I screwed up too, it could have been bad

[Jonna]

For some reason I decided to drain the pond down and change the light bulbs today, one has been out for weeks.  It's Saturday and everything closes at 1pm, what was I thinking?  Well, I am never honest with myself about my knowledge of tools, that's one thing. 



Here's one of the light fixtures, I hate these things.  They are inefficient, they are so low in the pond that there is only about 8" of water below them, they are pool lights not pond lights.  Moving along, they are what I have.  I am feeling quite independent with Mimi in the US so I was going to do it myself and not call the maintenance guys. 



I rooted around in Mimi's tools in the garage, decided it was a type of phillips and got her cordless drill and a box with bits in it.  I tried a couple, found one that looked right but was so short that it ended up inside the end of the drill.  I'm still not sure what happened to it, I thought it fell into the drill head but nothing in there comes out.  It didn't work anyway.  Of course, you knowledgeable ones (like Esther) already know it is an alan head something or other and not a phillips at all.   I decided I was stripping the thing trying to get it off.  So, I called the maintenance guy at about a quarter to one and he didn't answer.  Drat! He's gone for the weekend.  I called my friend Tom and he was at a restaurant but said he could come by later.  Blankity Blankity Blank. 

I was worried about the fish so I put the pump back and they seem fine.  Alan calls me back, I explain as best I can but I think language got in the way.  He said he would send the plumber - everyone is either a plumber/electrician or a bricklayer - in an hour.  Manuel came, saw, got the right tool from his truck and changed both the bulbs.  Really, this is how I should have done it in the first place. 



So, a couple things I noticed with the water so low.  There are small bits of algae starting to grow on the walls.  I never thought I'd be glad to see algae but I think it means the concrete is curing and can sustain life now.  I'm sure I'll regret it later, but I was glad to see it.  There was some debris on the bottom and I got as much as I could with a pool net, I'm surprised there isn't more considering the leaves that drop in there.   There are a lot of Molly fry in the roots of the canna's and in the pots I'm using to grow out some lily starts.



Now, my concern is the PH and the fish.  I tested the old pond water and it is still a solid 9+? - it's been like that all along and I think it is due to the concrete pool.  However, the well water that I use to fill it is a solid 7.  That seems like a big change for the poor fish.  I've added about 5" of water to the pond, tested again and the PH was 7.5.  I'm afraid to add any more.  What do you guys think?  Should I wait and add more when the PH has risen some, and try and only add a little at a time?  I"m not sure at all about this but I don' t want to kill the fish.  I think the Mollies are pretty strong but I also have about 10 Angel fish in there and they might not be so happy. 



Advice please???

[Kittyzee]

Gosh Jonna, I just don't know but let me tell you what happened about a month ago to my daughter--which I think may be about the same thing.  She's the one that had the accident and has two little girls.  She made a pond and filled it with plants and I gave her 3 of my small comets in late spring.  All was filling in and doing beautifully.  She bought a beautiful oranda and a calico shubunkin and put them in there,,,they also thrived and got really large.  So as things go up here it gets cold and her pond was very small and we weren't sure if it would be deep enough to not freeze solid so she came up with a large aquarium and stand to put them in.  Complete with all the filters, gravel and put some of the plants from outside in there too.  They were thriving. 

Being the neat-nik that she is, she decides to clean the aquarium.. now mind you this thing has only been running for a couple of weeks.  Probably hasn't even cycled completely yet.  I kind of freaked out when she told me she was cleaning it because she hadn't bought a siphon for the gravel and was just removing a little dirt with a little water--she removed almost all the water and had the fish in the bath tub while she was doing it.     The girls were having fun watching the fish in the tub:  but they were fine.  DH and I had stopped in as she was putting the fish back in.  She put the oranda in there and it immediately went 'belly up'.  Then one right after the other the fish died right before our eyes and there was nothing any of us could do for those poor fish.  One comet made it (I don't know why) and he's been renamed 'Lucky'.  The girls were so freaked out at watching their beloved pets die--when DH and I left, I literally felt sick to my stomach.

