2nd koi died today

[Bsavage]

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been trying to rid my pond of parasites with no luck, when I first found out my fish were looking weird I rushed to the koi’s store and grabbed api pimafix and melafix with no luck did some reading than I bought pro form c online did the water changes and I dosed the whole pond for 3 days with no signs of them getting better I’m not sure if I am suppose to keep treating with pro form c till they look better so I stopped and salted the water to .5% I ordered Kusuri fluke m that still being shipped any ideas on what to do next should I redose them in pro form c leave them in salt or shot gun them with kusuri and pro c

 

[Bsavage]

For this koi I took it out of the water 2 days ago and cleaned the wound and put iodine on it and sealed it up with denture powder aka fixodent

 

[j.w]

@Bsavage
Sorry for you fish and hope you can get rid of those nasty parasites. I have no clue on what to do for them.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome!

How do you know you had parasites, and what were they?

In most cases, fish illnesses begin with water quality issues, so that’s where we like to start helping you look — PLEASE GIVE US SOME INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR POND: (this will give us more to go to help you)

1. How big is it?
2. how long has it been up and running?
3. how many koi do you have and how big are they?
4. what kind of filtration do you have?
5. do you test your water?
6. have there been any recent changes to your pond, such as adding new fish?

Also, have you checked into KOIPHEN.COM? Not that we can’t try to help you here, but KOIPHEN has a staff specially trained in dealing with koi illnesses.

 

[Bsavage]

1. How big is it? ABOUT 170-200 gallons 50 gallon drum barrel and 120gl pond
2. how long has it been up and running? since this batch of kois its been about a year and a half also recently added fish that died a week later and that same thing on its tail as the picture water changes were not done often just water top ups
3. how many koi do you have and how big are they? i had 7 now 5 and 3 gold fish 1 gold fish with a black spot on its body biggest fish is 12 inches smallest fish is 4 inches
4. what kind of filtration do you have? i have 1 pump that's in the pond that gets filtered by a 5 gallon bucket filled with lava rocks to the top and a filter media that covers the top in the 50 gallon drum no uv light prior to spotting the illness now i do have one and i just added biohome ultimate media and 1 air pump with 2 airstones that was just added after they got sick
5. do you test your water? not often so no but now yes a lot, the last reading i took before i did any water changes was 160ppm nitrates according to the test kit
6. have there been any recent changes to your pond, such as adding new fish? my sisters go us 2 more kois about 6 inches we acclimated them and released them in to the water with the bag water a week later that fish had a opened wound and died the other one has fin rot on the tail fin, after that my dad changed the liner in the pond because of leaks and that when i noticed the fishes weren't looking right
7. water temps this month have been hanging in the 80s

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Most likely your problem is water quality. 120 gallon pond is only big enough for a few gold fish, not big enough for koi. One koi to live well, needs 1000 gallons of water, and great filtration.

 

[Mmathis]

@Bsavage Oh my goodness! I honestly don’t know what to say. I am very sorry about your fish.

Just curious, but how old are you?

 

[Bsavage]

@Bsavage Oh my goodness! I honestly don’t know what to say. I am very sorry about your fish.

Just curious, but how old are you?

23

 

[Tula]

This fish has a serious bacterial infection, hence the open ulcer. Ulcers are often secondary infections due to parasites.

I'm not sure trying several "shot gun" approaches will help, especially if you don't know what you're treating for. Do you have a microscope and if so, did you scrape, scope and diagnose the parasite? Also there are some treatments where adding salt isn't advised at the same time so please don't rush, do some research.

If your fish survive, which I'm sorry to say is't likely in a 150-200 gallon pond, I would find them homes in a larger pond. You are young enough to enjoy many years of ponding, but don't rush, take the time to learn how to care for them.

 

[Mmathis]

@Bsavage At the risk of sounding rude, I would recommend that you either dig a much larger pond, or give your koi away and stick with goldfish. Even in a pond, the bare minimum water volume should be 1000 gallons — for the first koi. Then approximately 250-300 gallons for each additional koi. Koi are big waste producers. They grow fast, need lots of space, and need excellent water conditions. Experienced koi keepers can get away with less space, but they are 1) experienced, and 2) they have filtration out the wazoo.

Your fish are getting sick and dying because of the conditions you are keeping them in. Not only that, but you have added new fish which further stresses their environment. There is really nothing you can do now, except find a new home for them! No amount of medications will help as long as they stay where they are. And the only water test you gave us was a very high reading for nitrates. What are your results for ammonia, nitrites, pH, KH, and GH? We need the number of the reading, not “OK” or “normal.”

As someone already asked, have you looked at scrapings under a microscope to determine what parasites you are trying to treat? Most of us don’t begin a treatment on our fish unless we know what is causing the problem. This koi has a nasty ulcer. Yes, it could have started with a parasite, but once it gets to this point, it is a bacterial infection. But again, it won’t do any good to treat the fish as long as you have them in such a small body of water!

If you want another opinion, I think I already mentioned KOIPHEN.COM.

 

[CometKeith]

23

Hi and welcome to GPF. First I’m so sorry about your fish. It’s always sad to lose any and it sounded like you did the best you could. All of us when first starting unfortunately lost fish to disease and we learned from that. That is why several people are trying to give you good advice. Based on what I am reading about your bio-load your pond should be a minimum of 1500-2000 gallons for the type and size fish you currently have so you can maintain good water quality. What you are trying to do is next to impossible even for a very experienced ponder. I would recommend to stick to 6 or less goldfish and absolutely no Koi. Even 6 goldfish may be pushing it. Also because you changed the liner you made things 10 times harder. You lost all the good algae and bacteria that coats a liner. My recommendation is to drastically reduce the number of fish and see how that works out. Over time if you want Koi or more goldfish then you can think about building a larger pond. If you want to look at my thread under garden pond photography labeled my goldfish pond you can see how I started with just goldfish over 10 years ago and worked my way up to a larger pond and more fish. It took a lot of knowledge to get good at keeping just goldfish and when I jumped to Koi it got a lot harder even though I had a lot of experience. Good luck!