Koi And Using Chemicals

 

You should only ever use chemicals in your pond when you have a known problem and identified it, find out what the problem is with your pond and never guess. Medication in the koi pond can never replace good pond management and husbandry.

Calculate the water contents of your koi pond accurately, never guess; the last thing you want to do is over dose you koi, potentially this can kill them, however under dosing them can have little or no effect.

Be certain to always follow the guidelines on all chemical and medication bottles; the bottle of medication for you koi will most likely be based on concentration.

Some manufacturers koi pond treatment may be different to others, an example of this is malachite and formalin, this treatment in its pre-mixed form will most likely offer differnt percent dosing due to disimilar levels of each chemical being contained.

Test your pond before you add any sort of treatment or chemical this will help you ensure that all water parameters are all normal; say you add some chemicals to your pond in an attempt to cure whatever the problem is and you find there's high levels of nitrite or ammonia can actually make matters worse. A koi pond treatment used in a pond with a fluctuating pH can kill all the koi. You should therefore proceed to checking your pond water after treatment to ensure that the chemical has not affected the biological capacity of the filter.

When your treating your pond make sure that theres enough oxygen in the water, there are certain chemicals and treatments for koi and other pond fish which will reduce the oxygen levels in the water. Consider the use of an air stone during treatment.

Many people will say its a good idea to switch off your filter system when your pond is under treatment; however, you have to bear in mind your filter harnesses all your bacteria, good and bad, so you don't neccessailry want any of those, especially the good bacteria, to die away. By all means you can skip the filter during this period, but this will only be beneficial over a short perdiod of time, once the beneficial bacteria in yoru pond has been cut from oxygen and useful nutrients this bacteria will soon start to fade away, and all ponds need good bacteria.

Use a water can when your mixing together chemicals and that has been prefilled with pond water. Then evenly distribute the treatment over the koi pond surface.

Many chemicals used in the koi pond are toxic to humans, wear rubber gloves, don't splash on yourself and do not consume the chemials via other means, ie take in fumes.