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Winter draws on!

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 12:37 pm
by pollygog
I posted an article about frogs overwintering in my Nexus filter system and have reached the inevitable conclusion this year that 1; they are here to stay and 2; given the ecological disaster earlier on this year in failing to reproduce; they need all the help I can give them.
It never helped their cause much this week either as unbeknowns to me the frogs had started their Autumnal gathering in bottom of filter and in flushing out my filter I accidently crushed a frog in half closing the two inch ball valve exiting my Nexus waste.
Not a pleasant experience I can tell you hooking it out with a piece of bent wire.
The frog was duly buried with all honours befitting his/her status, under a gooseberry bush were his/her recycled remains will be by due process converted into next years fruit!
There was an earlier article posted on the forum that frogs carry Trich. newts and toads also can and do carry pond parasites that can affect and infect koi or indeed any fish in your pond and given that I had a bad outbreak of Costia for the first time earlier on this year I took no chances and dosed the entire system with Potassium Permanganate.

PM destroys organic matter! bear this in mind when you use it It can just as easily destroy your fishes gills as destroy the flora and fauna in your pond

On the subject of dosing with PM it can be a very hit and miss affair so I researched it on the web and came up with some very interesting conclusions borne out by my experiences in dosing my pond.
I have waterlillies growing in my pond and a veg filter so correctly dosing my pond is a delicate balance to effectively destroy harmful pathogens and not kill my fish or plants.
The rate of one teaspoon per thousand galls is a good safe bet for pond treatment, a teaspoon is approx seven and a half grammes, the accepted safe dosage rate is one point five grammes per two hundred and twenty galls.
I aways dose my fish individually separate from pond and keep them isolated from pond until it is fully treated the reason for this is pinpoint accuracy and timing on dosage rate.
The PP ceases to work when it changes from pink to brown so it should be pink for at least twenty minutes to effectivly kill Costia etc.
I have had to dose my pond four or five times before the water has stayed pink for this length of time this is due to large amounts of organic matter in system due to plant life and hence the reason I remove fish from pond prior to treatment, its better to keep dosing at a low rate than try to hit the system with a massive overdose.
One caveat here is when you are using PP keep a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide to hand it provides instant oxygen in an emergency and cancels out the effects of PP in an accidental overdosing.


The Costia will live on any surface in and around your pond so total treatment is neccesary in order to eradicate the pest, one good side effect I suppose is the eradication of any Costia on the frogs toads and newts in the pond system, I've got them whether I want them or not and they are now an integral part of the ecology of my pond and I'm sure they must all feel better rid of their itchy passengers.

One thing PP will do is knock out your filter microbes on the Kaldnes so a contingency plan is needed there but thats another article another time.