Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All,

I have a pond and around 9 big koi fish. All of them were happy and used to swim and greet us.

1. I started giving them home made food and they used to eat that happily. However I started noticing cloudy water after giving them food as home made food probably was dissolving in water too.

2. Water color got changed and remained that way for around a weak.

3. A small fish died. I checked water parameters and found no Ammonia, no nitrite and nitrates around 40.

4. I thought may be this discolured water has caused fish death. Or may be lack of oxygen. I had 4 Air pumps and 3 water falls already so I don't think it's an DO problem. But still to be on safe side I changed 90% water and also added 2 more Air Pumps.

5. Fish were swimming just fine. And then we had a split ac installed. They made a hole in the wall for that and that created a lot of noise as the wall is made of concrete. I saw all fish were hiding at that time. I thought may be that's due to loud drilling noise.

6. Now i see that my koi hides all day and come out only when it's night. If I go near them then run for their life. No predators whatsoever in my area. They eat vigorously at night but hide when it's day again.

Is this due to loud noise? or did I just chage a lot of water? because water parameters are in place. I checked ph, Ammo, nitrites, nitrates everything.

I think they are just scared because of the construction and will eventually return to normal. 1 ppt of salt might be a good thing to help them with stress.

Thank you for replying. They eat floating food vigorously at night and come to the very top. However when it's day they don't eat at all. They don't come to top no matter what. They don't even want to swim and keep hiding under filter.

I tried to throw some sinking food near them and they ate it all in less than 5 seconds. But they just won't come to top.

Anyways I think you are right. A lot of water change and a lot of noise probably made them scared and they need time to adjust. I need to build trust in them again so that they know that they are safe and I won't eat them. LOL

I would love to see pictures. Why so many air pumps as opposed to a big air pump? Ours get scared as well, but they are still in an aquarium. This Summer they get a pond.

Okay so here are pics. It's not really a pond but a very large tank. It's 500 gallons.

I have many small air pumps because shops in my area don't have big pumps so i have 6 double nozzle air pumps which pump 480 L / hour air in tank each. so in total i pump 2880 L / hour air in my tank.

I also so have 1 water fall 500 litres / hour

I also have one more water fall 1500 litres / hour

I also have a wave maker installed in this tank which keeps creating waves so that fish can keep swimming that's how they are growing like crazy and so that I don't have stagnant water anywhere in the tank. It helps to clear any dead zones as it moves a lot of water with waves.

I don't think they need more air in it. LOL

Is this outdoors? I noticed you have lines strung over the tank which is usually done to keep birds away. It's possible that there has been a preditor around? That would cause them to hang out at the bottom. Did the small fish that died have any wounds that you could see?

I still think this is more related to the constuction but keep your eyes open just in case.

Hi scotty435,

I have lines strung over the tank so that Koi don't jump out of tank as sometimes they become excited after chasing each other and try to jump up. I lost one of Koi that way. Water was absolutely fine. She jumped twice. Once I saw her jumping out of tank and I caught her immediately and threw back in tank. After may be two months she jumped again out of tank and no one saw her so she died there.

I had to cover the tank. I have realized that Koi used to stay in tank like lazy without much action when there was no wave maker. After I added wave maker which makes waves for them to swim they keep swimming now and that's provoke them to jump out of water sometimes. Wave maker makes them swim and exercise so they eat more vigorously and are growing like crazy.

In fact I feel that wave maker has made all my koi super active. i think they are fast swimmers so they like to stay in waves. I have seen absolutely amazing effects on my koi. They keep playing in waves and keep swimming which makes them eat more and more. I used to feed them twice a day previously and they had limited diet after which they used to stop eating but now they eat 5 - 6 times a day and finish all their food. They keep searching for food all the time now. I am seeing an inch or more growth every month.

Yes the tank is outside but I never saw a bird. I saw a cat may be a year ago. Normally I don't see any predators. I didn't notice any wounds.

Today they came out again in the evening and started fighting for food. Each one wants to grab more food than others. Which looked normal. It seems that they are scared of day light may be because they were in green water for a few weeks but now water remains crystal clear so more light penetrates the tank water.

I have tank in shade so no direct sun light enters the tank.

Sounds like a nice setup for the Koi. I think everything is fine, they just need a little bit of time

Just threw some food at night and they ran for it as its dark now.

Wave maker is there for quite sometime. They used to swim in waves really well when water was green. All i did was that i changed 90% water at once and may be now they are scared because of changed environment.

That is a very interesting idea. I have several power heads and wave makers laying around that I am not using. I wonder if it would be good thing for me to toss one in my tank just to give it some flow? I have Channel Catfish right now, and I have 15 Blue Tilapia on the way.

I am thinking about doing this more for the winter months, when I plan on raising rainbow trout. They come from a pretty high flow stream where I am.