I have added 2 test pilots to my new pond on tuesday. Now today 2 days later I still see that they are swimming around quite normally.

How long would you suggest I wait before I add another fish or 2?

Is it also safe to assume that my water conditions so far are good enough seeing that the fish have survived the 2 full days in the pond so far?

Cliff,

If the pH of the pond water is good, then you can introduce fish to the pond this coming weekend.
Monitor the Koi very carefully during the following week to ensure that they are behaving normally. Monitor ammonia, nitrite and pH during this time.
At some time in these initial stages you should begin to read ammonia, which you must control by changing a percentage of the water on a regular basis. Provided that you do not let the ammonia build up to significant proportions before you commence water changing, you may be able to get away with 25% per day but be prepared to change must more then that should the need arise.

It is important that you do not overstock your pond, especially in the early stages.

If you are carrying out your maintenance routines correctly, you should see nitrite levels rising after between 10 and 14 days. Nitrite is controlled in exactly the same way as ammonia. You could, if necessary ad salt to your pond water (3kg per 1000lt) to help against the nitrite spike.

Regarding the “suicide squad”; you must think to the future, if you manage your pond correctly, they will survive and then you will sit with some “lesser quality” Koi. You will have problems passing on “lesser quality” Koi; established Koi Keepers will not want fish of that low quality, and you will become quite attached to them and will not want them to go to an environment belonging to another newcomer where they may die.

Thanks Pieter,

I kept 2 of my 25lt ultra zaps running on the porta pond thru this entire process. I also got rid of my lesser quality fish and only kept my 7 nicer fish + the 2 I am using as test pilots. The biggest of this lot is a chagoi which is on about 35cm, then have 3 that are touching on the 30cm mark and the other 3 are 15-20cm's. I have a mate who wants the kamikaze's so in a few weeks I will pass those onto him. Currently only have these 9 fish. I have also basically stopped feeding them for the last month where I may just add a few pellets once a week as the chagoi would probably still eat in snow

Think I'm going to add the others on saturday, see we will be hitting 20 degrees on saturday so should be a good day to add them.

Luckily I kept my ultra zaps with bacteria in them so should be safe with 9 smallish fish in a 30000lt pond with regards to nitrites and ammonia.

When I add the fish on saturday I will be adding 3 x 20kg bags of salt at the same time as well.

Thanks again

Hi Cliff,

Don't add all the salt on the same day if you have fish in there, not more than one bag / 24 hours

Hi Neville,

Been advised on 3kg's salt per 1000lt which in my case would be 90kg's of salt......so was planning on going with just 60kg's to start off.

What should I do now....3 bags or just 1 bag and why one and not the other...thanks

Hi Cliff,

Read the posting again,

no problem with the 3 bag's, just add it at the rate of 1 Bag per day, or then 30Kg's per day.

Hi Cliff,

Be patient in winter. Water temps are not good for moving fish even if the temp rises for a day or two.

I am against so much salt - even in a new pond. I would suggest a max of 2kg per 1000L in the new pond then dont add again unless you have a problem.

It's a very good thing to keep the biofilters active. But be aware that things are quite now and the bacteria and not very active at low temperatures.

The biggets problem is the koi's stress when moving in cold tempertures. Their metabolism is low and they often do not cope well.

A light feeding very second day when water tempertaures are more or less stable above 10C is fine and will help.

Chris

Cliff,

If the water temperature gap between your holding pond and the new pond is more then 2*C, you need to float each fish in a bag in the new pond for more then 30 minutes.
As water temperatures falls below 14*C a Koi’s immune system becomes less efficient, while at temperatures below 10*C it is to a large extent shut down.
So if the water in both your ponds is more then 14*C, then you may move the fish.
( We do move Koi to Shows during winter time every year)

Salt............now this subject nearly started World War III a few years back on a USA forum!

I am for SALT.
A prolonged immersion dose of 1-3kg/1000lt is always present in ponds of many Koi Keepers all over the World.
This dose is frequently used in many ponds, especially before winter comes.
Some advantages are:
- stimulation of the mucus production,
- increase in the osmolarity of the water. As a consequence fish have fever problems stabilizing their mineral balance and with stress,
- effective against fungi and against a lot of parasites.
- in case of NITRITE intoxication, it prevents the intake of Nitrite
- in the winter, it will prevent water from freezing for quite a time.

A prolonged immersion dose of 7g salt/l for 10 days can be used against dropsy

A disadvantage of such a low dose of salt may that it stimulates the growth of some parasites (e.g. Thrichodina and costia)

When using a saline treatment above 2g/l one should play it safe and not mix it with formalin, KMnO4, benzocain or zeolite.

