Lancs lass

Hi
Any advice please on reducing the ph levels in our pond. We have been using ph adjuster for Alkaline ponds. Since last Sunday we have put in 4 packets and the levels are still in the 8.5.
Any ideas what could be causing this. We are still relatively new to this experience, the fishes seem OK, although we did lose 1 Koi last weekend.

Thank you
Lancs Lass

bcfc

hi, has ur ph allways been 8.5 ? if so that is oki, as long as it is stable. wot are ur ph, ammonia, nitrite, readings? and wot test kit do u use? was there any marks on the koi u lost?

ogawa only

hi lancs lass

whats your set up and gallonage, uvc, and maintenance schedule, ect ???

as bcfc has said 8.4-5 ph is fine , as-long as your readings are spot on

to reduce the ph , the best way is reverse osmosis , not for the faint hearted !! as you need to know the in's and outs of the water you have already , and you also need to know your tap water , and weather your tap water ph goes up or down after standing for 24hrs or stays the same ??

also you will need to know your ponds individual cycle on ph every pond is different !!! even in the same garden !!

best to take readings 1 hour before sun up and as late as poss in the evening , in doing this you will find your ph swing , then you need to add in temp ect .

also you will need to get a test kit that includes , kh and gh , and if you want to go down the RO route and reduce your ph , you would be best to get a tds meter , wouldn't be a bad thing to have anyway , as they are more a water quality test meter it will tell you if your pond is in good shape , compared to the water you put in .

steve

Lancs lass

Thank you so much for your interest. Regarding bcfc question, the koi that dies had red blotches of his flanks. The amonia and nitrate readings seem OK.

Ogawa question, we made our pond bigger last summer, and it is about 17,500litres based on the length, width and depth of the pond, with UV built into the filter box, We have installed additional oxygen stones into the water. Over the last few weeks, hubby has had to wash out the sponges in the filter box, with pond water, because we had so much sludge. This was down to the koi knocking over the plants and tipping the aquatic soil into the pond. So now we have placed large stones, washes separately in bucket of pond water before placing into the water. Plus the Koi has been spawning and the plants in the middle of the pond have been getting knocked over. We took another reading tonite, and the water is back to a lighter blue.

bcfc

u still ent said wot ur test are ? as ogawa says, get a api kh test kit off ebay, and test ur kh. i get mine to 100 ppm then as it goes down add sodium bicarbonate. is ur water soft or hard? having ph of 8.5 is ok, so i think u may have hard water, so u will have no probs with kh droping. get ur water right first thing to do. wot is ur ph, amm, nitrite reading ??????????

Lancs lass

Thanks for sticking with me on this.
Been using the 'Laguna' test kit and the test results are as folows:-
NH3 NH4 0.6
NO2 Less than 01
NO3 No colour
Hardness 120
KH110
Not sure if the water is hard or soft but there's no fur in my kettel so I guess its soft.
I understand it will be important to get the water right, just need to understand what I should do.
Do you think the fish I lost last weekend was because of the water and what do you think the red blotches were on its flanks ?

bcfc

the best test kit is api freshwater master test kit of ebay, sounds like u have ammonia,0.6 so water change 20% dont wast ur money on ph up and down. ask before buying something, we have all been there,lol no feeding untill amm is 0, hope this helps

Lancs lass

Thank you bcfc for the advise.
We are at this moment we are draining out half the pond water out, so we can treat the ammonia and also add another packet of ph whilst it is only half full.
We will stop feeding the fish until the ammonia is 0 as recommended.

However we have tested our tap water and that is also high in ph.

So when the time comes to refill the pond with tap water, we will be putting back the ph - what would you advise at this stage.

bcfc

i did say in the last post 20% water change, so u have done 50% oki, dont keep puting things in ya pond. have u put dechlorinate in? test ur water again tomoze, ph ? amm ?nitrite? tell us wot they are. a high ph is ok, but ammonia is more toxic , so u need to keep ur eye on water, i test my water two times a week, hope this helps

Lancs lass

Thank you for all your help. We have just tested the water (6.30pm) and the ph is reading 8.5, and the ammonia is reading 0. We have also added dechlorinate, and have not feed the fish since yesterday morning.

Would you recommend we do anything esle.