Big Emergency Please Help

[michaela123]

Today I arrived home from work to discover a foot of water left in my pond. A leak had happened. I have replaced the pond liner and refilled the pond however due to the chlorine in the water I have been advised top leave the pond for 24 hours. The only container I can put my 10 med-large goldfish in is a 90 Litre tank. I need to keep them in there overnight I have no spare pump can anyone tell me if they will be OK Many thanks is advance

 

[black angel]

Do you have a paddling pool you could use instead or a large bin? The 90 litre wont be big enough because of ammonia poisoning. You will need lots of oxygen going in as well.

 

[TammyLiz]

Get a bottle of water conditioner. Depending on the size of your pond it might be pricy to treat the whole thing, but that's what I would do. Are you absolutely certain that your water supply company doesn't use chloramines? Because if they do, letting the water sit will not get rid of them. You must use water conditioner.

 

[michaela123]

Thanks to both of you for replying so quickly. Due to the late hour I was unable to get enough water conditioner. I did however have a medium size bottle of Freshstart which I had bought for my tropical tank so I put that into the pond (even though probably not enough I though it would help a bit). I decided that leaving all the fish in the tank was not an option as they were already beginning to show signs of distress after only an hour in there. I thought that I would let them take their chances in the pond rather than suffocate them. I checked this morning before leaving for work and all 10 are alive and seem well. None of them are lethargic and all are feeding so I am keeping my fingers crossed. It was a horrible situation to be in but I would definitely have lost them if I had left them in the tank.

 

[black angel]

Im glad they came through the night ok. If i had thought more about it then i would have said to leave them in the pond as another member Bribones has said he doesnt use conditioner and all his fish are fine.

 

[TammyLiz]

Well, if you have any sort of biological filtration, which is a good idea to have, then using untreated water that contains chlorine or chloramines completely wipes out your bacteria culture. So although some hardy fish can handle small amounts of it in adding some fresh water to the pond, bacteria cannot.

I am glad to hear the fish are doing OK today. I don't have a pond personally but wish I did, so I'm jealous of you even though you've had this mishap, just because you have a pond! I have to say, welcome to the forum. I hope you return to talk about your fish even when you're not having a terrible emergency!

 

[michaela123]

Well, if you have any sort of biological filtration, which is a good idea to have, then using untreated water that contains chlorine or chloramines completely wipes out your bacteria culture. So although some hardy fish can handle small amounts of it in adding some fresh water to the pond, bacteria cannot.

I am glad to hear the fish are doing OK today. I don't have a pond personally but wish I did, so I'm jealous of you even though you've had this mishap, just because you have a pond! I have to say, welcome to the forum. I hope you return to talk about your fish even when you're not having a terrible emergency!

Thanks Tammy Liz, It all seemed to turn out OK in the end. It is now Thursday and the fish are still doing fine, with the help of a friend I was also able to use this opportunity to change the shape of what was quite a boring rectangular pond, when we put it in originally it was just after we moved house. We decided at the last minute not to sell our other house and rent it instead so we needed to move the fish in the pond there to our new house which had no pond. It was dug in November and we didn't give much thought to the shape as we were in such a hurry. Due to this leak we put the new pond liner over the old and have now dug behind it to create ledges and shelves where I can put marginals and hopefully will end up more with the type of pond I wanted and happier fish. I'll post some pictures when it is finished.