several koi died, need suggestions

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hello all,
I'm new to these forums and joined to see if anyone has experienced what we experienced with our koi and to see if anyone knows what may have caused it. A few weeks ago we had 8 koi and 3 shebunkin. we now have 1 koi and 1 shebunkin. I'll describe what happened with the fish before I explain what we know about our pond.
The first day we had one koi floating at the top dead, and one at the bottom dead. no marks or anything on their bodies and nothing wrong with scales or gills as far as we could tell. we then noticed that several of the fish were moving slowly and flashing, but again nothing on their bodies. we ran and got our water tested at our local shop and left with some melafix to see if it would help. over the course of two days several of the fish would just hang out at the top of the water not moving unless we bothered them, then they would swim around madly and after they calmed down went right back to floating on their sides. we added salt and melafix like we were told to but unfortunately all but two died. I'm concerned about getting new fish if the two left are infected with or carrying something.

as for our pond it is about 3500 gallons, its 4 ft deep in the deepest spot and 1.5 ft deep in the shallowest spot. we have one 4500 gallon pump and two 1200 gallon pump running to two filters and 1 waterfall. when our water was tested they told us ammonia and nitrate levels were fine, pH was a little high and there was not much of a salt level at all. this all happened during that nasty heat stroke in july but I didn't have a thermometer in the water so I have no idea what the temps were. also we hadn't added any new fish since may, but didn't quarantine so I'm not sure if that could have been part of it.

we are very novice at pond keeping so I'm sure im missing more info that I should be giving and I'm sorry for that. if anyone could give suggestions as to what might have happened I'd appreciate it very much
thanks
ash
 
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the bottom is clear except for a few rocks that fell out of our lily pots, and the bottom is kept clean. we skim out the big stuff, and we use the sludge powder every 2-3 weeks. I just saw the description for CHILODINELLA on your website dave and it matches pretty closely to how the fish acted before they died and wonder if that could be the culprit.
 

sissy

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They told you the tests were good but did they give you a printout of the tests .I had 1 place I took mine too that just said all was fine with the test and I never went back .I wondered if they even tested my water and the new pet store I go to tests and gives you a printout and likes to know how everything runs in your pond .They want to know what kind of filters, aeration and will try to help you figure any problems out for your pond set up .
 
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we were standing there while she did the tests and explained the colors and what they meant, but they are more of a decorative pond place, not a koi place so they had no idea what was wrong with the fish. she did send me home with some pH reducer, which did nothing for the fish of course, but i was grasping straws hoping it would help.
 

fishin4cars

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First of all, don't use anything at this point to adjust PH, No matter what the PH is changing that and not knowing what is going on can do more harm than good. Stress causes problems, changing the PH can be more stressful than high or low PH and if your already having a problem you don't want additional stress. Safe range for a koi or goldfish to live is 6.8-9.0, They can live in this water for long periods of time although 7.2-8.2 is a better range. Do you have a way to isolate a fish and get a good look. If you don't see anything it may be necessary to get in contact with someone in a koi club or group that knows how to check the fish with a microscope. Two primary things of focus when dealing with fish when they are dying, Water conditions, microscopic organisms. Fungus, parasites, and bacteria are hard to diagnose without looking under a scope. Some are, but the majority are not noticable by the naked eye. secondary infections from them are more noticable. Water conditions can be tested, I suggest investing and learning how to use a test kit. I've been told my water was fine and come to find out, the test kit they were using was bad, I've had it tested and the person at the store had no clue what they were reading. and I've had them not even know how to use a test kit at all and tell a customer all looks good so they could sell a fish. In your area there should be a Pond club, Koi club, or at least a aquarium society that can help on the microscope.
BTW, if nothing else, try finding a koi health book and ask a high school or College biology teacher. Even that would be better than a wild guess.
 
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Can i ask when you added these fish? Fishin4cars is absolutely right about not messing with the PH too much. A lot of people mess it up even more trying to fix it. Also stop adding so many things into your pond the solution is in finding out the issue not dumping chemicals into your pond. This will only add more problems. Though the salt is good. Very good. As for melafix, I notice a lot of fish don't like it and it causes them stress. Not to mention the depletion of oxygen when you add any medication + salt + high water temp. I'm really curious as to know when you added these fish and was the pond empty before that.
 

sissy

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could there have been an outside source of contamination .Like something spilled in or near the pond that rain in or something sprayed near the pond .Fertilizers, bug sprays or anything similar I saw one on here (I think ) I remember where I think they said a neighbor sprayed there trees on a windy day and it got in there pond and killed there fish or even someone power washing a deck or house with chemicals on a windy day .The filter could have caught most of it ,but seems fish can be sensitive to some things .Soap is a killer also.Have you checked your filters to see if there is anything in there or that it smells funny .Are there in shorts in wires in the pump ,it could have electricuted your fish
 
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I don't think it was any of that since two fish survived. there were a lot of little red worm looking things in the filter, but we've always had them in the filters regardless of how frequently we clean them and flush the water. I honestly believe that the newest addition (one of the survivors) was carrying a disease/parasite and got the other fish infected but maybe their immune systems were keeping up with it until that horrid heat stroke, causing them stress which caused a decrease in their ability to fight the disease. I realize that is all speculation, I came here more just to see if anyone else had, had fish die in a similar manner so I could determine how best to treat the pond before adding any new fish. I realize I'd need to take the fish to get diagnosed to truly know what happened, but we don't have anyone around here that does that kind of stuff, and even if we did I wouldn't have hundreds to drop on getting tests and stuff done. I'm just going to treat with salt, let everything balance out and maybe add a few fish next year.
 

addy1

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That might be best, if you raised koi to sale, show etc, then the hundreds would be worth it and a tax write off..........lol
Let everything settle, the red worms are normal, everybody has them.

Next year add some more fish . I personally stick with gf and shubunkins just because they are hardier.
 

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Yes, I have seen similar scenarios in the past. Usually what happens is that the pond is overstocked, but as the ammonia or nitrite levels in the pond rise, the fish become somewhat accustomed to it. However, once the danger point is reached, fish will start to die off rapidly. This has the effect of reducing the bioload, nitrites and ammonia drop back to acceptable levels, and everything looks O.K. At this point, the pond owner will usually go out and buy replacement fish, and the whole sorry tale repeats itself! John
 

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