top when the oil seal of the pump gave up, so over filling is not an option due to the fact that all the oil will stick to the side as the pond full up. The same goes for empting the pond. I think we must full the pond and drain the pond at the same rate but drain by service skimming the oil from the service so that the water level stay ± the same.

If there is oil on the service then it cut off the O² so the koi have stressed and did jump the main problem is that the oil on the gills further hamper the O² intake. In short we need to get the oil of the gills of the koi to enable them to breath normally again.

To clean the walls and fish you can try the following...(not sure if it will work)
To force oil to the surface of the water you will need to increase the density of the water. Luckily we are in winter. Water is denser at colder tempretures so try to add salt to the pond to increase the (TDS) density of the water. Then after all the salt has been absorbed i will flood the pond or surface skim it to get rid of the oil on the surfcace then after that i will remove the fish and use montmorilite clay to absorb the oil thats attached to the sides and insides of pipes of the pond...hopefully it will work.

Your idea about using the surface skimmer will work - if there is a sand filter - put it on waste and take the oil of the surface.

I have no idea how you will clean the fish. I can just hope that the above advise will dislodge the oil from their gills and take it to the surface.
Use this site http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2odenscalc.html to calculate the water density.

Hi Collin

This Is Not My Answer But What I Found on The Net.

Use paper towels and rags to try to soak some off of the surface, as much as you can. Skim the water off the top. Do a partial water change. Put a mesh bag of fresh activated carbon in the filter to help chemically remove more oil from the water. I hope it was just a little bit. If there's a lot, there may not be good air exchange at the surface so extra aeration may be needed to prevent suffocation of any aquatic animals