Larry Lunsford

Its been a while since my last sermon on chlorine, so I thought it time to refresh you with another round of fire and brimstone. In case you've forgotten ... CHLORINE KILLS KOI!!! Often, my chlorine sermons (rantings?) are meet with a small (sometimes heaping) dose of apathy. Here's a couple recent incidents that I hope will inspire you to better water quality practices.

Many people think that simply aerating the water as they put it into their Koi ponds will remove any chlorine that may be present. While its true that chlorine will eventually dissipate with aeration, you shouldn't rely on that to keep your Koi healthy. In preparing for RMKC's 2001 Auction, the tanks were setup in the morning and the air system turned on and left running. I arrived around 6:00 PM to check on the water. What I found was that even after 6+ hours of aeration, there was still around 1.0ppm chlorine in the water - enough to quickly fry the gills of your wet pets. Please don't rely on a spray nozzle or aeration for chlorine removal.

Another pitfall some people can find themselves in is to assume that your water has been treated with a constant dose of chlorine. While running water for a water change recently, I noticed a much larger than normal dose of chlorine. Usually, my tap water tests at around 0.5ppm to 1.0ppm of chlorine. This time, the chlorine content was about 3ppm. I've only had Koi at two locations (Colorado, and Virginia) but in both locations, routine testing has revealed large variations in tap water chlorine levels. Please don't assume that your usual dose of dechlor is doing the job.

To protect your Koi (as well as your sanity) you should be doing these two things: quarantine and test. Quarantine new water before introducing it into the main pond. You can do this by turning off your pumps and doing water changes in an upper pond section (that's free of Koi) or in a settling chamber (don't chlorinate your biofilter) or by using a separate tank, kiddy pool, 55 gallon drum, trash cans, etc. While your water is in quarantine, test it for chlorine. Treat with dechlor as necessary. Don't release your quarantined water until it tests at 0.0 for chlorine.

Don't get clobbered by the Chlorine Clowns - you never know what they're up to.

Koi