I appologise in advance for such a long post but I have tried to put in as much information as I can
My friend has a 10ft round pond and she went out about 6 weeks ago to find 5 dead Koi, I got her to test the water and the Ammonia was off scale, she only has a colour chart to go by and she said it was darker than the colour the chart showed. I told her to do a 25% water change and add salt. She did this every day until the Ammonia was brought down and then continued with a 20% water change and she has continued with every day, but over time she lost so many Koi, she was also looking after my Koi of which I lost 18, mostly smallish one's but also some of my biggest and best Koi
Last week I went up and did a scrape which showed nothing, and I mean nothing, there was absolutly nothing alive on the scrape. I found a couple of strands of Blanket weed but it had no colour what so ever. While I was looking at the slide warning bell's were ringing as this was not good. I went back out to the pond and just stood there looking at pond, then I noticed a mark on the liner and then I noticed what was the blanket weed, it was a browny grey slush, I scraped my nail up the side to see if the blanket weed was trying to grown back and it a greeny slime nothing like blanket weed in the early stages of growth. I also remembered a few weeks backs not long after she found the first 5 dead fish a piece of pipework had come apart, the rubber gasket had distorted. It is my conclusion looking at the state of the liner and the residue of what was the blanket weed that weed killer has been poured into the pond.I decided that although 4 of the my 7 remaining Koi looked really bad I was taking them home, a decission I may regret but I knew if I left them there I was basically leaving them to die. I bagged them and put oxygen in as usual and got them home. The Asagi was awful he was no longer blue and pink he was blue and red, it was dark by the time I got home and after speaking to Maxine Grundy I decided that if he was still alive in the morning I would be putting him to sleep as it just would not be fair to keep him alive. My son said I should of put him to sleep that night as I was being cruel. I got up the next morning and some sort of miracle had happened all the Koi had brought home had no pink on them they were swimming with other Koi and they looked fine even the Agasi, he was back to blue and white no hint of pink (thank god I didnt listen to my son) My Shiro Muji went back down on Saturday being slightly pink and laying on the bottom but he since recovered and is now back to his normal self.
I advised my friend to set up a temporary pool and get all the fish out including my 1.5 metre sturgeon who I had to leave up there as I had no way of transporting him. Unfortunatly she didnt take my advice straight away and planned to sort it all this weekend, but in my eyes that was leaving them in poison for another 9 days. On wednesday night her partner went out to check them and her Purachina was on its side so they set up the pool and got them all out and sorted the pond by turning the liner over and disconnecting the filter. They transfered all the fish and the Purchina is still with them he has slowly righted himself and at the moment is holding his own. I told her although it was drastic she had to clean everything and the best way was once the fish were out PP the whole set up and let it run for at least 2 hours then jet wash everything down, well she hasn't PP'd the liner as she has turned it around but she has placed all the media in the temp pool and as she was putting it in a red slime was floating to the top, I have told her to throw away the alfagrog and make sure to jet wash everything before reinstating the filter. Last night my sturgeon died, I did say because he was eatting from the bottom of the pond he was injesting all the rubbish that was in the pond and even leaving them in there for 1 more day was bad enough but to leave them in it for 6 days!!!!!!! well I wont say what I am thinking.
What I need to ask is, does anyone have any suggestions of what else she can do to help what fish she has left to recover or is it really just the case of wait and see, and does anyone have a time line of "if anything is left after so much time they should survive" She has re-salted the pond I did think maybe add Sabbactisun but I am not sure in these tempretures it will have any effect. Also would clay help in any way.
Thank you in advance for any advice and again sorry for such a long post