NITRITE:
Nitrite is less toxic then ammonia. High nitrite content causes metheamoglobinaemia (hope this is spell correctly) in the blood, which means that the haemoglobin is not capable of binding oxygen anymore. The fish die from a lack of oxygen.
Nitrite is less toxic when combined with high pH values ( as opposed to ammonia!), hard water and a high SALT content.
It the nitrite content in the water is too high, it is necessary to change the water and add some salt (3g salt/l). The chloride-ion competes with the nitrite to be absorbed in the fish’s gills.

Professor SF

Hi Cliff,

All that for free.

Another excellent posting by Doc De Villiers.Phd.Fish. The man just has to be around when he posts like this

Mooi man.

Thanks Pieter

Neville,

Ek moet se die woordeboek wat ek vir Vadersdag gekry het kom goed te pas

Hi,

With regards salt –

Good luck to the many koi keepers who have salt. Hope they keep a salt meter and record how much salt they actually have and not what they think they have.

The advantages of salt are not always as much as they seem.

The stimulation of mucus for example – salt will also stimulate the mucus on the gills as well as on the body. They will thicken and consequently the oxygen adsorption will be negatively affected.

The increase of “osmolarity” – in a stressful situation fish tend to lose water out of the body. This can be countered by the addition of salt. A low level of salt would help. But what if there is already a high level of salt in the pond water to begin with?

Salt is only effective against fungi and parasites at very high levels which will kill your koi when they are exposed to it for any length of time.

Salt certainly helps when your filters are not working well or have crashed and you have a nitrite spike. Question is what happens if you already have salt in the water and you now add more?

“A prolonged immersion dose of 7g salt/l for 10 days can be used against dropsy”. This is 7000 grams per 1000 litres. If you have a 10,000 litre pond that’s 70 kg of salt. Dropsy indicates the kidneys are not excreting urine/water for some reason. So I suppose that by adding such a high level of salt could dehydrate the koi as it would certainly lose water into the pond. This would surely hasten its death.

I am interested to know why salt should not be used in conjunction with formalin?

Using a low level of salt is OK with zeolite. Zeolite that is saturated with ammonia will release this ammonia back into the pond directly proportionally to the amount of salt in the water. A low level of salt – say 2 kg per 100L will only release a small amount of ammonia very slowly. You need a saturated salt solution to get zeolite to release all of its ammonia. That will kill the koi.

With regards salt and nitrite all well and fine but – the question is what if there is already salt in the water and you do not know how much?

Chris

Hi Chris, I suppose you mean 2Kg per 1000Lt and not 100.

A salinity tester is readily obtainable and should be part of a good keepers equipment if he intends using salt, they are not expensive but break very easily.
Must say I also used a lot of salt in the early days of my koi keeping, but have stopped about 3 years ago and everything is now fine. Only use it now for dipping new fish

If you add salt, a salt meter is a must. Easy to tell someone to add 2kg per 1000L but do we really add exactly 2kg per 1kL? Do you have a 20000L pond? Maybe its 18700 or 21150L. Now you replace 10% water weekly( another thumb sucking rule) and things are getting out of hand in the long run. And yes, the salt meters do break, I had the same problem. had 0.32% salt in pond and did my 10% thing. Took a reading the next day and found no salt in the pond and since its a difficult thing for someone to steal I found the meter to be the guilty party in this case

Hi,

Let me clarify, that I have built five ponds and I used salt with the start of every one of them at 3kg/1000lt.
If the pH of the pond registers safe for Koi, then after three days of adding the salt, I placed the Koi in the pond.
After water changes the salt content of the water was tested, with a “Salt Tester” and an addition of salt was added, to bring the salt back to 0,3%.
I had no nitrite spike this way! I keep the salt level at this until the “bio system” start to work appropriately and the ammonia and nitrite levels are “safe” for Koi. This normally takes between 3-5 months.
I had not fish losses during this period. So if there is already salt in the water it is fine.
As far as I could establish no negative effects were recorded regarding excessive mucus on the gills!

So what is the tolerance lever of salt to Koi?
I would like to quote an old friend of Chris Neaves regarding dropsy, namely Duncan Griffiths.
In his book “Step by Step Advanced Koi Diagnosis & Treatments” on page 128 he wrote;

Quote :

So, what would cause a koi to get dropsy?
Well, just about anything that would impair or overrun the function of the kidney. This could be a simple ulcer that breached the koi’s natural barrier and allows excess water in-flow that the kidney is not equipped to deal with or renal damage and failure due to bacterial infection to the internal organs, in this case the kidney. By far the most common reason for dropsy is either a breach in the skin or bacterial kidney disease causing impaired kidney function or both.

