Scrape day today

[Dave 54]

Well todays the day we either have parasites or we havent, we keeping out fingers crossed that we havent but until those scrapes are done we dont know.
brian a club member is coming over to help catch and check them with my as with my Thumbs being effected by arthritis, I have difficulty with weilding it about even though its aluminum its still qiuite a heavy thing to handle even with good hands
I'm a bit slow with the huge pancake net we use to bring them to the surface with and in conciderable pain as well.
We'll select a random three or four koi to look at and should any show in great numbers treat accordingly.
Gently guiding them to the surface to take the scrape.
No pond is ever completely free of parasites bird droppings and new aquatic plant habour them and in the case of birds complete a life cycle .
If we find anthing we then treat the pond accordingly will report back after they are done to say if our koi have any and what the parasite is .
Fingers crossed we'll have nothing to report ....watch this space

rgrds

Dave

 

[Mmathis]

Good luck!

 

[HTH]

Ditto

 

[Dave 54]

Well I'm pleased to report there are no parasites in the pond we had however to remove our Ochiba for treament.
We anethatised him with 2g of MS222 a very good anesthetic left him go well under then placed him on a wet towel for treatment.
His problem was his left pectoral where he had split it during the winter months (these things happen)it had become slightly infected.
After treatment he was placed back into the large pancake net anf supported above the spin driffter for 5 minutes allowing him to come around then as gently as we had led him to the surface we removed the net from under him allowing him back with his buddies in the pond.
At random we selected a our aka kigoi(albino koi),this time with me on the net I brought him just as genly to the surface where Brian was waiting with a credit card to take the scrape the result of you already know.
From this result it was decided we didn't have to scrape anymore koi, so I took the net fom under him and off he went probably with a strange tale to tell to his buddies.
It was then a simple operation to stretch the pond netting over the the door knobs to secure it around the pond.
Twenty minutes later we fed them and came in , cleaned the container that we weighed the MS222 stowed away our first aid kits in and had our own breakfast.
Later today we are going to half a large organic orange and float it in the pond to have threir first real treat of the year.
Brian was very impressed with the size of them from the last time he saw them , he being my main mentor I took this as a great compliment to our methods of koi keeping.
Brian by the way is the former Chair of the BKKS koi health forum who's officers are tasked to help koi keepers around their respective areas.
He along with my friend Max helped us through our first winter outside, the worst on record for many years Five year later but with 27 years of keeping koi both indoors and out. well it speaks for itself......
This is why we are happy to pass on knowledge learned over all those years and for those who take somthing away from this, they themselves will do the same in years to come.

rgrds

Dave

 

[richyd]

Good stuff Dave,

Unfortunately I don't know anyone local who does scrapes or is trained to give anesthetics. Even my local aquatic guy doesn't know.
Would it be the right course of action to teach myself this stuff, or is it too complex. I've been reading some very knowledgeable books, but don't have any hands on experience

 

[Dave 54]

Richyd doing a scrape and anethatizing fish is fairly straight forwards once you have do in for the first time (which is believe me quite scary) lol but after that its apretty straight forwards proceedure .
Today we were using MS222 but you can anethatize with Oil of cloves which is a more readily available product .
I did a thread which shows people the various stages of the anesthetic proceedure and its effect on our fish taking you right down through light sedation up to surigcal proceedure and each stage in between then when you've dne your scrape etc you place your fish into a flow of oxigenated water to recover.
It's as follows with this link :

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/topic/10493-anethatizing-you-koi-goldfish-the-various-stages-of/

I hope you'll be able to do this proceedure at a later date it is a great stress free (not for you first time around )lol for fish to be treated for serious wounds etc where other wise we would see the demise of that fish and should it be necessary to euthanize a fish a darn sight less cruel than hitting it on the Head, boiling water freezing which are some of the cruel and in humane ways that some have of killing a fish .
Study it PM me if necessary and I'll talk you through it .
To do the scrape wet your hands then gently hold the fish from bellow using a credit card draw the card at a slight angle either along the flank or along the top from the head towards the dorsal till you have a slight buildup of mucus which is all you need
add the mucus to the slide then using covering slip veiw your slide moving it about to check all areas of the slide to see if there are parasites.

Rgrds

Dave

 

[Dave 54]

I really hope some of the more experianced fish keepers on this forum would really concider giving anethatizing koi a go but please novice fishkeepers do not try this as it would probably end in tears for you

rgrds

Dave

 

[richyd]

Richyd doing a scrape and anethatizing fish is fairly straight forwards once you have do in for the first time (which is believe me quite scary) lol but after that its apretty straight forwards proceedure .
Today we were using MS222 but you can anethatize with Oil of cloves which is a more readily available product .
I did a thread which shows people the various stages of the anesthetic proceedure and its effect on our fish taking you right down through light sedation up to surigcal proceedure and each stage in between then when you've dne your scrape etc you place your fish into a flow of oxigenated water to recover.
It's as follows with this link :

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/topic/10493-anethatizing-you-koi-goldfish-the-various-stages-of/

I hope you'll be able to do this proceedure at a later date it is a great stress free (not for you first time around )lol for fish to be treated for serious wounds etc where other wise we would see the demise of that fish and should it be necessary to euthanize a fish a darn sight less cruel than hitting it on the Head, boiling water freezing which are some of the cruel and in humane ways that some have of killing a fish .
Study it PM me if necessary and I'll talk you through it .
To do the scrape wet your hands then gently hold the fish from bellow using a credit card draw the card at a slight angle either along the flank or along the top from the head towards the dorsal till you have a slight buildup of mucus which is all you need
add the mucus to the slide then using covering slip veiw your slide moving it about to check all areas of the slide to see if there are parasites.

Rgrds

Dave

That Link was a great read Dave.
Many thanks for your time and efforts. Experienced people like you are giving me some great advice and I really appreciate it as a newbie.
If you're anywhere around Birmingham in the future, PM me and i'll buy you a few beers

 

[Dave 54]

I'd love to Rychd I extend the same to you yours is a wonderfully diverse city, in the Military we used to pop out of the station for a few jars, all that changed back in 1974 sadly.
I was acctually traveling home for early Christmas leave from my ship HMS Ark Royal and would have probably beem maimed or lost my life that night if it wasnt for our train running late, "that thought still gets to this very day"...
However what happend to the Birmingham 6 was wrong and they were scapegoated by the Police in our eyes, it was also the last night we could war our uniforms for a long time the Military wore civilian clothes ashore in the case of the Navy after that.
I was up there last in 2007 I remember being told off for smoking on the platform which amused me no end as nothing could have caught fire , it was the first time we'd come acrross a total smoking ban at a train station lol

rgrds

Dave

 

[Nepen]

Thanks Dave, this made me want to do it too, but with just finished the big projects and everything, this will have to wait for the next budget