I came home and searched the net about aquariums and figured what had happened was an ammonia spike that burned their gills because the water had not had time to cycle yet.  You are never supposed to change an entire aquarium like she did.  And she lives in the city with chlorinated water.  Well, live and learn--it's a lesson that none of us will ever forget.  If this keeps you from losing your fish, then it's served it's purpose.  Maybe someone else will chime in that knows what you should do.   

[Mikey]

I could have helped you with the allen wrench Jonna but I don't know anything about ph.  I never test my water....

[fishlipsmcgee]

If using city water do you add a de-chlor product to remove the chlorine?  Maybe that is the problem.

[Jonna]

I use well water to fill the ponds.  No chlorine.

To just add to the confusion, after I stopped the filling I went off to the store and while I was gone there was one of those tropical downpours.  It was deafening in the store which has a tin roof or something that sounds like it.  I raced home to check on the little pond upstairs and it was right at the rim.  It looks like the main pond got a couple more inches of rain water which is also about 7 or neutral PH.  I'm going to test it again tomorrow and decide whether to keep filling it then.  All the fish seemed fine, hungry but I'm afraid to feed them when all this is going on.  Not sure why but I think I remember reading that you shouldn't feed them if things are upset. 

[Jonna]

Kitty, that is horrible! I'm so sorry for you, daughter and the grandkids.  I wonder if it was the chlorine?  I don't know how ammonia would get in the water if they hadn't peed or something.  I don't know, there is a whole lot I don't know about water and such.  I'm going to leave these fish in their low water level for at least another day and see how they look. 

[CT]

Just add water slowly like you are doing. Fish can acclimate if done slowly and for those that need to, declorinate. The fish don't need to eat while you are doing this. I bet the algae eaters are loving the algae..good deal
My longfin albino bristlenose pair had a baby. It's so cute. I hope the goldfish don't get her. 
Luann, I'm so sorry for your daughters loss. Probably not ammonia if they were fine before. Dechor is necessary..I always check my ammonia levels because mine is 1ppm straight from the tap. I use ChloramX to dechlor or Prime (but that one stinks, literally)
Kay

[Esther]

Hokey Pete Jonna. You are having some not so fun times there HUH?? I was afraid you were going to end up saying you had damaged the screw head but didn't realize it and the water went out when you didn't realize what was happening.
So I really know nothing about PH. I also never test my water. Once I bought a kit and did test and the PH was skyhigh. I just knew that when it is that high in the pool I gotta add chemicals. So I got on the forum, scared to death that it was bad and was told that keeping the PH consistant was more important than the actual measurement. So seeing you probably don't want to add chemicals, I would agree to adding just a little at a time would be best. As for the rain, around here our rain is acid and we have to bring up the PH in the pool after a big rain. I have tested our well water and it is a perfect 7.5 and that is what I add to my pond. We have a leak and have to bring it up about 4" every day and the pond is about 10' x 13' so that is quite a chunk of water but the fish don't seem to mind. So I'm no help I guess.

[Jonna]

I think I did strip at least one of them, I saw the guy really pushing in to get one of them off.  He didn't say anything though and I was happy he came over late on a Saturday to fix it.   

I decided to test the water because I know the concrete keeps the PH really high in the pond and I was concerned about changing it so rapidly.  Today I tested it again and it is back up and over 9 in the pond so I'm adding another 5 or 6 inches of water.  I'll see if that reduces it to 7.5 again.  The angel fish are swimming around, the mollies look fine and I saw one of the plecos skulking around a rock.   Nobody is floating.  I sure don't want to do this very often, if these lights burn out a lot I may have to do what I did in the inside pond and install rope lighting under the edge instead.   On the inside pond, they put these same lights but they set them in the bottom of the pond!     I'd have to completely drain it to change a bulb.  Ridiculous. 

[Jonna]

Well, the best laid plans and all that. I did what Jerry and others have done, I obviously learned nothing from reading about it, I forgot the well pump was on.  In my case, no chlorine to worry about but I was going to finish filling it over 2 days.  I remembered just as it got to the top so - it's done.  I tested the PH again and it is about 7.5 which is what it was when I only put in 5 or 6 inches so perhaps it didn't matter.  It was back up to 9 overnight so I guess this time it will be too.  I wonder if it is easier on fish to go to a neutral PH like 7 or 7.5 for a short time than if they were used to a neutral and went to a high PH suddenly. Perhaps.