With either of the two examples, a two-pronged attack is called for.

ONE:
An antibacterial, in the form of PHS and/or an antibiotic to deal with the kidney or ulcer infection, and

TWO:
Salt on the hospital tank to a salinity of at least 0,6%, maybe even 0,9%, to slow the concentration gradient down, thus slowing the diffusion ion loss, plus slowing the influx of fluid into the koi.

Note at 0,9% salinity the chloride and sodium ion loss would effectively cease and the water influx will also effectively cease

According my calculations 0.9% salt is equal to 9kg per 1000lt or 9ppt!

Further more to Chris’s question.................

Quote :

I am interested to know why salt should not be used in conjunction with formalin

His Friend (on page 100 of his book) wrote this;

Quote :

** DO NOT USE FORMALIN WITH SALT**

And (on page 106) another warning................

Quote :

*Do not use salt with formalin*

Chris maybe you should ask your friend!

Now, this is what Dr. Maarten Lammens wrote in his book “The Koi Doctor” about formalin.

Quote :

Formalin is more toxic in soft, acid water and at high temperatures.
Under 8*C it loses its strength.
Active carbon or zeolite should be removed if present.
Formalin should not be mixed/used with potassium permanganate, soda or salt, since these combinations cause severe skin and gill burns.

Why use formalin or zeolite in the first place?

Hi Neville,

Yes you are right that should be 2kg per 1000 litres. Thank goodness someone reads my posts!

With regards nitrite and salt -

Nitrite – is the second step in the nitrification process. Nitrite is converted to nitrate quite quickly by the bacteria in a mature biofilter. However, it is a problem in koi ponds as fish are constantly exposed to it just as they are constantly exposed to ambient or back ground ammonia.

In a mature and properly designed biofilter, which is big enough to handle your stocking densities, all the ammonia would be converted to nitrite and then nitrite would be converted to nitrate at the same time as these bacteria live side by side on the media. You should be able to convert all the ammonia and all the nitrite in one or two passes through the biofilter.

Nitrite it toxic to fish because once inside the body it affects the red blood cells ability to carry oxygen. In the blood stream it actually oxidises the iron in the red blood cells. This produces methemoglobin which we see as a brownish colour instead of a red colour of the blood. So it has become known as brown blood disease.

The amount of nitrite entering the blood depends on the ratio of nitrite to the amount chloride in the water.

Salt, which is sodium & chloride, will prevent nitrite being absorbed into the body. Salt will not prevent nitrite being produced in the biofilter. If you have a nitrite problem the biofilter will happily continue to produce it in the biofilter irrespective of how much salt is in the water.

So while the biofilter is maturing and you do have a nitrite spike or constant high levels of nitrite it is a very good thing to add salt. This would prevent the body absorbing nitrite from the water Adding at 2 – 3kg per 1000 litres would be OK.

Once the biofilter has matured let the salt solution decrease naturally with water changes.

Which brings us back to the question – why not use salt and formalin together. This is a statement much like we must change to a wheat germ food in winter. When you start asking why the answers become very interesting.

I have discussed this with Duncan and several knowledgeable koi keepers but I am interested why people say - do not use formalin and salt together.

Any ideas?

Regards
Chris

Hi,

Chris wrote............

Quote :

I have discussed this with Duncan and several knowledgeable koi keepers but I am interested why people say - do not use formalin and salt together.

I found this article on the Internet.....................

Quote :

You must never use Formalin in a pond containing salt.
This is quite a new "commandment" I can remember hearing this for the first time at a local koi society meeting several years ago. This was news to me, as I had been happily using Formalin and Malachite Green to treat parasite problems without any adverse effects in ponds that already contained salt. Neither the person at that meeting nor any of the articles I have read since have ever said why you couldn't use the two together. In the absence of any good reason I have continued to use formalin even when salt has been previously added to the water and have never encountered any problems. It is true that the use of formalin removes oxygen from the water and salt water also holds less oxygen than fresh water. But providing adequate aeration means problems shouldn't arise. If you are still in doubt console yourself with the knowledge that formalin is used in marine aquariums containing a far higher level of salt than any koi pond. Perhaps the fish just haven't read the books!

Author: Richard Guest of Pets Parade Team