Mud Slide and Safety of my Koi in pond

[albionspowells]

Yesterday we had a huge, flash flood enducing storm and a fair portion of mud/sand mix slid from the banks of my 500 gallon (estimate) pond into the water. Now, its brown (obviously). The pump is still working and I pulled it out this morning to clean out the filter pads, but left all the bio ball and gunk in the bottom. Here is my question: until the sediment has a chance to settle, is this brown water going to harm my fish? Can they breathe? They're not visible now, obviously. Thank you.

[silasharris]

That's a tough one. Whether or not it will be a problem depends on a lot of stuff. Really, you just need to keep a good eye on the pond and be prepared to do something if the fish look stressed out. I'd recommend that you do partial water changes until the water clears. Do small ones (25% or less) so that you don't change the water temp by more than 5 degrees in a day.