When adding water to a pond, the tap water that comes from your hose contains chlorine and chloramines, which are harmful to your fish. Chlorine is toxic to most aquatic life, and it can cause stress and bad burns to the fish once it reaches the gills and its internals. Chlorine will cause burns upon contact, damaging the gills, scales, and breathing tissue of goldfish and koi. Also, interestingly, it readily enters the blood stream after it passes through the gills, causing internal burning, stress, and significant pain to the fish. The solution to this is to add the Pond Company’s Dechlor. Dechlor is short for a water dechlorinator, which is a water conditioner that neutralizes the chlorine, chloramine, and other heavy harmful substances. Dechlor should always be used whenever we add water to a pond, and whenever we do a water change to neutralize the chemicals before they affect the fish and the ecosystem. A bottle of the Pond Company’s Dechlor can be purchased for only $17.95 (see store), please give us a call if you are interested in purchasing (626)-284-5937 or drop us an email at: info@thepondcompany.com.
Chlorine & Chloramine Kill!
What is Chloramine?
Chloramine is used to bond chlorine to water. It is added by our metropolitan water districts in combination with chlorine to sanitize and disinfect the tap water that comes to your home and business. Sanitize kills everything living without discretion, including your fish!
Chloramines first started to be used in the 1980s. Prior to that time, Chlorine would rapidly dissipate from the water, but Chloramines make Chlorine stay in the water for a longer period of time.
Chloramines are a group of chemical compounds that contain Chlorine and Ammonia. Chloramine locks Chlorine and Ammonia to the water molecule, so it stays active in the water for a longer period of time.
Although we are told that the use of Chloramine in our water makes it safe for humans to drink (debatable given all the bottled water we buy), it is definitely harmful to fish. Chloramines are toxic to fish, because the fish will take up chloramines directly through their burned gills into their blood stream – not good! We recommend that the water used for your pond always be free of Chloramines. (See blog on how to treat for Chlorine & Chloramine)
Stressed Out Koi
Koi keeping is an important part of Pond Care and stress is an impending part of it. We all go through stress in our lives to being uncomfortable and new to something. Fish living out in nature would simply swim away from stressful conditions, but when they are confined in a pond or tank there is no way for them to swim away. Ammonia levels can get too high and this can cause them a lot of stress. Fish have a hard time dealing with change in their environment, including temperature. That is why when you move any fish from one water source to another they need to be acclimated before being put in. This goes for pH, hardness and alkalinity of its new home.