Dying Pond Fish - Please help

[Makaylasmom]

I have had a 2500 gallon pond for 6 years without any real problems. About 2 1/2 weeks ago gold fish started dying like crazy. I really don't see any sick fish, but find 4-5 a day dead (some floating and some at the bottom of the pond). So far it seems like only my medium size fish are primarily affected. My 3 large Koi and older gold fish seem fine. The baby fish also seem fine. We have tested the water and also had it tested at the local pond store and all the levels are fine. We treated for 10 days with Sabbactisun Parazoryne. Then 7 days ago we treated with Praziquantel. We also have been pumping in extra air. Oxygen can't be the problem alone (we have a 3' waterfall into the pond), but when we started the extra oxygen, the problem subsided for a while, but now I am losing 3-4 a day again. I've been thinking Gill Fluke, but I am doubting that is the problem since we have been treating for a few weeks and fish are still dying. Every once in a while the dead fish have strange whitish/ grayish kind of shiny spots. I've attached a photo of the fish I pulled out tonight. Also, we have 2 ponds that are connected so they share the same water. Most of the dead fish are coming from my small pond, very few have come from my larger pond. Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Fishylove]

Ooo wow. Is that bruising and bloating on his belly?

 

[Makaylasmom]

Yes, it does look like bruising. This is the first one that I noticed that with. Others have looked bloated, but I thought that was relative to how long they were dead before in found them. We have a lot of rock shelves for protection and shade for the fish and I think sometimes they die under the rocks and take a while to surface.

 

[Fishylove]

Hmm. Are any of your live fish bloated and have the white splotches?

 

[Fishylove]

Try this site
http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Disease_Symptom_Chart
I'm thinking a fungus but idk for sure

 

[Dave 54]

I have had a 2500 gallon pond for 6 years without any real problems. About 2 1/2 weeks ago gold fish started dying like crazy. I really don't see any sick fish, but find 4-5 a day dead (some floating and some at the bottom of the pond). So far it seems like only my medium size fish are primarily affected. My 3 large Koi and older gold fish seem fine. The baby fish also seem fine. We have tested the water and also had it tested at the local pond store and all the levels are fine. We treated for 10 days with Sabbactisun Parazoryne. Then 7 days ago we treated with Praziquantel. We also have been pumping in extra air. Oxygen can't be the problem alone (we have a 3' waterfall into the pond), but when we started the extra oxygen, the problem subsided for a while, but now I am losing 3-4 a day again. I've been thinking Gill Fluke, but I am doubting that is the problem since we have been treating for a few weeks and fish are still dying. Every once in a while the dead fish have strange whitish/ grayish kind of shiny spots. I've attached a photo of the fish I pulled out tonight. Also, we have 2 ponds that are connected so they share the same water. Most of the dead fish are coming from my small pond, very few have come from my larger pond. Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Ooo wow. Is that bruising and bloating on his belly?

I have a feeling what we are seeing here isFlavobacterium Columnaris Fihylove .
Makaylasmom when was the last time your pnd saw any maintenance , the same for your filters please?
Next when was the last time you did a water change on the pond and how many fish do you have in the pond more importantly what is the temperature of your pond at the moment please ?
Next dead fish tell us nothimg could you net out a live one with the same problem and put it in a tank of water taking photographs of it close up especially the infected areas ?

Dave

 

[RobAmy]

Sorry for the loss. Seeing your water is good and plenty of air, do you think maybe some runoff is getting in the pond.

Glad to have you around Dave, you know your fish illness

 

[Dave 54]

Sorry for the loss. Seeing your water is good and plenty of air, do you think maybe some runoff is getting in the pond.

Glad to have you around Dave, you know your fish illness

Yes but I can only go by photo's RobAmy
I wish we are all living in the same place as I'd be round to do a scrape to make cetrtain I'm on the right track but if the photo's of a live fish come back which is of good quality then I can identify .
Sadly may fish keepers enter into our hobby with no idea about Quarentining fish, about parasites, bacteria and Viruses and suffer many losses that in the end put them off our beautiful hobby .
Simply by buying and reading books of fish health gives them an opening into the other side of our hobby "Fish Health" and if you add a microscope learn how to do a scrape and learn how to Anethatize their fish to treat them then they would be onto a winning wicket as we brits say .
Then time an experiance comes into it , the more years you have in the hobby the more you come across things and know how to treat them .
Sadly there are too many fish dying needlessly at the hands of uniformed fish keepers it runs into millions each year going of the fish that are exported to Europe , the US, Canada and the UK personally I blame the fish outlets they should suggest books should be bought at the same time people enter into the hobby but then again its then up to the person to read up on things isnt it ?
Weve posted threads on all the points mentioned on this matter perhaps we should sticky them ?

Dave.

 

[dieselplower]

I am not a pro at diagnosis like Dave54 but it seems safe to say the fish are not dying from lack of oxygen or ammonia poisoning or nitrate poisoning but rather some sort of infection that is causing that swelling and bruising. I know that is not solving the problem but do we agree we can rule out oxygen and water parameters?

 

[Dave 54]

I am not a pro at diagnosis like Dave54 but it seems safe to say the fish are not dying from lack of oxygen or ammonia poisoning or nitrate poisoning but rather some sort of infection that is causing that swelling and bruising. I know that is not solving the problem but do we agree we can rule out oxygen and water parameters?

Desilplower a pro me you must be joking but as to the water perameters yes we can mate

Davr

 

[Makaylasmom]

I went back to my pond store with the latest victim today and unfortunately the white/gray markings mean nothing. He said that was normal in some fish, which would explain why I have seen it in a few fish but not most of the others. I think he called them reflective scales. So, I am back at square one. I'm not sure what was meant by pond maintenance, but we do clean the filters about once a month and also clean out any dead leaves and plants on a regular basis. We have a sizable bog pond that takes very good care of the filtration. I don't usually see them before they die, I suspect that they generally hide under the rocks when they are sick. However, I have seen a few and they generally hover towards the bottom of the pond not moving very much. I have also seen one near the surface sucking bubbles, which lead me to adding additional oxygen to the ponds, even though the oxygen level has been fine all these years. Is there a parasite or ailment that would primarily spread from fish to fish but not in the water. The reason I ask is because we have 2 connected ponds that share the same water, but the fish can't swim from pond to pond. I have had a few victims in one pond, but the vast majority of dead fish have come from the other pond.

 

[Tula]

It looks like a bacterial infection to me, but I'm far from expert. Glad Dave is on this thread.

 

[Dave 54]

Tula I think your right on this one note he reddish area around the vent of this dead fish ( I wrote it off to start with ) the whitish grey spots threw me right off Makaylasmom can you get hold of some meadcated fish food I've a feeling this is a internal bacterial problem .

Dave

 

[Makaylasmom]

I will check at the pond store for medicated fish food, but I don't think I have ever seen that before. Do you think treating the water for bacterial diseases would be sufficient? What type of bacterial disease are you thinking?

 

[bettasngoldfish]

medicated fish food will be better absorbed by your fish rather than treating the water.