Well, I get my first cup of coffee this morning and head outside to check on everyone. I put the fish in the pond on Saturday. I come outside and what do I see? 3 dead birds all in a row floating in the pond. No fish in sight anywhere. I grab the net and get the poor things out (from the looks of em, I'd say they were young starlings, but they were decent sized). I see Frank, Hotlips and Annie, but no sign of little Lucky, my baby koi that I rescued from *somewhere* awhile back, and no sign of Mic the carp, and no sign of George the Apple Snail who is sooooooo happy out there.

I start skimming duckweed off the top so I can see better, turn off the pump and look, and look, and look. Oh, there's Lucky, he was hidden. Finally after about an hour of looking, I find everyone. I checked water params because I find it odd that they were hiding and my AM is .5 NITRITE .25 (pond is new, seeded, but not done cycling).

So do you all think I need a PWC (partial water change) because of the params and the dead birds?

Yes do a pwc on it to get the levels back down again. Dont know why the starlings died, maybe they were young and landed in the wrong place or a skinny dip gone wrong?
Maybe a guard over the top so when you arent there then nothing can get in?

Yeah, I need to get some sort of cover. The birds were young, they still had the grey fuzzy color that babies have. I felt so badly for the little guys. I just had an adult starling and another fuzzy baby sitting on my patio table, so I guess my assumption was right. Ok, off to do a change. THanks Sandy.

Aww poor babies, they must have thought they could land on it or they didnt have any say in their co ordination.

Yeah, the one I saw with the parent wasn't too coordinated. I'm thinking that maybe they were trying to get a drink and fell in. I have sparrows that sit by the output of the filter and sip water from it. I think that's what these yungins were doing.

wow that would be a scary morning! Is your salt at .3%? Might be a good idea to up it to that until your pond has finished cycling. It is supposed to help keep the fish from getting that blood disease that occures with high nitrities.

(I don't know how it would effect the snail? Salt doesn't bother the snails in my pond, you may want to check on that.)
Scott

Thanks Scott.

Does it really need to be that high though? I always did like a .1% for nitrites. I've had George the Snail up at that, but never to .3 Hmmmm..........

It sure sounds like a good percentage until cycling is done, Erika. Maybe you have to take out George until then. I had some of my snails accidentally in that high solution, and they came out like there wasn't any salt in the tank at all - quite fine. But you just can't know with George, so better safe than sorry.....

Yeah, I'll just take him out...... he's my buddy. He's one of Chewy's babies, ya know Devs/Heather's snail? He looks just like Chewy only smaller. I've had him about a year? Anyway, I'm waaaaay too attached to the little monster to let anything happen to him. I put him in the pond before the fish when I realized the ph in his tank was staying at about 6.0! Everynight, I'd go outside with a flashlight several times to make sure he was ok. Hehe. Everytime I saw him, he was zooming around that pond like it was the coolest thing in the world. Now he gets yummy duckweed to munch on too. Silly Snail.

Okay, so .3........ I have some math to do.

What a bummer about the birds,although that seems quite common with them and water.Have you posted any pond pic's since you added the fish?

I wouldn't worry about the math. When I put salt in I buy that 99% pure salt from Home Depot (yellow bag) and dump in some, wait an hour and test for salt, put more in, and wait then test. I do this until I have what I want in there. Sometimes I'll raise it in a matter of two days.

I'm at .1 right now... I'll put it to .2 tomorrow.


Devs~ nah, I haven't. They're so darn hard to see with the duckweed in there!! They're kindly removing it for me though.

That darn Duckweed! Well do they have it gone yet?

OH yes, it's GONE!! I think it took 4 days for them to eat a generous pound of duckweed. The guy that I got the weed from threw about a dozen ruby red rams in there, and I'm sure they've eaten a lion's share of those too. PIGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Erika,I don't think I've actually seen the "finished pond" yet. Are there pics floating around somewhere? Pond all cycled yet,and How is dear George by the way?

I've been soooooooooooooooo lazy about pictures lately. I promise I'll get some. Jon mulched the area around the pond so it looks really nice. No, it's STILL cycling. Those stinkin Nitrites are taking forEVER to come down. George is happy, he's in with Elvis the betta until those nitrites go down. I'd feel horribly if I had him out there. He'll be going back as soon as everything's good. He really, really enjoys the pond. I'm just hoping that he leaves my lillies alone.