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Ed. This piece came to me as an email. Though vandalism has not been a major problem among club member, it is one of the hazards our fish face. I’m presenting this account as it came to me. Most of you received the S.O.S. this morning regarding Laura's dilemma -- some kid put dish detergent in her koi pond in the middle of the night, and when she went out to check her koi this morning, they were under a 3-4 foot "cloud" of soap bubbles. I just got home a little while ago, and we think we have things under control... but we were two "inexperienced" koi people dealing with this bit of vandalism. If we ever catch those kids, we have some very creative things we would like to do to them... we figure lobotomies won't work, as they must already have had them in order to act the way they did. Well, here's what happened... Apparently, one or more kids climbed the back fence at Laura's house and put liquid dish detergent as a prank into the large koi pond. (Laura has a 19-year-old daughter they were probably trying to "impress.") Thank goodness they didn't soap the other two ponds or we would have really had a horrific problem -- it was bad enough as it was. Laura called looking for suggestions of someone to tell her what to do about the soap in her pond -- I suggested several people and she was able to get Mike Fuller on the phone. Mike and several of our members are headed to the mud ponds in Virginia again (so they will miss our November meeting). Mike was getting on the plane when he answered her call. He suggested that she do a 75% water change, followed by another 75% water change and then a 50% water change. Meanwhile, I grabbed a couple of nets and whatever I could think of to help Laura and headed to her house after sending out the SOS to club members. We starting pumping out water while trying to catch the fish -- they are FAST! We set up two large containers with water from one of the clean ponds (she has two connected ponds that are separate from the koi pond that was soaped). We caught the fish (it is written simply, but it wasn't an easy job) and then rinsed them by dipping them in the first tub, then in the second before placing them in the other pond. We left them in each tub long enough to let them "breathe" and exchange soapy water for unsoaped pond water. Laura didn't have a quarantine tank, so we had no alternative but this. We dipped the fish so not to take too much soap residue into the other ponds. Catching the koi was a chore! I remembered that Kenneth Wong catches koi with ease in the large nets and tried to remember how he did it -- and then it came to me. He didn't chase them around the pond, he just let them swim into the net. Once I got that down, we did pretty well. Laura kind of herded them toward me and I let them swim into the net -- actually, it wasn't as easy as that, but that sounds good. I would run across the deck to the tubs at the other side of the yard and put the fish in the net into the first tub, et cetera. We were down to the last five fast fish... and in the gate walked Brian DeFoe (a past president of KWGCNT, many moons ago). He was getting ready to pick up one of his paintings for the 9-11 memorial event in NYC (where he will be taking it), and he checked his email before leaving for the gallery. Thank goodness! :-) Jumping into pond clothes instead of his business suit, he headed to Irving to surprise us. Were we delighted or what?! When we couldn't net the last small, quick koi, Brian shed shoes and socks and into the pond he went with a small manageable net. Victory! We even got the gambusia out. :-) We ran the hose into the pond to create bubbles, which we could scoop out with nets. Have you ever tried to scoop soap bubbles with a koi net? Not fun. We also were emptying the pond at the same time, trying to get 75% of the water out. When we achieved that, we realized that the ratty kid must have emptied the whole bottle of liquid soap into the pond. We would never be able to do enough water changes to get the soap out... so we emptied most of the water while replacing it. Finally, we didn't have bubbles anymore. Hallelujah! I suggested that we put some of the other pond water into the koi pond to replace the biological matter that we had to empty -- and since all the fish were in the other pond, it would then be "familiar" water to them when they went back into their de-soaped koi pond. Brian helped Laura rig the pump and evacuation hose so that we could pump some of the water from the other two-pond set-up into the koi pond. This worked well, and we added tap water, too. Dechlorinator, etc., was added to the water. We checked the ammonia and other things in the "old ponds" where all the fish were now residing. Laura added an air stone also. In effect, we were doing a "water change" in the other ponds and seeding the cleaned (literally) out koi pond with the old pond water, where all the fish were