Today we mourne the loss of... wait, what?

[Dave 54]

Here is a link to this idea :-

http://www.feral.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CPFS7.pdf

I doubt very much whether it would work as I recall very recently your post on CyHV3 Virus and how its mutated to varying virus's all killing different percntages of koi depndent on how virulent it just happens to be.
You yourself mentioned I believe the fact there are now at least 20 varients of the CyHV3 or Koi Herpes Virus nowadays.
I cant help thinking this will be a backwards step for them as we all know what happened with the Cane toad and its march across Australia killing anything that wishes to try eat it ?
Your thoughts please Meyer good or bad idea does it have its merits
Perhaps they should breed more fresh and salty crocks to eat them all or a least control numbers that would be my thoughts on it. use what you already have


Dave

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Very interesting shdwdrgn, thanks for sharing your story

I sure hope your fish continues to get better and make a full and complete recovery.

I can see in the first picture that this is a good sized fish but until I saw the second photo you posted I had no idea how BIG it really was! I don't have koi myself and I am always a bit in shock when I see just how big they can get (as opposed to the ones I see in the pet stores for sale)

I wonder if you have ever caught your cat trying to fish in the pond? I worry about that with cats in my neighborhood (my own are not allowed outside)

 

[callingcolleen1]

Dave, you are an expert on Koi sicknesses, probably cause your koi are kept in warm water which leads to koi getting sick.
I have not had to deal with sick Koi ever, in all my years of keeping Koi in Ice cold water, so I really know nothing about sick koi cause mine just are never sick!

You on the other hand, have no experience with Koi in Ice Cold water, so you know very little about this except for the odd book that you read. Just cause some one has a book, does not make them an expert.

My sister has a very big book that looks very expensive, on all the benefits of drinking your mid- stream pee, and she really believes that drinking your pee is good, and she still thinks she is having a baby, even though the doctor told her she is not pregnant......

 

[callingcolleen1]

Dave -- to begin to answer your questions in general, my term "hard freeze" is relative of course. Some years I don't even bother with heaters in the pond, I just keep the ice cleared back from the waterfall, and the fish do just fine. But we had something like 3-4 weeks of temperatures where the high barely got above 0F so I had put the small floating heater in the water. Unfortunately it failed, and with everything frozen over I had no way to put in the larger heater (I have to take the media out of one of the filter barrels to set it up).

You are correct that there are no obvious ailments of this fish. Not even a bloated belly. My wife suggested swim bladder failure. Just the fact that for the first several days that I saw him like this, he was always belly-up in the water, looking exactly like a dead fish -- so I had no expectations of survival.

The larger pond is only just over 3 feet deep. The smaller pond is about 18" deep so of course none of the fish venture up there in the Winter. The stream itself is maybe 8" deep? And in the picture above where he is laying on the rocks, he was practically out of the water.

I would not have touched him, as that would have added more stress. He probably ran out of space and oxygen after the big freeze. Was he one of the biggest fish, cause the biggest fish run out of oxygen way before the smaller fish.....

 

[callingcolleen1]

I noted in my comment that this Koi has been under extreme stress. Cyprinus carpio/Koi is by nature a warm water fish. Some may dispute this. but this is how they are classified by the scientific community. That being said, it is also a proven fact that they are adaptable to most any environment as witnessed by their being classified as an invasive/nuisance species in most countries. They adapt to Northern climates by increasing ventricular mass which allows them to survive low water temperatures. In the United States, they have not only adapted, but have proliferated in northern latitudes.
Again, because they are warm water fish, fingerlings and Tosai may not be able to adapt very easily to that first taste of Northern temperatures and some will likely perish, but those that do survive are well on their way to adapting their physiology to Northern latitudes and the accompanying winter temperatures.
This is really the main cause behind fish losses over the winter in Northern climates. Individual fish may have trouble adapting, but the specie, as a whole, is most durable.

