Question about quarantining a koi that I got from a friends pond

Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
NYC
Hello everyone, I googled this question but I couldn't find the answer I was looking for. My moms friend has a koi pond and had one koi that was getting to big for his pond so he asked her if we could take him in because our pond is a lot bigger. My question is about quarantining this new koi. Since this koi is 4 years old and is in great condition how long should I have to keep him in quarantine? I was thinking about a week would be more then fine since I know his pond is in great condition as well. All the answers I was finding on google were saying a month but that was mainly people getting very young fish or ordering them from breeders. I have 18 koi in my pond right now and I just don't want this guy to be a problem. He will also be the largest koi that I have once he goes in the pond but I have plenty of room for him because my pond is a bit over 7,000 gallons.

I have him in one of those large black tubs inside the house for now, he's quite a beautiful fish. I'll post a picture later when I get a chance. I wasn't prepared for this because my mom suprised me with it even though I had asked her not to get it before I saw it but I came home yesterday to the koi in the tub in the kitchen. WIth mothers day being tomorrow I can't tell her to give it back haha
 

sissy

sissy
Joined
Jan 17, 2011
Messages
33,086
Reaction score
15,702
Location
Axton virginia
Showcase(s):
1
Hardiness Zone
7A
Country
United States
You may want to acclimate him to back out doors since that is where he will be .Do you have a filter in there also .I usually look at where he came from if all the fish look healthy and he looks healthy it could be only 48 hours .If he came from a dirty little cared for pond and does not look healthy then a week .
 
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
NYC
I don't have a filter for it but there is an air bubbler and my mom was gonna change the water each day. I wasn't prepred for a fish this big because I don't really have time for it and she just sprung it on me without asking. She said her friends pond is in great shape but I haven't seen it. The fish is beautiful, its a butterfly but I may just have her friend come take it back
 

HTH

Howard
Joined
Jun 10, 2011
Messages
1,571
Reaction score
788
Location
Oklahoma Panhandle USA
Ask yourself what can gained from the short quarantine of this KOI.

As you said he is in great condition and you know he came from a healthy pond.

One the off chance that he is carrying something you will not see it till he is added to your population anyway.

If you suspect he has parasites that is different.
 
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
NYC
HTH said:
Ask yourself what can gained from the short quarantine of this KOI. As you said he is in great condition and you know he came from a healthy pond. One the off chance that he is carrying something you will not see it till he is added to your population anyway. If you suspect he has parasites that is different.
Would you recommend a month quarantine then? Or would you just add him the pond? I don't know if there is any difference in my water compared to the pond he came from so I wasn't sure if he needed to get adjusted to my ponds water first.

Thanks for the replies so far. This is only my 2nd year with koi in the pond so I'm still learning.
 
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
2,583
Reaction score
1,292
Location
Cape Cod, MA
QT QT QT ... Sooner or later, no matter how healthy they LOOK, your luck will run out ... Learned that lesson the hard way. I should say, I didnt learn it the FIRST time, it took the SECOND time, with the loss of half our fish to get it through my head. NO EXCEPTIONS NOW ... a MINIMUM of 6-8 weeks in QT for me. While in QT, hubby hits them with two things ... I cant remember the name of one ... it's liquid and deep blue (need to ask hubby) and the second item was Prazi ...
 
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
NYC
capewind said:
QT QT QT ... Sooner or later, no matter how healthy they LOOK, your luck will run out ... Learned that lesson the hard way. I should say, I didnt learn it the FIRST time, it took the SECOND time, with the loss of half our fish to get it through my head. NO EXCEPTIONS NOW ... a MINIMUM of 6-8 weeks in QT for me. While in QT, hubby hits them with two things ... I cant remember the name of one ... it's liquid and deep blue (need to ask hubby) and the second item was Prazi ...
I always quarantine when I buy new fish and I do it for a month. I've never taken another fish from a healthy pond before so that's why I decided to ask on here.
 
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
2,583
Reaction score
1,292
Location
Cape Cod, MA
Problem is they can look perfectly healthy, and the stress of moving them can make the issues become visible, When I was researching how long to QT for, I was reading 4-6 weeks, so I had it in my mind to use that as a MINIMUM.

I am STILL really hot under the collar at myself, and it was almost 3 years ago ... Hubby told me NOT to do it, and my arguement was they LOOKED great and did it anyways ... I lost some of my oldest fish. These were not small fish but 20-24" ...
 

Attachments

  • 1.jpg
    1.jpg
    50.9 KB · Views: 326
  • 2.jpg
    2.jpg
    60.8 KB · Views: 323
  • 3.jpg
    3.jpg
    57.5 KB · Views: 277

HTH

Howard
Joined
Jun 10, 2011
Messages
1,571
Reaction score
788
Location
Oklahoma Panhandle USA
The dark blue stuff may be methyl blue.



I was thinking about a week would be more then fine since I know his pond is in great condition as well

The above is why I said.



Ask yourself what can gained from the short quarantine of this KOI.
As you said he is in great condition and you know he came from a healthy pond.
One the off chance that he is carrying something you will not see it till he is added to your population anyway.
If you suspect he has parasites that is different.
...
I would like to here what others have to say.


Adding fish makes me crazy. Obviously the right thing to do is a long quarantine. I was wondering if a week in a tub is worse then just adding him to the pond.





