jumping fish!!!

Well, the new pond has been going good so far! I'm fighting ammonia and nitrite levels, though. I had added some aged bio balls to the filter to help seed it, but I can tell the pond has not begun to cycle at all. Harry is doing small water changes and adding Amquil to help bind the ammonia and salt to help with the nitrite up take which can cause brown blood disease. The water has a green cast, but I'm ok with that for now. I think the UV has been helping with that but have recently shut it off too in an effort to get the bacteria established. Started adding a little Microlift PL hoping that will help get the bacteria going, also. We've been keeping the pond netted, just because I'm nervous about the fish jumping out. We took it off Sunday while we were home all day and it's so much nicer viewing the fish, but put it back on Sunday night.

We've been watching one particular doitsu kohaku we recently purchased at Koi Acres. His mucus seemed to be taking on a milky cast. Possible ammonia burn??? Stress??? Salt I was adding bothering it???So, Harry was concerned and didn't want to just "watch" it any longer. We decided to net it out and put it in a QT tank for awhile to see if it would improve. So about 5:00 pm we put it in a tank in the basement, added a little anti bacterial medicine to the water, covered the whole tank with a double layer tarp to keep him in and left him to rest and adjust. Went to check on him around 8:00 that evening and you guessed it, he had jumped out of the tank and laid dead on the basement floor!!! d**m d**m dang!!!! There was no movement at all, but I still worked with it to try to revive it for at least an hour. Moving it through the water in figure 8's and holding it directly in the bubbler with it's gill plates propped open. No luck. So another favorite fish gone. Just like that. Try to do something proactive and it ends in tragedy. Just the opposite of what we were trying to do. Lesson learned...cover on tank must be weighted down all around!!!He jumped up hard enough to lift the tarp and slip under it and over the top, which was a good 12 inches above the top of the water! This is not the first time we've lost fish in QT tanks from jumping so you would think we'd know better, but I actually thought it would be enough. In other cases it was because of no cover or a particular hole at one end or something. Sad, just very sad!! So the 15 inch fish is now flower food in the garden. Just so frustrating. Harry just shook his head at me. I wanted to cry. So now we are both worried about the netted pond outside. Do we need to always keep it on? It should be no different than a pond at ground level, right? The water level on the new pond is only 4 inches from the top. An easy jump for any of them. Got my favorites in there. It would be just devastating to loose one of those.. oh, what to do.....