Parasites in outdoor pond

[CrazyColPeacocks]

Hi, I had a customer come into work yesterday with a problem in her pond. She has been experiencing a large fish die off. Her fish start to show symptoms of being sick, and are usually dead the next day. This started with her smaller fish. She also mentioned that it has only been happening with her koi and shubunkin, and hasn't affected her comets. She had mentioned that she noticed a fish start to show symptoms that morning, and within an hour of her leaving the store she called saying that the fish had died. I asked her to bring the fish to me, and when she did, the fish looked normal except for what looked like two entry points on the middle of the fish towards the dorsal fin. I went to the customer's house this morning to look at the pond, and everything seemed to be normal except for the fact that most of the fish poop was white and her plants have stopped growing and began to turn yellow. The fish all looked normal on the outside. I sent her home last night with a jug of pond salt, and had her begin feeding frozen peas and garlic soaked food. I got back to the store just now and tested the water, nitrates, ammonia, and nitrites were low. I just ordered enough prazipro to treat her pond once, and am going to continue with the feeding routine. Does anyone on here have any other idea of what it may be and how to stop it ASAP? It definitely seems to be an internal parasite. Should the prazipro and feeding routine take care of it? She's got some expensive fish and we're hoping to eradicate the problem very quickly. Thanks for any replies

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome, Crazy! I'm sure someone on here can answer your questions.

Could you go to our "introductions" forum and tell us a little about yourself and your ponding experiences?

 

[Tula]

If there are visible signs of entry, I'd suspect anchor worms. The only sure way to diagnose parasites is to scrape and scope the fish. I personally would not add anything ( including salt) to the pond, until you know exactly what you're dealing with, as sometimes one treatment , interferes with another treatment. I also have never heard of frozen peas helping with internal parasites....I have heard of them helping fish with swim bladder issues.

@Dave 54, @C-Note and @Meyer Jordan , will be able to provide you with good information.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

First I would suggest water test to make sure there isn't a water quality issue. Please post with actual numbers as you state the ammonia and nitrite are low but you should be reading zero. For fish with white stringy poop I would feed an anti-parasite food that contains metrodonidazole.

 

[Dave 54]

Hi, I had a customer come into work yesterday with a problem in her pond. She has been experiencing a large fish die off. Her fish start to show symptoms of being sick, and are usually dead the next day. This started with her smaller fish. She also mentioned that it has only been happening with her koi and shubunkin, and hasn't affected her comets. She had mentioned that she noticed a fish start to show symptoms that morning, and within an hour of her leaving the store she called saying that the fish had died. I asked her to bring the fish to me, and when she did, the fish looked normal except for what looked like two entry points on the middle of the fish towards the dorsal fin. I went to the customer's house this morning to look at the pond, and everything seemed to be normal except for the fact that most of the fish poop was white and her plants have stopped growing and began to turn yellow. The fish all looked normal on the outside. I sent her home last night with a jug of pond salt, and had her begin feeding frozen peas and garlic soaked food. I got back to the store just now and tested the water, nitrates, ammonia, and nitrites were low. I just ordered enough prazipro to treat her pond once, and am going to continue with the feeding routine. Does anyone on here have any other idea of what it may be and how to stop it ASAP? It definitely seems to be an internal parasite. Should the prazipro and feeding routine take care of it? She's got some expensive fish and we're hoping to eradicate the problem very quickly. Thanks for any replies

Sean you shouldnt order a treatment until you know what the problem is by treating you could make matters much worse.
First off I suggest you take a scrape of one or two of your friends koi/shubunkins and make certain just which parasite your up against , its not as simple as just buying a treatment and treating peoples fish like that....
Could you take some close up photo's of your friends fish and tell us any syptoms you can see.?
Could you ask your friend when she last cleaned both her pond and filters and what her Ammonia Nitrite, Nitrate and Ph readings are at present , we also need to know what test kit she has .?
Has she added any new koi/shubunkins to the pond and if so did she QT them and for how long [I recomend 8 weeks tops].
I agree with @bettasngoldfish your friends fish are in need of a medicated food , could you also ask your friend how old is the food shes feeding her fish ?
If its over a year old bin it as it will have lost all its vitamins by that time and is as good as useless .
Sorry for all the questions but the more answered now the better idea we have as to whats wrong with these fish.

Dave