A customer called the store I work at and said his Koi were sick. He described the problem, and I guessed it was parasitic in nature. I told him to bring in a water sample, as disease can be caused by stress from poor water quality. He did exactly that.
The tank was a 300 gal winter holdover tank for his Koi. He said he had a canister type filter. Here is what I tested his water at:
Ammonia: Above test limits. Somewhere considerably above 5mg/l .
Nitrite: ZERO
Nitrate: Off the Charts. Somewhere above 80 mg/l
pH: 5.0
I retested everything again, just to be sure I didn't screw it up. Results were the same.
I explained to him that the presence of so much ammonia and zero nitrite means that his biofilter was not converting ammonia at all. I had him desribe the filter, and it was basically a pool filter with a bag full of zeolite and carbon. That's it. I then explained to him the different kinds of filtration and explained how this type of filter only provides chemical filtration. Once the zeolite and carbon are saturated with waste, the filter stops working. Then the remaining waste lowers the pH and causes ammonia to build up. With no biofilter, he was screwed. In addition, when the pH drops below a certain point, the ammonia is converted into ammonium and the chem filter releases all of this back into the system.
Needless to say, if he wanted these fish to live he needed emergency procedures. I told him to do 25% water changes daily to get the pH back up, and replace the carbon and zeolite. I would have suggested a higher volume of water change, but that might alter the pH so much that the ammonium would convert back to ammonia, and the ph swing combined with the ammonia would kill his fish. I told him to dose with three times recommended prime, and get a biofilter going. I recommended a bunch of sponge filters to get things going.
After all this, the customer decided on the bandaid fix. He bought some more carbon and zeolite, and some quick cure to take care of the disease. Hopefully he was going to do the water changes, but history suggests this may not happen. Sometimes the fish store job can be very dissapointing. This person had hundreds of dollars worth of Koi, but wasn't willing to spend the money to take care of them properly. It was amazing that the fish were still alive when he came in.
Well, let's have the WTF comments, and also any additional advice you might have given that surely would have been ignored.
The tank was a 300 gal winter holdover tank for his Koi. He said he had a canister type filter. Here is what I tested his water at:
Ammonia: Above test limits. Somewhere considerably above 5mg/l .
Nitrite: ZERO
Nitrate: Off the Charts. Somewhere above 80 mg/l
pH: 5.0
I retested everything again, just to be sure I didn't screw it up. Results were the same.
I explained to him that the presence of so much ammonia and zero nitrite means that his biofilter was not converting ammonia at all. I had him desribe the filter, and it was basically a pool filter with a bag full of zeolite and carbon. That's it. I then explained to him the different kinds of filtration and explained how this type of filter only provides chemical filtration. Once the zeolite and carbon are saturated with waste, the filter stops working. Then the remaining waste lowers the pH and causes ammonia to build up. With no biofilter, he was screwed. In addition, when the pH drops below a certain point, the ammonia is converted into ammonium and the chem filter releases all of this back into the system.
Needless to say, if he wanted these fish to live he needed emergency procedures. I told him to do 25% water changes daily to get the pH back up, and replace the carbon and zeolite. I would have suggested a higher volume of water change, but that might alter the pH so much that the ammonium would convert back to ammonia, and the ph swing combined with the ammonia would kill his fish. I told him to dose with three times recommended prime, and get a biofilter going. I recommended a bunch of sponge filters to get things going.
After all this, the customer decided on the bandaid fix. He bought some more carbon and zeolite, and some quick cure to take care of the disease. Hopefully he was going to do the water changes, but history suggests this may not happen. Sometimes the fish store job can be very dissapointing. This person had hundreds of dollars worth of Koi, but wasn't willing to spend the money to take care of them properly. It was amazing that the fish were still alive when he came in.
Well, let's have the WTF comments, and also any additional advice you might have given that surely would have been ignored.