moved. Laura backwashed the filter to remove soap residue from it, and we flushed soapy water everywhere -- except back into the ponds! She thoughtfully put a bucket under the pipe that fed water back into the pond to check for suds -- yes, more suds came out. Drat! We cut off the electricity and re-routed the flow outside the pond. What an experience! If we ever catch that kid... Brian decided it was a good time to do fall maintenance, and he hopped back into the pond and cleaned debris from the bottom -- if I knew I could get help this way, I might just add a little soap... just kidding! Laura ordered pizza and we ate while things settled down. We had scooped a mountain of soap suds from the surface of the pond, next to the koi pond looked like it had snowed, and we were tired. The fish seem to be doing okay in their new surroundings. They were soaped sometime in the middle of the night and not rescued until mid-morning from the soap water. They are now in the other pond. The koi pond has been refilled almost completely with a combination of old pond water to "seed" it from the other pond and tap water that has been treated. Laura is not going to add the fish for a while. She will probably put in two fish to see how they do when the pond water has settled down a bit more... a week or three? In the meantime, if anyone else has had this happen or knows the answer to this question, please respond to me: Is there anything that can safely be added to the pond at this point to remove or break down any remaining soap residue? We hosed down the walls and hopefully evacuated most of the detergent. Some parts of the pond were "soapier" than others, which made us think that the soap may have sunk to the bottom in some areas. (That is why we opted to clean the whole thing out.) Probably the fish will be okay. The water will be left to age. We put some anacharis and other similar plants into the water also to help filter it. We figured if the plants died, the fish would, too -- sort of like the canary in the mine, you know. So, there you have it. Two inexperienced novice koi people learning more things day by day! I've had snakes, herons, possums, and other things in my yard, messing with my pond. The soap suds monster in Laura's pond was right "up there" though. She was having a few regrets at not having the dog around anymore to bark and warn of vandals in the night -- they came over her 6-foot fence! I think one of those motion-sensor "scarecrow" things might be a good idea -- hook a bell to it that will ring when it begins to move and set it up right where those kids came over the gate and soak 'em good... now, if we could get it to shoot blue dye... Let us hear from you if you know what might combat soap in a pond... Judy Fender Koi & Water Garden Club of North Texas Editor, Clear Water Times www.nortexkoi.org <http://www.nortexkoi.org> Ed. Later I got this email listing some of the response to the soap problem. Just thought I would share with you some of the info that has come in since Laura's "Koi Soap Opera" -- so aptly named by one of our KWGCNT members, Toni Anderson. Mike Fuller (reached by cell phone at the airport!) put us on the right path with the water changes... he was the first koi expert we could locate to actually talk to! When we visited the Seminary pond in Fort Worth, the caretaker said that some students did that on a larger scale (its a large public pond). We don't think the fish (can't remember if they were koi or goldfish) were transferred out; just the soapsuds removed. The fish were fine. They were not expensive fish. We can't imagine how the fish could be caught for transferring. Maybe a seine with ten people would do it. We hope that Laura's fish survived unharmed, Sandi and Ben Soedjono I had passed the message to all the Austin Koi Club members about the soapy
pond. I got back two suggestions which I'm passing on to you.
Claudia Herdeman here's another-- via Claudia Herdeman (Austin Koi Club), Claudia, I read the soap story you sent and maybe they should contact some environmentally clean up agency, I'm sure they cleaned up soap spills on a much bigger scale. I just don't know which agency. Matt Hi Judy. This is Mary at Dickson Brothers. Laura will want to add some Pond Protection to her pond where she is temporarily housing ALL of her fish, to soothe, re-slime coat them, and begin healing tissues irritated by that soap. You guys were great to help so fast! The only other time some kids tried to "give the fish a bath" the results were disastrous, with NO fish surviving. Laura will also need to keep a close watch on her ammonia & nitrite levels in the pond that has now had its biological load dramatically increased. She may need some Pond Primer to bind the ammonia & nitrite and buy her time to boost the biological maturity in filter. Let me know if there is further trouble, Kindest regards, Mary @ Dickson Brothers |
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