How to test the water quality in a koi and goldfish pond. Consider testing an insurance policy for koi. These fish can be quite expensive. Therefore definitely worth insuring with regular water testing.
In this video, I lead you through the step-by-step process of checking your pond’s water quality. I’ll look for the following elements: pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite levels.
All four of these levels are very important to the quality and health of your koi and goldfish in your outdoor pond.
Test Kits
As I go through those tests, you’ll see how easy it is to do that. The water testing kit I used was: API Freshwater Master Test Kit and it is good for aquariums and ponds outdoors.
Why do we test the pH? pH is the measure of the acidity level of the water. A pH reading of 7 is considered neutral. A pH higher than 7 is considered alkaline, and anything lower than 7 is acidic.
Next test will be the ammonia test. Why do we want to test for ammonia? The fishes in your pond are continuously releasing ammonia directly into their pond through their gills, their urine, solid waste, uneaten food, and other plants that are decaying. These will add a certain amount of ammonia to the water. You will need to check this often to make sure it’s not too high because it will stress the fish.
Next tests will be the nitrite and nitrate tests. So why test for nitrite? Nitrite is produced in the pond by the biological filter. The beneficial bacteria in the biological filter will convert the ammonia into nitrite which is also toxic, but then the biological filter will convert the nitrite into nitrate. The reason why I’m testing for the high nitrite levels is if they’re too high, it shows that the filters are not doing their job properly and I’m getting the buildup of too much nitrate.
How to test the water quality in a koi and goldfish pond? We now know this isn’t a difficult question, but definitely worth knowing the answer.
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