unclenedsfishfactory.com

Even though I've had my Koi pond for over three years now I still feel kind of new to it since I really inherited it from the previous owners and did as much research as I could about maintaining the pond and such. But I have little experience with disease.

The pond I have is about 250 gals, one of those preformed black plastic jobs, buried in the ground. I have a pondmaster filter that drives a fountain and a waterfall. I have been using pond pads to keep the water clear, and regularly checking the pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite. The pond has pretty good tree cover and does not get an excessive amount of sunlight. There are four goldfish and one large Koi ( about a foot and a 1/2 ) in the pond. They are all original, I have not added any fish to the pond. I do not have any vegitation in the pond either.

I did notice a small spike in nitrate and ammonia levels recently, nothing enormous; I thought I might be overfeeding with the huge temperature swings we had lately.

While doing a water change today I noticed that the Koi had a scale hanging off of it ( about the size of a 50 cent piece ). It was behind the petoral fin closer to the tail and near the bottom of the fish, it just seemed to flap around as the fish moved.

The Koi has a healthy appetite and does not show any other signs of strange behavior, although it has been knocking over the fountain a few times lately ( it has to be the koi it is easly 3 times the size of the other fish ).

Other than checking the water quality and salting the pond, is there anything else I should be doing and looking for??

Thanks for the help.. Nice to see this forum is here, I frequently buy from Ned's and stop in for advice; but can't always get down there during the week.. Thanks for putting up the forum..

~Scott

1 scale missing is not that big a deal

I personally have many scales missing but they all grow back

but seriously 'tho

sometimes on older ponds you can grow large parasites such as
fish lice or anchor worms

or small parasites like ick

any of these parasites can cause fish to scratch themselves on rocks sometimes real hard causing scale or skin damage

it's not a bad idea to treat with lifebearer or other large paracides
or Quickcure or other ick parasides once or twice a year.
the salt will help too.

it's probably nothing 'tho.

any medicine or treatment you use should be at the correct dosage,
there are 7.45 gallons per cubic foot .. so be sure to get the dosage correct within 10%

2 drops per gallon of Lifebearer (pink stuff)
will kill fish lice & anchors worms
2 treatments at MOST

1 drop per gallon of quickCure (malachite green/formaldihyde)
will kill ick ... needs to be repeated several times
...do NOT use UV light or carbon filter while using dye medicines

2.2 teaspoons of salt per gallon
(aprox 5 pounds per 150 gallons)
will kill ick in warm water... treat ONE TIME ONLY with salt

other causes of scale damage are simply jumping around because they're happy... or being pecked at by a predator

other signs of parasites are clamped fins, failure to eat enthusiastically, and heavy breathing

in the "library" section of the main website I think I had put up a
short parasite article... if I haven't I will shortly

also check out koivet.com for longer answers

regards

Ned cichfish@aol.com 800 683 5165

Thanks for the quick response, and the great info. I have some medication on hand, but I guess I'll just watch his behavior for a while and make sure the water stays balanced. As you say one scale might be nothing. I had some MelaFix I bought based on this KoiVet review :

http://www.koivet.com/html/articles/art ... rm=MelaFix

Seems pretty safe at normal dosage and can do nothing but help speed recovery ( if in fact it is just a scratch of some kind, and nothing more ).

Thanks again,
~Scott

melafix might be a good preventative
but I am sceptical of its being a cure


Ned cichfish@aol.com 800 683 5165

Yea.. I was more interested in using it to prevent infection if it is in fact just a scrape, not as much to treat anything.

I found the scale at the bottom of the pond today and put it aside, I would like to use it to find out the approx age of the Koi since the fish came with the house and I don't know how long the pond has been there. I heard you could count the rings on the scale to find out, might be fun to do. Was amazed to find the oldest Koi was 226.

Still seems healthy, eating well and seems happy.

Thanks again for the info.
~Scott