A mere snack. In saying that l check on the health of Kuti, the little Pomeranian l have been looking after since early July.
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An apertif.
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I had this bad boy in my backyard a while back. I’m happy to admit that I didn’t get very close for the photo. It’s an Eastern Brown if anyone was wondering.
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Sorry for the late response, but I haven’t been in this thread for some time. The UV lamp is going to go a long way toward clearing green water in the Summer, depending on how long you run it per day.
I have a couple of questions. Firstly, how is it looking now you’ve run UV for a couple of weeks? Also, what is the pH, and how do you manage pH in the water?
I owned an aquarium store for several years, and have kept most fish, and bred several in my time. I used to import and wholesale marine fish to retail stores across Australia for a couple of years, so I may be able to provide some advice once I know a little more.
Thanks for reply.
I have had filter and up running about 8 hours each day, but no real change. Maybe UV lamp is not running or it is just too dirty. I back flush filter every day or so.
I have seen there are chemicals I can get, but no really that sure with the fish.
Maybe I need a better filter and pump. The filter is an Oase FiltoClear 3000 with matching pump.
No idea on pH, like we have a meter in our lab somewhere. What should it be ?
Any suggestions would help.
What about water plants, any you suggest ?
Public service alert - If you’re in Mt Dandenong or surrounds and have a bird feeder or give food to the parrots, for the next few weeks please clean and disinfect regularly. There’s a bastard of a strain of beak and feather disease going around right now, and it’s often spread through feeders. I went on a 2 1/2 hr walk the other week and found two dying cockies, and feather piles where another four had been grounded with illness and killed by predators.
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When you say the water is dirty, is it muddy, or green?
If you want healthy fish, and clear water, you want to concentrate on water plants. When you create the right conditions for water plants to thrive, they absorb nutrients, provide oxygen and provide surface cover, which also reduces the amount of sunlight entering the water and causing algal blooms that turn the water green in Summer.
If your plants are dying, they’re doing more harm than good.
Controlling pH is the key to keeping pond plants healthy. Your aquarium store will sell you a test kit, and chemicals to bring the pH up and down. With time and experience, you can learn to keep the pH in the range you want, but it’s easy to cause large changes in pH this way, and sudden changes in pH can kill fish as well as plants.
If you raise pH in water, it will drop slowly from alkaline (above 7). Dissolved calcium in the water keeps it above 7, and this is a buffer that is dissolved by acid from fish waste, uneaten food, and dead plants or fish. Once pH hits around 6.8 pH, the buffer is used up, and it can lower rapidly. pH is a logarithmic scale, so 1.0 pH is a big change. When pH becomes very acidic, it kills plants, and sometimes fish, especially when the change is sudden.
Most fish like neutral pH, 7.0 or close to. Koi will be happy and healthy from around 6.8 to 7.6 pH. Plants, on the other hand, are more demanding. Aquatic plants all thrive at 6.8 to 7.0 pH.
The best way to control pH, is to add calcerous material to the water. When pH drops below 7.6, it begins to dissolve the calcium, which slows down or stops the pH reducing. The more acidic the water gets, the faster it dissolves the calcium, so that it reaches equilibrium. Oyster shells, shell grit or calcerous gravel will all create this effect. If you throw enough of it in there, the pH will sit on 7.6 and never move. So ideally you want the shells in a bucket. As you reduce the amount of shells, you’ll create equilibrium at a lower pH. The shells will have to be topped up a very small amount occasionally once you reach the right quantity. The amount of shells required in an aquarium is quite low. A teaspoon or less in a 200 litre aquarium is usually about right, and only needs a very small amount added every 6-12 months. Ponds create more waste, so they require proportionally more, a bucket of some size, and heavy rain can still change pH noticeably, and take awhile to reach balance again. You can run water flow directly over the shells for a faster adjustment.
The easiest way to keep koi healthy would be to throw lots of calcerous shells/rocks in the pond so that pH stays at 7.6, and just not keep plants. And a big enough UV filter can keep the algal bloom under control in Summer. But if you like plants in your pond, and like to keep the koi in really good health, then work on getting the pH settled at 7.0, and top up on shells when it gets down to 6.8. When you’re initially adjusting pH, it will adjust slowly, so maybe test once a day and record it for the first week or so, then probably once a week or so until it settles where you want it.
Ideal plants for ponds are lillies, for looks, and to create some shade in Summer, but they are slow growing, so don’t reduce organic waste in the water or oxygenate much. Eel grass may do OK, depending on whether the koi eat it heavily. Hardy plants that grow fast, I’d recommend wisteria, and my favourite, bacopa. Both of these grow fast, and look like a different plant once they grow above the waterline. Ideally, once established with neutral pH, you’ll be cropping these regularly, particularly in Summer.
The easiest plant to grow, that will provide cover from the sun, and help water quality, is duck weed. However, it will take over the surface of your pond, and you’ll find yourself netting and throwing it away in large quantities. It’s very hard to get rid of once established. So much so, that if you’re buying plants from an aquarium store, I’d check they don’t have any duck weed growing in their plant tanks, and take the time to remove every piece before you place plants in your pond if there is any.
