Hi everyone,

I have a dam/fountain with 9 goldfish. Have run a successful breeding program with them and everything. Never had a problem with it up until now.
I have looked for answers on this forum but I can't find one to my question really.

My water has always been clear and clean.Not anymore.

About a month ago (more or less) we ended up with a little orphan duck. So my mom decided the fish dam will be the perfect place for it during the day. She felt he was lonely and he got a friend about a week ago.

Almost instantly after the first duck arrived the water started to go murky and cloudy. As if it was not filtering properly anymore. Just thought it might be when the duck is swimming it kicks up all the bottom dirt.

Now with the second duck moving in I noticed today that the surface has an oily film on it.

I do have plants in the pond.

Answers that I have seen on google have been to check for dead fish (which I honestly can't see cause the water is so murky and would be really sad about) and something called filamentous algae. Can't really figure out what that is.

So my question is can all this be caused by the ducks or is it pure coincidence? How can I fix this?

I will post a photo of the dam tomorrow (it is night now) to better help with my question.

How big is your pond? Ducks produce a lot of waist/fertilizer and they tend to feed on any bottom they can easily reach. That oily film sounds like some kind of algae bloom, either starting or dieing.

FA is a green, stringy, almost cottony looking algae that will grow on the bottom, then break loose and float to the surface. If your ducks are adding too much fertilizer, and your pond is shallow, you could end up with a pond completely covered in FA.

Unless your pond has substancial size, i'd personally recommend finding them a new home.

Yep, ducks "droppings' never end.

Thank you so much for the answers so far.

I do see that there are definitely some green strings in the water, but they are too fine and I am unable to pick them up out of the water. How do I get rid of it?

I am not sure about the size of the dam, maybe about 2m in diameter give or take.

Here are some photos of what the dam looks like now. I wil try to find some before photos.

20181211_155452 by IncomingVirus

20181211_155457 by IncomingVirus

20181211_155503 by IncomingVirus

20181211_155525 by IncomingVirus

20181211_155536 by IncomingVirus, on Flickr

20181211_155635 by IncomingVirus, on Flickr


20181211_155649 by IncomingVirus

I see...

duck food,
ducks,
and a small amount of water.

These things add up to a nutrient laden ecosystem. The ducks and the food have to go hand in hand and the fountain size it not going to be increased, obviously, but getting rid of the ducks will help your water clarity. Keeping the ducks will likely aid the health of any plant life in the pool, which is lovely by the way, but the water will be greenish.

Thank you.

My main concern is if the fish will be okay?

You will have to help the system from getting out of control in order for the fish (and ducks) to remain healthy. You can only add so much nutrients (duck food, duck poop, fish food, fish poo, bugs that fall in, plant matter, etc) before the system overloads and infections take over. Now, fish survive just fine in nutrient laden systems, in fact, certain levels of nutrients are essential for good inhabitant health. It will be up to you determine when intervention is required. Most small aquatic ecosystems (small garden ponds or aquariums) require human intervention to help maintain a healthy environment. This intervention will consist of 10 to 20% water change on weekly or monthly basis. Remove 10 to 20% of the water and replace with fresh water (de-chlorinated if from city water supply) and of the same temperature of the fountain water. The frequency will be up to you to determine. There are water quality test kits that can be used to monitor the water conditions which, in turn, would help determine how often water changes would be needed. I would be checking for PH and ammonia, in particular.

You could mix up some Mandarin oarnge suace that would be good with the ducks.

Try feeding the ducks in a tray OUTSIDE of the fountain. That will reduce the nutrient load somewhat.