I have a artesian well next to my pond that I have a water test on. I would like to know who or where I can send this test to who can tell me if bass and sunfish will live in it. If not what quality does it need to be for fish to live in it and where can I buy a filter to accomplish this. The pond will dry up and all the fish will die if I can't make this water work. Please help

Hey Kititas,

First, welcome to PBF, second, don't panic. Please provide a bit more info, for example, what makes you think the water from your well is a concern??? I am not a pro but, there are lots of folks here that are.

My suggestion, post the analysis report and a statement explaining why you are concerned.

Again, Welcome to PBF....relax...you are now among friends!

Bill D.

AS Bill said, welcome to the forum. Little confused on if need a test done or you have already had one. If you need one completed, I thought Texas A&M did a great job, all the info you need can be found here http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/webpages/forms.html.


If you have results you can post them or refer to this to get a general idea of where you stand:

***Credit to ewest for original image post***



taken from this post http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=32007&Number=415703#Post415703.

Hope it helps and good luck

Why do you think you have a problem? Have you tried getting a gallon of the water and tossing in a couple of small fish?

How do I post an image? I have the water test scanned.

You have to use an on-line server to store your image first. Something like photobucket. The instructions on how to do it are in the archives.

Alkalinity as CaCO3 1522 mg/l
Arsenic 320 ug/l
Barium 0.09 mg/l
Bicarbonate 1696 mg/l
Boron 20mg/l
Calcium <5 mg/l
Carbonate 79 mg/l
Chloride 1400 mg/l
Color 120 cu
Electrical conductivity 6600 umhos/cm
Fluoride 4.1 mg/l
Hardness <33 mg/l
Hydroxide <7 mg/l
Iron 0.05 mg/l
Magnesium <5 mg/l
Manganese <0.02 mg/l
Nitrate+nitrite as N <0.5 mg/l
pH 8.57 su
Potassium 26mg/l
Silica 41mg/l
Sodium 1500 mg/l
Sulfate <5 mg/l
Total dissolved solids 4068 mg/l
Turbidity 3.5 NTU
Zinc <0.05 mg/l
Will fish live in this water or do I need to use some sort of filter? If so where can I purchase such a filter? It is a artesian well that runs next to the pond. I'm hoping I can use this to keep the fish bass and bluegill alive through this drought until next year. Please help. Any answer would be appreciated. This is a water test just completed on the well water I want to put in the pond.
Thanks

I will try to beat Dave D to this....Putting a couple of small fish in a bucket of water is a real good indicator. He suggested that when I was considering using Mulberry as structure....Killed the fish almost immediately...I subscribe...to Dave D's advice!

It kills them that's why I need to know if it can be filtered or something

Have you tried aerating a bucket of the water and then retesting?

water directly from the well has ZERO oxygen, if you just put them in the well water they will suffocate.

when you add it to the pond it gets diffused and get "oxygenated".

I have an arteasan well I use in My pond, I have it angled up so it splashes and Bubbles on the surfice as it enters the pond to increase the aeration of it. The more splashing and bubbleing the better.

I put some fish in a bucket of this aerated well water and it killed them. I mixed it and reduced it 50/50 well n pond water aerated it and it killed them in about a hour. So I pose my question again is there some sort of filter I can use to clean up this water for the pond? Otherwise all the fish will die from the pond drying up.

I put some fish in a bucket from the well aerated it and the fish died. So is there a filter I can use to clean up this water?

Did you allow the well water to warm up to ambient temperature before you put the fish in?

Look at the test results that Ben/ewest posted. Compare the values that you have to the ones in the test. Your hardness is off the charts, high is anything over 400. pH is borderline very high (9.0+), something should be done to drop that in the pond closer to 7. To convert mg/l to ppm just change the name. i.e. 1500 mg/l is 1500 ppm.

Compare the optimum and high readings on the TAMU report as they compare to yours. I doubt that a filter would take care of all your problems, you most likely will also need to change the chemistry of your well water.

I combined your two threads about the same question to one place to avoid having to compile answers from two different places.

Hmm, my pond water is very "hard" also, going do far to deposit "scale" on objects left in the water. The fish don't seem to mind. The PH is also around 8.7 or so, not quite 9.0 but close. It seems like your water is coming out of a cave, ancient seabed, or something.

Something else is going on I suspect.

If you wish to drop the PH you will need to add acid, but with water that alkaline, you will need to add a LOT of it. Muriatic acid (HCL) is used in aquariums among other things and can be cheap and available. It is used as wood bleach. You would have to figure out how to administer it to the well water as it comes out of the well, then agitate it with air to mix it up good. I have seen some great agitators here of water cascading through buckets full of holes on the bottom and plastic objects inside of the buckets.

You will need to experiment with water samples vs. amount of acid to use to bring the PH down. You are essentially creating a water conditioner of your own. Get a good aquarium water testing kit and a chunk of time and I think you can pull this off, depending on how much acid is required.

I think the root of your problem is dissolved salts. Your well is producing brackish water. The fish can deal with it, but they need to be conditioned over time with a slow transition from fresh to the higher levels of salt. I believe fresh water becomes "brackish" at 5000mg/L (0.5g/L-30g/L) and you are very close to that.

There is a person here who is raising salt water fish alongside fresh water, someone please remind us who that is? He may be able to help.

Bobby Rice is raising salt water fish in a fresh water pond. He has had some posts on how he conditions them. I'll see if I can find it and try to post the link.

Cmm

Check out the Euryhaline pond update thread. First page bobby talks about acclimating a flounder to his fresh water pond! Hope this helps.

Cmm