WE ARE WATER KEEPERS

Everyone knows that good water is necessary for keeping fish. Yet still a lot of people run into trouble with keeping water. Whether it is a pond or aquarium, they are extremely small spaces that are isolated, and in no way can be compared to a natural environment.

The water in a confined space quickly deteriorates from feces, left over food, leaves and even from potted plants. When water gets polluted the fish get sick - a situation many beginners  experience.

To make the water in a pond suitable for fish to live in, we need to circulate it from the bottom of the pond to a settling chamber and filters and get it back to the pond. Exchanging some water every week is a necessity as water deterioration occurs even with the best of filter systems in a closed environment.  The reason this has to be done is that fish feces and sludge are heavier than water so they go down to the bottom of the pond.   So we need a settling tank and then a filtration tank with media, this way you will not have to clean the media in the filtration tank as often, you simply flush the settlement tank.

Aerobic Bacteria
Not only are fish living in the water but there are hundreds of different aerobic bacteria.  It is this bacteria that performs the filtration.  If oxygen is supplied it will greatly help the aerobic bacteria. Besides the good aerobic bacteria there is anaerobic bacteria which will perform anaerobic decomposition with little air.  Muddy soil accumulated on the bottom will become a breeding ground for deadly pathogenic bacteria.  One good reason not to have stones in the bottom of the pond that will trap mud, leaves and uneaten food as well as fish feces.  The best way to avoid pathogenic bacteria is circulating water containing a large amount of dissolved oxygen.  This can be achieved by using fountains, waterfalls, showers or best of all by an air compressor.  You can not have too much dissolved oxygen during the summer.  Shortage of oxygen can have fish gasping at the top especially in the morning, as well as have a very adverse effect on the filtration, causing water deterioration.   The fewer fish in a pond the healthier they will be, in fact if you have health problems and half the number of your fish, you will half your problems.  Often we do not realize that the young fish will be four times as heavy by the end of the year.

Algae
Algae exists in a lot of different forms, the most beneficial is the short green algae on the walls of the pond and is proof that purification of water is occurring.  Now we need to look at the long or string algae, it is unsightly to see,  the reason it occurs is because of fertilizer in the water, or a sign that fish waste is not being treated well or possibly from other sources.  In other words the ammonia cycle is not working well especially in the spring as it takes up to six weeks for a filter to mature.  If the cycle is working then ammonia changes to nitrite to nitrate by the bacteria.  Green water is a different situation as it is a floating phytoplankton and although unsightly it is quite normal to experience it especially if there is exposure to full sun.  You can get rid of it with a UV light, but if you have fish it does have benefits as it is claimed that it destroys pathogenic bacteria.  Sick fish seem to recover better in green water.  In fact plankton is required to raise baby fish in the first few weeks.

This is but the very basics on keeping water during the summer and I highly recommend that one should study as many books as possible especially if one wishes to keep Koi.

Eugene Gmitrowicz