Help, garden pond giving me grey hair

[tschutte]

Hi there

Can someone please help? We had a rather big thunderstorm and some of the garden flooded and ran into our garden koi pond. The water is very muddy and I am not able to see the fish. I was considering emptying the pond completely, removing the fish and cleaning and then returning the fish. But I am not sure if the fish will be ok and if I can do this safely and how I should go about it?

I would really appreciate any help and advice.

Thanks

 

[AngelFishFan]

First of all, how hot is it there? Second, what type of filtration do you have? Third, NEVER, AND I REPEAT NEVER put fish into fresh water like that after you clean it. It WILL shock and kill them. I have had this happen all too many times with my customers. Mud does not hurt fish. Just because you cant see them doesnt mean that they arent alive and well. They are more than likely just fine. Unless you are stirrng up the bottom all of the time, the mud should settle in a few days. Just be sure to clean your 3/4 of your filter pads every couple of days. This will allow the mud to be filtered out. Let me know of the condition, and then we can go from there.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

I agree. My dad decided that he wanted to change the flow of my waterfall, so he put a grinder to it and filled my entier pond with concrete dust. It looked terrible, but it all settled after 3 days and I had no casualties.

 

[Guest]

First, I agree wit the advice by the previous 2 guys, 100%.

We had a rather big thunderstorm and some of the garden flooded and ran into our garden koi pond.

This is really your bigger issue. You need to alter the drainage from your garden so it won't flow into the pond, even with really big storms. Without pics, its hard to give you specifics on how to do this, but if you do, you will be happy in the long run. If you don't get the drainage fixed, it's bound to happen again.

 

[AngelFishFan]

In conjunction with what Corvus said, not only might you have mud problems, but if someone happens to have chemicals from the lawn, etc and it rains hard, it WILL get into the pond. And Bye-Bye fishies :-(
Head the warning and do something before it is too late!

 

[tschutte]

Info as requested

Dear Keegan
Thanks for the info so far. Well being sunny South Africa we have been averaging approx. 25 degrees celsius. I currently pump into a biofilter which I must be honest I am not too sure exactly how well it is working. I do change the filters quite regularly as well. Will my pumps pick up all the mud residue?
Again thanks for all your assistance.
Warm wishes from sunny South Africa

 

[tschutte]

Hi there
Thanks for the info from everybody. My husband has also now decided he wants to revamp the entire pond (I am going to go really mad shortly). But I agree about the drainage and have already started to redirect the drainage. Warm wishes from SA.

 

[AngelFishFan]

I dont see why the pumps wouldnt be able to handle some sludge.....

 

[tommiejr]

I am going thru the same problem just a different cause. Massive amounts of silt got stirred up and wouild not settle down. Decided to drop the water level down to a little less than 50 % and skimmed it out with an air conditioner air filter. Worked pretty good to. Have been adding about a 200 gal a day to get back to the 2000 gal capacity I started with. Seems to have corrected the problem. Now I just need to correct the cause before it happens again.

Good luck on you project!

Tommie in NC, USA