WATER GARDENER'S CALENDAR and CHRONICLES (AUGUST) by Peter May

AUGUST in the Water Garden

So what should you have been doing in the water garden in August. In the UK most books will tell you sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour, but it can get so hot in the UK year that any mismanagement of the water garden will come back to haunt the owners. Over feeding and over stocking becomes apparent when the fish are gasping for oxygen in the warm water. Water cannot absorb oxygen so readily at warmer temperatures. If there is overfeeding and fish food rotting on the bottom of the pool, a vicious cycle of ammonia production starts up as it begins to rot. Any ammonia in the water is bad news, especially for Koi carp, for which ammonia is a deadly poison. The problem is that they exude ammonia as a waste product through their anus and their gills. They do this more when they are stressed, and what is more, the presence of ammonia makes them stressed, overcrowding makes them stressed and lack of oxygen makes them stressed, so once ammonia levels start to build up you can be in a snowball situation.

Lack of oxygen also slows down the activity of the essential bacteria in the bottom of the pool as well as in the biological filters that are capable of breaking down the ammonia, and so the production of the poison goes on unchecked. 

If you(a) live in a warm country, (b)  have small pools well stocked with fish, (c)  prefer to see your fish than have masses of plant life in the pool, a biological filter system with an incorporated Ultra Violet Clarifier is pretty much essential. What should go on with those bacteria in the bottom of the pool in breaking down the waste and organic compounds in the water is essential to the well being of the whole pool. With a biological filtration system you have a turbo version of pool bottom at your control at the touch of a switch. Nowadays the filtration boxes have evolved into small systems working under pressure, which can be hidden out of sight at ground level and that can be serviced virtually by a twist of a lever. 

  EMERGENCY REMEDY: Hard spray of tap water from a height into the water, letting the pool over flow. And or one third water-change with dechlorinator added.

  Hopefully the friends you had looking after the pool when you were on vacation didn’t over feed the fish. If they did they only gave enough for the rascals to consume in 5 minutes and netted off the excess.

 N.B. The disease Red leg in frogs thrives in water low in oxygen and high in organic matter..