My painful / long / humbling lesson!

[tank125]

paint is cured and not in direct contact with water probably not it. foam top not sure but i probably not. i think you are in the right direction pond is not cycled. i had a power outage last year and 48 hr later got generator and ammonia spiked over 2ppm. with many water changes and about 2 weeks later water back to normal. keep up with water changes and feed very lite. i feel your stress good luck

Paint is ruled out, I called the manufacturer, no ammonia, fungicide, bacteriocide (word?), mildewcides (word?)...

This is text book, tested the ammonia this morning, day 14 and it is 0ppm!!! This means that either: it was a cycle; or the lids I removed 2 days ago (with the insulation) were the problem; or the 6 cyled Hydrosponge V's that I added 2 days ago did the trick.

I think that it was a cycle, next pond will be isolated and cycled fishless.

I am continuing with daily w/c's and very light feedings. Rays are getting pissed about the feedings though!

 

[spotfin]

Good the hear things are back on track.

 

[john C]

nice turn around. maybe the extra filters really helped? if it is the tops maybe let things go back to normal and try tops again to see if thats it. my tops are wood and have a thin sheet of plastic on bottom. the bad news is tops are starting to get some kind of mold on them on the exposed wood?

 

[tank125]

Nitrites hit 0 today! Finally I can finish this pond!

 

[abortedsoul]

Congrats! So glad to hear it is getting better.

Rays, in an otherwise healthy condition, do not seem to be overly sensitive to Nitrogenous poisoning. I'm not saying that it isn't something to watch; I would just reccomending taking a few deep breaths and get a calm and reasonable plan together to fix a problem with the nitrogen cycle.

Good luck, and keep us updated!

 

[jartist15]

very glad to hear it worked out, it would suck to loose those guys. And congrats on the Pond, where abouts is it located and geeeeezzzee 250 gallon changes, that must kill the water bill. Not at all saying it isn't worth it!!