Non of my koi have ever died! None have had any trouble adapting and in all the many years of having a pond, never have my koi been sick!! I have lots of smaller koi now in the middle pond, as well the the two oldest koi that are now very big and very old. They were very tiny when I got them way back in 1991, and they survived all this time in my pond that is only 3 feet deep, as have the rest of my koi, some of which are butterfly koi as well.

The only time I lost fish was about 4 years ago, the big blue heron made off with most of the goldfish from the bottom pond, but there numbers are recovering since I strung lines high about the ponds (from the trees to the house) and blocked the landing path of the bad blue heron!

 

[callingcolleen1]

and my pond water is just barely above freezing all winter long, top to bottom, so there goes that theory.....

I also never move the koi if at all possible. The two biggest koi have never been moved in at least 15 years now. I think moving the koi is bad and stresses them out too much, especially the big koi.

My sister brought over her sickly skinny koi two years ago, and the black butterfly koi was in bad shape when she dumped them off on me cause the pond was too much work for her (weak vegan) ha ha ha, (who lost her mind too since she went vegan) ! Somehow that sickly skinny koi that I thought would surely die off, is still alive and very well, and went threw that very long cold winter last year! (was minus 40 below for long periods and that year was a very hard winter!!)

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Non of my koi have ever died! None have had any trouble adapting and in all the many years of having a pond, never have my koi been sick!! I have lots of smaller koi now in the middle pond, as well the the two oldest koi that are now very big and very old. They were very tiny when I got them way back in 1991, and they survived all this time in my pond that is only 3 feet deep, as have the rest of my koi, some of which are butterfly koi as well.

The only time I lost fish was about 4 years ago, the big blue heron made off with most of the goldfish from the bottom pond, but there numbers are recovering since I strung lines high about the ponds (from the trees to the house) and blocked the landing path of the bad blue heron!

Your Koi have done what they do best.....adapted!

 

[Lisak1]

Colleen, I love your sister stories! You have such a great sense of humor about a really wacky situation!

I've always felt it was weird to consider koi to be sensitive, fragile, creatures in our ponds and then worry about their release in the wild because they wreak havoc on the environment as they adapt and thrive. You can't have it both ways. The Japanese may be experts on their type of koi raising techniques, but there's obviously more than one way to skin the carp. So to speak. The results that some of us have in our cold climate ponds speak for themselves.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I got three sisters, all older than me, and as far as I can tell, I am the only NORMAL one! Ha ha ha

 

[j.w]

Not sure I would go that far @callingcolleen1

 

[Dave 54]

Your Koi have done what they do best.....adapted!

Strange though Meyer how our friends in Canada on the Pacific side in a place called St Johns suffered loss after loss of koi in -24c with a windchill of -54c they dont seem to have adapted .
She is an experianced fish keeper who prepped her pond everywinter removing any debris from the pond such as leaves detritus etc so she knows her hobby and has answered every question weve put to her in such a way that you know this isnt down to lack of care on her behalf
However since she moved them indoors at my request during the winter months, shes not lost a single koi since then and they are kept at a steady 11c in her Husbands workshop.
A brief run down for you the pond was covered by one of those put up garages for prrotection against the elements all her pipes were insulated as ws her air pipe the intense cold overwelmed her pond heater and froze the airbubbles as they formed into weird sculptures .
All the ponds water perameters were good yet every year her koi died until as previously stated I suggested they move indoors , net result no further losses.
In fact since then her koi have bred for the first time ever and Elaine has been keeping koi for many years.
So either there is a more intene cold where she lives or the act of covering her pond with the put up garage to protect them from the cold, in acctual fact made things far worse
Yuur thoughts on this please as her koi certainly didnt adapt ?

