Pregenant Fish

[kev]

A friend has just informed my that one of her pregnant goldfish have been moved from the garden pond - into a Childs paddling pool

The water in the paddeling pool is not filtered and is straight from the tap

Please can someone give me a simple explaination as to why this is a bad idea. (simplify the nitrogeon cycle!!)

I have tried explaining it to her using technical details from other sites

But please could someone advise what it will actually do to the fish

I have had responses like - Its been in there 3 days and it looks OK

and

I filled my mums pond up and just put the fish in - they were all alright

So am I wrong? Is this safe practice??

PLease help

 

[ryan]

Chlorine is a water additive found in tap water. Chlorine destroys bacteria and organic pollutants, making tap water safe for humans. This is good for humans, but chlorine is highly toxic for your fish. It can damage a fish's gills and skin. Symptoms of chlorine exposure are erratic swimming, gasping at surface, and erratic respiration. Chlorine shold never be added to your pond directly, there are many products now available that will help your friend to quickly dechlorinate her water. This obviously has no istant affect and as the water ages the Chlorine will dissipate, however, this still means that your fish has been put through what could be described as torture, although it may recover some of the damage can be permenant and leave the fish more susceptible to disease in the future. If the paddling pool is quite large than one fish may not need filtration as the natural nitrogen cycle may not be overly affected by just one Goldfish, however, in the first few days of the cycle beginning ammonia and nitrate levels could rise dramatically making the fish ill and leaving it susceptible to disease once again. Are there any plants in the pool?

How big was her Mums pond and how many fish did she have, was it already set-up with plants etc, any filtration? If the pond was quite large than Goldfish can happily survive providing the pond is understocked enabling the natural nitrogen cycle to deal with the fishes waste sufficently.