..
 

fishin4cars

True friends just call me Larkin
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
5,195
Reaction score
1,599
Location
Hammond LA USA
Hardiness Zone
8a
I'm with CW on this one, IMO you have two choices, Feeling lucky and willing to take a risk, why QT in the first place? If you want to play it safe, QT for a minimum of three to four weeks. I've had the same thing happen CW did. I recommended that we QT two fish and my boss said they were coming from an established pond and had been there for years. They looked perfectly healthy and no signs of any problems so he talked me into just adding them to our previous stock. . Exactly one week later I started noticing fish scratching and coming up for air. Took another three days to get someone to scape and scope the koi and found out we had a whole tank of fish infected with tape worms and gill flukes. Lost aprox. 1/3 of the tank within the next two weeks, and ended up losing another 12-15 fish over the next month from secondary problems before we were able to get everything under control. We did manage to keep the two new guys alive, but lost several 2-3 year old koi we had and some were far nicer than what we took in. Very expensive lesson for my boss, Good thing for me is it helped me learn how to use a microscope and made me go out and buy one, also it made me think harder about building a decent QT tank just for new guys. I WILL NOT add a fish now without a month QT or longer to my pond ever again.
 
Joined
Jul 2, 2012
Messages
2,583
Reaction score
1,292
Location
Cape Cod, MA
Larkin, do you remember my 24" girl Tank that I lost last year with the spins (still dont know what went wrong there, she was the only fish affected),,, She was one of the survivors of that disaster. THAT was the mess that caused her blindness. My memory is fuzzy now, but that new fish broke with popeye maybe a week or so after we got it ... never had popeye before. Went back to that same store another week or so later, and guess what the whole sale pond was full of??? Popeye and dropsy.
 
Joined
May 11, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
2
Location
NYC
fishin4cars said:
I'm with CW on this one, IMO you have two choices, Feeling lucky and willing to take a risk, why QT in the first place? If you want to play it safe, QT for a minimum of three to four weeks. I've had the same thing happen CW did. I recommended that we QT two fish and my boss said they were coming from an established pond and had been there for years. They looked perfectly healthy and no signs of any problems so he talked me into just adding them to our previous stock. . Exactly one week later I started noticing fish scratching and coming up for air. Took another three days to get someone to scape and scope the koi and found out we had a whole tank of fish infected with tape worms and gill flukes. Lost aprox. 1/3 of the tank within the next two weeks, and ended up losing another 12-15 fish over the next month from secondary problems before we were able to get everything under control. We did manage to keep the two new guys alive, but lost several 2-3 year old koi we had and some were far nicer than what we took in. Very expensive lesson for my boss, Good thing for me is it helped me learn how to use a microscope and made me go out and buy one, also it made me think harder about building a decent QT tank just for new guys. I WILL NOT add a fish now without a month QT or longer to my pond ever again.
Thank you very much for sharing, I was hoping to hear from someone who had tried it before. Sorry to hear about all the lost fish, that's always the toughest part wih this stuff cause i don't want to take the risk. Ill either end up putting him in QT or give him back to his owner. Thank you to everyone else for your responses as well.

Ill post a picture of him when I get a chance and I need to get some pics up of my pond in the introduction thread. I've been lurking here since I started building my pond but this is the first issue I had that made me decide to finally sign up.
 

fishin4cars

True friends just call me Larkin
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
5,195
Reaction score
1,599
Location
Hammond LA USA
Hardiness Zone
8a
capewind said:
Larkin, do you remember my 24" girl Tank that I lost last year with the spins (still dont know what went wrong there, she was the only fish affected),,, She was one of the survivors of that disaster. THAT was the mess that caused her blindness. My memory is fuzzy now, but that new fish broke with popeye maybe a week or so after we got it ... never had popeye before. Went back to that same store another week or so later, and guess what the whole sale pond was full of??? Popeye and dropsy.
I remember well, It's the last koi in the pics If I remember correctly. We went through the dropsy and pop eye during the secondary infections. Our ordeal started back in January and I'm still trying to get the rest cleared up. Thank goodness it's been kept isolated to the one tank and not the other three tanks we sell from. I now have tubs, nets, buckets, hoses and pumps dedicated to that one pond so no cross contamination. I'm just glad and thankful it didn't get in our tank with our bigger and higher quality koi.
BTW, I've also started another practice that I hadn't thought a whole lot about that it may be a good idea until after all this came up. From now on I'm keeping one, just a poor pond grade koi in the QT at all times. That way if there is something that shows up it can show up on one I won't mind nearly as bad losing, I do wonder sometimes if some koi may become immune to some bacteria or viruses and may not show until exposed to a fish that hasn't been previously exposed. If that makes sense. I've actually been doing this for several years with no reasoning behind it. But after all this, I thought well maybe it hasn't been a bad idea, after all.
The next two koi I will be getting are coming directly from japan, so you can guess I'm gearing up for their arrival. taking every precaution possible with these girls. One is already in the states, the other is suppose to shipping in two-three weeks, then three to four more weeks of QT before being shipped to me. Once here a month or longer before being introduced to my herd. In the process, it will be KHV checked, scraped and scoped a minimum of two times, shipped 1/2 way around the world. this is all probably some of the most extreme of precautions, but they are pretty much a must. I wouldn't dare take a chance on a fish I had no clue anything about for sure.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

Plant question 8
Pond Pump Question 2
Bio Balls Question 3
Gold fish question 11
Question about API Pond Breather 5
Question about winter temps 4
milfoil pond plant...question. 2
New pond questions. 126

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
30,780
Messages
508,557
Members
13,042
Latest member
lucaryan

Latest Threads

Top