I am one of the unlucky ones living in Kempton Park, basically without power now since Tuesday. (And without a telephone/ADSL line for 3 weeks). I need advice on how to manage without electricity for the next few days. We have had episodes with power last Wednesday- a few hours and last night for 2 hours. The fish look fine except for a smallish one that seems a bit off balance (mild version of what I experienced beginning of this year) It will not be a major issue to loose this one.

Apart from the filtering, my other issue will be lack of oxygen.

My filters are a concoction of everything, but it works!
1. Swimming pool pump that gets water via a sump with plastic bio media as well as from the bottom of the pond- via the sand filter, the UV and a high pressure bio filter. Water in via ventouri and water fall
2. The best one is "the box" with a submersable pump that causes a top to bottom flow through various layers.

So I have been adding tap water daily, difficult to judge how much, putting the hose in the box and also backflow through the sump. I havent tested the water. I have added small volumes of Sodium Thiosulphate to try to neutralize the chlorine in the water (dose that I use is 100g per 500ml- I add 20-30 ml per day). I stopped feeding the fish.

I know I need to test the water(havent got a test kit). I do not have salt in the water. A generator at this stage is out of the question and that will only be able to drive the submersable.

Any other advice? I havent got show fish, but would hate to loose some of them.

Just another comment- be aware that the power surge after load shedding crashed my home PC, despite a surge protector.

This is what happened in January. I am convinced that this was also due to O2 deprivation due to our ESKOM

http://www.koiquest.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6919&hilit=oxygen

The water readings are as follows:
Nitrite: 0.1
Ammonia: 0.1
pH: 8.5
Temperature 17 degrees

I Would Say Firstly Try And Get Those Values To 0 (Ammonia And Nitrite) And Don't Use "parasite cure" if u got salt in the water it has formalin in it.
In The Clips It Looks Like They Got Problems With There Swimbladders.

Remember, those clips were old. There is currently no salt in the pond and I will not add parasite cure.

I'm not too worried about the one- lying still on the bottom, one can see the balance is off.

When I tested the water, ammonia was at its lowest on the test strip and nitrite slightly up. I am more concerned to get O2 in the water- has the sprayer on, with a thin flow.

Should I add salt??

if u wanna add O2 best will be a airpump and airstone to bring up the water from the botom ,salt my pond always have 0.1% salt in it it won't be bad except if u plan on using formalin.

Major problem to get a generator, perhaps I should, being in SA. Cost always an issue. I have an air pump, but to get it going is the issue. If they can let us know how long this will last!

So you think I should raise the salt level- usually 10kg raise it by 0.1%. Would not harm in any case. I'm not using formalin, should I?

salt will allso help the fish handle the ammonia and nitrites ,you should post the pics of the fish here and lets see what some of the experts think.
In the March KOISA they have and article on 12v airpumps and poweroutage may wanna try something like that.