Blind koi?

[Dave 54]

Your going to have to ask youself this mrschem whilst all this is going on do I support the fish with any form of treatmect personally they have been through one hell of alott, would it be worth holding off a little while till you get your pond sorted out ?
Personally I think you should just keep an eye on them for the time being just to see .

Dave

 

[mrsclem]

Dave- am I right in that you are suggesting I not use the Mela-fix? I know that any treatment can stress fish that already have problems. What about increasing salt to .15%? I did get a scraping on the one fish that started this. I did not see any sign of parasites but I have a cheap microscope. She has very little slime coat.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Dave- am I right in that you are suggesting I not use the Mela-fix? I know that any treatment can stress fish that already have problems. What about increasing salt to .15%? I did get a scraping on the one fish that started this. I did not see any sign of parasites but I have a cheap microscope. She has very little slime coat.

The fish are obviously stressed because of the rapid rise in pH levels. Melafix is an excellent treatment for bacterial infections as it seems to induce minimum additional stress to the fish.It is a mild treatment, however, and will not have much effect on advanced infections. There is no harm in giving it a try. Increasing the salt level beyond the present 0.10% will have no effect on any bacterial infection.
Is the pH still above 9.0? If so this is the first thing that needs to be addressed, because high pH can affect a fish's gills, eyes and skin and disrupt other metabolic processes. High pH can also render other substances such as Ammonia HIGHLY toxic at very low levels.
To lower the pH in our pond add 1/4 cup of plain white vinegar for every 500 gallons of water in your pond, wait 24 hours and retest. Re-apply as necessary at this rate and frequency.until pH levels are returned to what is NORMAL FOR YOUR POND.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I was always told to stay away from melafix as it has tea tree oil in it and is hard on the gills.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

I was always told to stay away from melafix as it has tea tree oil in it and is hard on the gills.

Never observed any problems. Actually appears to be less stressful to fish than most treatments.
Of course any treatment can cause problems if the correct dosage is not used.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

Of course any treatment can cause problems if the correct dosage is not used.

Very true

 

[mrsclem]

I have used it before and not had any problems. With some other meds, you can end up killing off all ill fish.
I just pulled another water sample. Ph is down to 8-8.5 so I am filling the pond up the rest of the way. I ended up losing the fish that started all of this. All the others are swimming around towards the bottom. Going to put up shade cloth once I know the snow is done to cut back on algae growth.

 

[haver79]

Sorry to hear the bad new mrsclem. Hope you can save the rest of the fish.
I have not got a good look at my fish for a long time so hoping they are all there. We will finally be having a warm week so I may be finding out soon if they all survived the winter.

 

[mrsclem]

Thanks and hoping your fish are well. The other pond I have seems to be fine. It's finally thawed and I can see movement down at the bottom so it seems to be only the one pond affected.

 

[Dave 54]

I was always told to stay away from melafix as it has tea tree oil in it and is hard on the gills.

Agreed , I also found t a long drawn out affair as a treatment , dont get me wrong I'm all for alternte treatments but from the treatment we got it seemed to over foam smell strongly of tea trea oil and it did very little in the way of treating the fish..
As a treatment I dont really rate it .

Dave

 

[Tula]

Slightly off topic, but tea tree oil is toxic to dogs, and my dogs drink from my pond.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Slightly off topic, but tea tree oil is toxic to dogs, and my dogs drink from my pond.

Melafix is NOT Tea Tree oil, but rather Cajeput oil.
This statement from MARS, the manufacturer:
"Cajeput oil is produced by steam distillation of fresh leaves and twigs of the cajeput tree (Melaleuca leucadendra) and the paperbark tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia). Don't confuse cajeput oil with tea tree oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) or niauli oil (Melaleuca viridiflora)."
Melafix is not known to be toxic to any animals.

From my own personal observations, I have seen it consistently reduce stress in fish in less than 24 hours. Red streaked fins and skin become completely normal within this time period.

 

[mrsclem]

Depending on which site you look at, some have it listed as a version of tea tree oil but the actual company says different. The bad weather has delayed my delivery so it won't be here till Tuesday. Hoping I won't need it.
I turned on the cameras this morning and all I see is fish floating! I an to the deck and they aren't floating but swimming! 7 so far, will check once it gets light out but it looks like the water has cleared. The second pond is starting to cloud up now that it's thawed so I may treat it as a preventative measure.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

glad to hear you have fish swimming about, thats a good sign


This is what I found about the cajeput oil on webMD (for people but still interesting to note)

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-457-cajeput oil.aspx?activeingredientid=457&activeingredientname=cajeput oil

check the overview tab as well as the side effects tab

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Depending on which site you look at, some have it listed as a version of tea tree oil but the actual company says different. The bad weather has delayed my delivery so it won't be here till Tuesday. Hoping I won't need it.
I turned on the cameras this morning and all I see is fish floating! I an to the deck and they aren't floating but swimming! 7 so far, will check once it gets light out but it looks like the water has cleared. The second pond is starting to cloud up now that it's thawed so I may treat it as a preventative measure.

For any pond treatment, I always rely on the MSDS spec sheet. This is required by the government and MUST be accurate,