I had just completed constructing my 1230 gals concrete pond. I installed it with a 55-gal plastic barrel biofilters and a RIO 12HF Submersible Pump (rated at 630 gals per hour with a max head of 10 ft or 3m). It is common knowledge that before you introduce your koi to the ponds, the bacteria colony (inside the biofilter) must be established first in order to process the ammonia and nitrites discharge of the koi. I have no idea as to how many days or months and the procedures to colonized these bacteria that will process the ammonia and nitrite thus through this forum, I asked recommendation/suggestion.
Bacteria colonization
- Thread starter orokoi
- Start date
You may want to up the turn over rate of your filter. The way you have it it will take 2 hours to turn the water over 1 time. And you need a turn over rate of around 4plus x per hour. So 1230g pond x 4 = you need about 5000gals and hour from your pump/ pumps to keep a modest amount of fish alive.------------Then to cycle your pond do a general internet search on aquarium nitrogen cycle. I would usually say to do a fishless cycle but buying all that ammonia will be expensive. So with a regular cycling process you would put some good strong cheap fish in the pond and then check your water parameters every other day or so with a good quality aquarium test kit for a ammonia reading and a nitrite reading and a nitrate reading. What you will see is a gradual rise in ammonia and if the fish live thru that then you will see the nitrite readings start to rise and the ammonia levels start to fall and then eventually your ammonia levels will return to zero and the nitrite levels will still be high for a while and then they will fall as well. And as this happens the nitrate reading will be rising. You will need to be prepared to do large water changes of 50% or more to keep the ammonia low enough for the cycle fish to live. And then once the pond is cycled and the ammonia and nitrite have fallen to zero then you will need to do a very large water change, say 80% to get the nitrates down to a good level. And then you can carry on with your normal maintenance and water changes. You can expect this cycle to take a couple of months to complete, maybe more maybe a little less. -----------------------------------------------------------------------Now if the truth did not scare you off lets see some pics of that pond.
Thanks for the advise. I will send you pics of my pond as soon as everything is okay. Right now, I will do more research before I let this beautiful creature swim to the pond.
you'll only need to add like 455 mL of anhydrous ammonia to your pond at start, and then enough to get it back to 5 ppm until the cycle is complete. This is easily under a liter (which I don't know about everywhere, but around here that's like $2). If you have a test kit, just keep adding it until your ammonia reading hits 5ppm for a few weeks, then add enough to hit 2ppm once nitrites and nitrates start to form until you have no nitrites, then let the pond sit until ammonia is gone, do a large water change and add fish.
I've always used ammonia to cycle my tanks but I figure using the type of ammonia I use would be cost prohibitive for such a large body of water. I've read on some fishless cycling logs you could just feed the pond food and the decomposition would create the ammonia; others have used chunks of raw fish to cycle the tank. These may be cheaper options which others sware should cause a spike. But it may require a little more clean up after
I have not heard of spirit of ammonia. The ammonia alot of people use is the stuff you can get at a grocery store in the cleaning isle. Just make sure it says pure ammonia or 100% ammonia. They have them with soaps in them as well and they are not what you want.orokoi;2348053; said:
ghettofabulous;2349451; said:
Any organic material will work.Ammonia is the first step of decomposition the nitrification cycle.Using large chunks of protien (fish chunks,etc) causes other problems with the present fats turning rancid. Just don't use too much material.IF the initial ammonia levels go to high it could prolong the cycle by inhibiting bacterial growth.
How? What is the procedures of nitrification cycles using large chunks of protein (fish chunck) or Koi flakes.
Go with cassharper advice, using food has to many drawbacks and is a leftover from S/W.
And no, spirit of ammonia is not the same. Clear ammonia without any additives (fragrance/soaps) is what you want.
If you have a tank with a filter, take some of the filter media out and place it in the new filter to seed it.
Dr Joe
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And no, spirit of ammonia is not the same. Clear ammonia without any additives (fragrance/soaps) is what you want.
If you have a tank with a filter, take some of the filter media out and place it in the new filter to seed it.
Dr Joe
.