Note the depth of ice she has around about 2ft we estimate

Weird sculptures caused by freezing air bubbles

Colleen there is an art to moving koi safely if done correctly your koi will not suffer much in the way of stress
Weve been safely showing our koi now for 23 years without incident apart from the odd bleed .
You see if a large koi gets stressed you will notice that the water turns blood red because of bleeding from the gills , if this didnt happen then they would probably die our oldest koi Browntop is a bleeder meaning nowadays that we simply keep her as a pet but for a number of years she graced the show ring and came home with the Unique prize on three seperate occasions
But if you do get a bleeder at any time try not to panic they will be fine as soon as they are put in fresh water , at shows they have a rule to cope with this, if your koi bleeds on the way to the show then the benching staff give you the green light for the fish to go directly into the show Vat without them first benching the koi (this happens later when the koi is settled.
Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Strange though Meyer how our friends in Canada on the Pacific side in a place called St Johns suffered loss after loss of koi in -24c with a windchill of -54c they dont seem to have adapted .
She is an experianced fish keeper who prepped her pond everywinter removing any debris from the pond such as leaves detritus etc so she knows her hobby and has answered every question weve put to her in such a way that you know this isnt down to lack of care on her behalf
However since she moved them indoors at my request during the winter months, shes not lost a single koi since then and they are kept at a steady 11c in her Husbands workshop.
A brief run down for you the pond was covered by one of those put up garages for prrotection against the elements all her pipes were insulated as ws her air pipe the intense cold overwelmed her pond heater and froze the airbubbles as they formed into weird sculptures .
All the ponds water perameters were good yet every year her koi died until as previously stated I suggested they move indoors , net result no further losses.
In fact since then her koi have bred for the first time ever and Elaine has been keeping koi for many years.
So either there is a more intene cold where she lives or the act of covering her pond with the put up garage to protect them from the cold, in acctual fact made things far worse
Yuur thoughts on this please as her koi certainly didnt adapt ?

View attachment 78126 Note the depth of ice she has around about 2ft we estimate

View attachment 78127 Weird sculptures caused by freezing air bubbles

Colleen there is an art to moving koi safely if done correctly your koi will not suffer much in the way of stress
Weve been safely showing our koi now for 23 years without incident apart from the odd bleed .
You see if a large koi gets stressed you will notice that the water turns blood red because of bleeding from the gills , if this didnt happen then they would probably die our oldest koi Browntop is a bleeder meaning nowadays that we simply keep her as a pet but for a number of years she graced the show ring and came home with the Unique prize on three seperate occasions
But if you do get a bleeder at any time try not to panic they will be fine as soon as they are put in fresh water , at shows they have a rule to cope with this, if your koi bleeds on the way to the show then the benching staff give you the green light for the fish to go directly into the show Vat without them first benching the koi (this happens later when the koi is settled.
Dave

My immediate question is where did she obtain her Koi? Were they already cold-adapted?

 

[Lisak1]

Dave - is this an inground or above ground pond?

 

[Dave 54]

Her koi all came from a local dealership near where she lives that is one question however I've never asked her as I assumed they would have been adapted another thing was that it was only her largest koi that died, mostly throught the winter .
My first thoughts was that of SVC but it happened throughout winter not in spring, some large koi did make it through but as the waters warmed .
I had her inspect the gills of these koi and they were a mess necrossed and grey in coloration, however the gills of her smaller koi were a healthy dark red in colour so whatever it was only effected the large koi .
KHV ? that was my next thought however she has a healthy pond full of koi so I doubt that besides KHV is a summer thing not winter.
Lisa the photo's show her pond is bellow ground and yes it was insulated before the acctual Liner was put in n

Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Her koi all came from a local dealership near where she lives that is one question however I've never asked her as I assumed they would have been adapted another thing was that it was only her largest koi that died, mostly throught the winter .
My first thoughts was that of SVC but it happened throughout winter not in spring, some large koi did make it through but as the waters warmed .
I had her inspect the gills of these koi and they were a mess necrossed and grey in coloration, however the gills of her smaller koi were a healthy dark red in colour so whatever it was only effected the large koi .
KHV ? that was my next thought however she has a healthy pond full of koi so I doubt that besides KHV is a summer thing not winter.
Lisa the photo's show her pond is bellow ground and yes it was insulated before the acctual Liner was put in n

Dave

Sounds like Oxygen depletion.