Ich : Treatment done now what????

[Boni]

Hi All

Please help! I am a newbie at the whole pond thing. I built my own pond, its about 500 / 600 litres with lots of vegetation and a home made bio filter and waterfall. Recently introduced new baby koi into the existing system (which had small koi and some guppies) and the new fish, unfortunately, brought along some ich. One has since died. I have just treated the pond with 30ml of Tetra Pond MediFin and some salt. My questions are
a) do I need to do a complete water change?
b) do I need to sterilise the bio filter (in essence start again)
c) how often do I need to dose the pond and for how long. First dose was done yesterday and I'm not sure if I need to do it again and if so how many times and at what intervals.

The pond itself has perfect water quality with all levels tested (strip test) in the ok range. The water is getting to the colder side (in South Africa the winters usually don't cause water to freeze over and we are now entering autumn). Pond is tear drop shaped with a shallow end with gravel (for the smaller animals to drink in without drowning) going deeper, deepest side though is only about 40cm, and has been running now for 4 months with no issues. Fish are fed once a day and share the pond with some tadpoles.

 

[sissy]

fish with ich should be treated in another tank .All new fish should never be put in an existing pond with fish .You only need to treat the fish with ich

 

[Boni]

Thanks sissy but a) we did not know that the new fish, which were bought from a pond supplier for a pond, had inch and b) all the fish are now infected so I need to look at the entire pond not an isolated fish

 

[sissy]

You need to follow the directions carefully for the treatment you are using .How bad is the ich on each one of them .Minor or real bad

 

[Boni]

It doesn't appear to be real bad. When I dosed the pond yesterday two of the fish were rubbing on the rocks, but today they seem to be better. I followed the treatment to the letter....but....it just says repeat if necessary. All the posts I've read so far explain the life cycle of ich and highlight that you should do multiple doses but not how far apart or for how long

 

[sissy]

I had fish from a failed pond and I treated and in between did water changes also .I also had an air stone in the water .So far the people tell me the fish are doing great and no issues .I treated them for 6 weeks and used 2 stock tanks and the worst ones stayed to be treated more and the others were treated less .I treated until I saw no ich and then did a water change again and added pond salt ,just to make sure .There color also improved so that was a good sign also

 

[Boni]

Ok so I need to get all the fish out the pond and treat them separately, drain the pond and start again. Once all the fish are healthy I can reintroduce them to the pond.....

 

[Faebinder]

Ok so I need to get all the fish out the pond and treat them separately, drain the pond and start again. Once all the fish are healthy I can reintroduce them to the pond.....

I too currently have an ich issue, but the situation is almost done...
First off, you will get ich back regardless of treatment in my opinion cause your pond is too small for koi. You only have 158 gallons, and each 4 koi need 1000 gallons. You should stick to goldfish. My pond is 450 gallons and I dont add koi in it.

The problem is the temperature of the pond. If your pond water is not 80-85 F then the treatment of the pond will take forever if you dont take out the fish. Ich takes 3-4 days to replicate supposedly when the temperature is between 80-85 and many strains die at temperature above 80-85. They do so when they are in the water not attached to the fish. They come off the fish after they replicate and reattach to another fish.

To treat ich, this would be ideal:
- take all the fish out and put them in aquariums. Do a 100% water change to the pond and add KMnO4 to the pond one time and all is done. The pond is clean.
- In the aquariums, use a heater to turn the temperature to 82 or 80. Add salt (1 teaspoon per 5 gallons) and add KMnO4. 90% Water change every 2-3 days and always readd salt and KMnO4. After 5 days, the fish should be clean of ich. It's supposedly rare to find an ich strain that survives both salt and KMnO4.

You can get KMnO4 on amazon, or you can buy API Super Ich Cure instead of KMnO4.

Good Luch.

 

[KC Crook]

Im curious, say the poster loses all of his fish or quarantined them, how do you make sure your pond is safe from future infection?

 

[Faebinder]

Im curious, say the poster loses all of his fish or quarantined them, how do you make sure your pond is safe from future infection?

The Protozoa can't live without fish for more than 2 days. It needs to attach. Leave the pond fishless, drain it and apply a treatment for ich like salt or if you care about your plants then use kmno4 or formaldyhyde treatments like microbe-lift ich-out.

 

[Boni]

Thank you all for the help - will do as directed. Am quite upset though as I was told that the koi will not grow bigger than the pond will allow. From the above this now seems to be a lie

 

[Faebinder]

Thank you all for the help - will do as directed. Am quite upset though as I was told that the koi will not grow bigger than the pond will allow. From the above this now seems to be a lie

Partially, I never seen it in action and am certainly not the most knowledgable on koi so someone will need to correct me if I'm wrong, they will stop growing on the outside due to hormone concentration and continue to grow from the inside making them deformed and eventually sick.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Partially, I never seen it in action and am certainly not the most knowledgable on koi so someone will need to correct me if I'm wrong, they will stop growing on the outside due to hormone concentration and continue to grow from the inside making them deformed and eventually sick.

Can't say that I have ever heard this before. As long as water quality is maintained, only three (3) things basically control growth in fish: Amount of food per day, ambient climate and genetic history.