If the pH is right and your plants are yellow instead of green, then you probably need to add iron.
All aquarium stores use shell grit in their tanks to control pH, but prefer to sell you chemicals instead. It’s more profitable as you use the chemicals, and even more so when you kill fish by increasing and decreasing pH too quickly.
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One chemical that kills green water is copper. The right dosage of copper shouldn’t harm the fish directly, as it’s used as a medication for some fish parasites. Copper will kill small invertebrates at a lower dosage than fish. However, it will knock all plants around, which causes more die-off, and the resulting poor water quality can harm fish.
The other alternative treatments generally remove ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates from the water, and/or phosphates. All these are food for plants, and if the plants aren’t growing on these nutrients, then algae will grow instead. At normal levels, this is good for the fish, as it’s natures way of balancing the nutrient cycle. When your filter pump cycles water through its filter media, aerobic bacteria grow on any surface that water passes over. So if your filter has the ability to add on a foam filter, or other filter media, bacteria will help break down nutrients in the water.
If you have a place in the filter, or you can buy an add on cartridge for it, adding carbon/charcoal to the filter, or buying a separate carbon filter will help a lot. Dead plant and animal matter, and uneaten food dissolves in the water as organics, which then break down into ammonia, which is broken down to nitrites, then nitrates, by aerobic bacteria. Carbon/charcoal has an enormous surface area, and when water is actively passed over it, will filter all large molecules out very effectively. This means it will actively remove organics before they break down further and provide nutrients for algae, as well as removing many other harmful chemicals. Because of the large surface area, it will also grow lots of aerobic bacteria. However, the aerobic bacteria will clog up carbon after about a month, so should be discarded after 2-4 weeks at most. If there are a lot of organics, it could be changed over once a week or so initially. Carbon is one of the cheapest ways to quickly ‘polish’ the water, and always improves water quality for fish. It’s one of the first things I do if fish are looking unwell, and is often enough by itself. Just don’t add fish medicine when you have fresh carbon, as the carbon will remove the medication effectively too.
If you’re growing plants well, they’ll keep the water quality good most of the time. Carbon is also a great tool to have available to polish the water when needed.
Feel free to ask any other questions, or follow-up questions.
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(We should add hooves to the title of thread)
(click the link for the clip)
Commuters on their way to pick up fast food have been left shocked and a little curious as an unusual suspect stuck his head out to order.
On Tuesday, a Macca’s customer took to TikTok to share the bizarre scene in front of her as a woman pulled up to order with a tiny horse in the back seat.
“Only in Australia,” the poster captioned the video.
The little guy is in the back seat of a black Honda, with his head out the window looking all around him.
Shocked onlookers watched as Rocco the horse enjoyed a trip through the Macca’s drive-through. Picture: Tiktok/@dondonthedon26
The little guy was excited for his sweet treat. Picture: Tiktok/@dondonthedon26
“Is that a horse in your car?” the woman asks.
“He’s excited for his ice cream!” his owner says.
“That’s Rocco.”
The video has been seen more 911,000 times and has nearly 80,000 likes.
“The nod from Rocco to confirm he’s excited about ice cream,” one commenter wrote.
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“I wanted to see him eat the ice cream,” said another.
“The reason why Honda has the so called “magic seats”, it’s to take our ponies for an ice cream.”
Even a major Aussie supermarket couldn’t resist the urge to join the fun.
“We’re just here to say hay,” Coles commented.
Commenters said he seemed to nod when ice cream was mentioned. Picture: Tiktok/@dondonthedon26
Rocco’s video has been viewed nearly a million times. Picture: Tiktok/@dondonthedon26
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In my backyard there is a free-standing, frequently replenished birdbath that is much loved and utilised by the local avian population, in particular my family of magpies.
I just saw a rock wallaby (aka black wallaby) standing there drinking his fill! It’s not unusual to see them around, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one doing that. Alas, by the time I grabbed my phone, he’d hopped away and disappeared.
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How fantastic. Water access for wildlife is so important in summer.
Best thing we did was put in a bird bath. Lots of different families of birds call in each day- most are happy to share with each other. I love it.
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Was fishing in the kayak in Sth Gippy a couple weeks back. My neighbour down there rows a wooden boat to fish. I saw a sea eagle very near him and later was keen to see if he’d noticed it. Turns out he had caught a small couta and Gill - hooked it. He chucked it over but it stayed the the surface, and - you guessed it. Mr eagle came and collected a free lunch!
Saw this bird (one only, not seen as a pair like we normally see wedgies).
This was the bird seen a day or two later while dog walking. Pretty rubbish off the very old phone, but it was very close.
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You were going to phone him???
Man, times have changed!
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The Qld quolls, who hitched a ride to Melbourne in the cartons of Queensland pumpkins, have been sent packing back to Qld.
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