I did quick look up on amquel. This product might be what is causing all of your problems. Here is a website to look at www.koksgoldfish.com/Amquel.html it explains the cause and effect of using this product.

It's possible that the city is adding a copper products to kill the algae, and copper is toxic to koi and goldies. See if the city will give you a detailed water report. Also test your kH (total alkalinity) to make sure your pH is buffered. Fish deaths after rains usually point to pH swings. IS there anything in the bottom of the pond. Rocks? plant debris? What kind of filtration do you have and how recently was it cleaned?

Keep in mind that most fish have low levels of parasites all the time, but their healthy immune systems keep them in check. During times of stress (such as moving to a new home), the fish use their system resources to overcome the stress, and let the immune system slack off. this allows any low levels of parasites to quickly grow to the point of causing problems.

But lets concentrate on water first......

Patrick, mrmars was not using the amequel for ammonia, but because she added city water. I don't agree with much of what that article said. I do agree that using amequel as a band-aid instead of finding the cause of ammonia spikes is not a good thing, but using amequel (or similar product)to handle ammonia spikes if they do happen and to neutralize the chlorine in city water is a must. Amequel is not the cause of the problems here.

Talked to the city water lab. They are adding extra carbon and Permaganate. No copper.

Tested with the "quick dip" strips and KH is coming up between "moderate and ideal"

preformed pond, just normal amount of debris in bottom. I cleaned as I normally do over the weekend, no huge buildups.

350gph pump with pondmaster filter, been changing every 1-2 days. Again, just like normal.

using Amquel+ for years, as water treatment when adding water, not as pond additive. I did add extra on Friday when I thought it could be ammonia spiking.

also bought and added aquarium salt yesterday 1/2 recommended dose, since I have never used these before

One more fish dead this morning, first since saturday. Red around gills.

I stopped the water changes on Sunday after third time as the wife thought I would be losing all the good water and treatments. Should I start again?

OK, so your water is probably not the issue.....the new fish probably are.

The tetra product you used is a little "iffy". The active ingrediant is Quinine-hydrochloride, which is dangerous and not quite as effective against many parasite. Not knowing what the parasite is creates another problem. there is not one single parasite treatment that gets them all. Dimilin takes care of the larger parasites (fish lice and anchor worms but I don't think this is what you are dealing with). Prazi or fluke tabs takes care of skin and gill flukes, and A formalin/malachite green product such as ProformC will take care of the rest of them such as ich and costia.

So here's my suggestion. First...get an aerator in there to help them breath. Do some water changes to get the salt levels down to less than .1% since many parasite treatments are not compatible with salt, and treat them with Prazi or fluke tabs for flukes and proformC or a similar malachite green/formalin product for the rest of the parasites. They will need to be treated for a total of 10 days because the life cycle of ich must be considered and there is only a tiny window of time during their life cycle that they can be killed. Follow the dosing on the bottle and even if the bottle says one dose is all that's required, do multiple doses anyway. Retreating with ProformC every 3 days with a 25% water change before each new treatment will be fine.

Please take a look at the possibility of having nitrite/nitrate poisoning. The symptoms of your fish being lethargic and then dying suddenly is what happens with this.

When you have a small pond and a large number of fish it is harder to maintain good levels and you could be putting a large bio-load on your filter and plants. A large bio-load will also cause your water to foam at the waterfall. Go to Koivet.com and look at some of the articles they have on this killer. Look in search bar under nitrate/nitrite poisoning.

things seem improved today after one treatment. Remaining fish are starting to eat a bit.

clarify for me if I should treat 3x in 3 days, or once every 3 days?

Once every 3 days. Be sure to do the water change before adding the new dose.

Patrick. There's a typo in your link. It is "kokos" not "koks". Took me a while to figure out :-)

But thanks for the excellent reference!

Any chance runoff water could have gotten in the pond during the heavy downpours? I ask because this time of year folks are putting all sorts of chemicals on their lawns.

I hope at this point the fish are better. Seeing as the OP posted in 2008, surely the issue has resolved itself?

treatments worked, we lost about 1/2 of the fish over the course, including some of our originals. Sad. but all is well now months later. the fish that probably brought the parasites survived it all (of course).

thanks for all the help (belatedly).

Hi - we have just re-vamped our garden goldfish pond (fish were transfered into a temporary housing whist being done) now they are back in their existing pond - they were very happy to be in there BUT the next day they were not eating as normal(usually come running @ feed times) and are a little lethargic and huddling under the water lily pads.... next problem I dont think i washed the gravel stones that were placed on top of water lily basket (on top of correct soil) so water this morning is very murkey (light brown) what can i put into water to clear this???? I have put an dechlorinator into water and I run a pump (self-made bio-filter with Zeolite in the basket with the pump that feeds the waterfall.... Please, i would appreciate any advise you have for me - incidentally these fish we have had for many years (and babies are amongst this lot!!!!!!!!!!!!Regards
Lisa

First off, please start a new thread for your new problem. You might get lost down here.

Anyway, fish in a new home need some time to get used to it. Hiding for a few days is normal. Soon they will come a running for food again!

Next, if you didn't wash the dirt out of the gravel yeah it can make the water dirty. Fish don't seem to mind this (yeah, but we do). It should clear itself either by getting trapped in the filter or just settling out. Most things you add to clear it are bad for the fish.

Finally, but most importantly, in revamping your pond you may well have killed off the bacteria living there that is processing the ammonia fish waste (very bad stuff) into nitrite (also bad stuff) into nitrate (not so bad in low levels) that plants use as food. This bacteria grows naturally but slowly. Keep an eye on your ammonia levels and be prepared to do water changes to keep it down until your bacterial is back.

What did you do when you "revamped?" Have you tested your water? How big is this pond?

If my water were murky and my fish unhappy, I would start with a 50% water change.

What is your water temp? If you are in a colder climate I wouldn't be feeding yet and when there is a possible water quality issue also stop feeding. I agree a large water change and careful monitoring of water quality is probably what is needed. How many fish/size are in the 190 gallons?