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
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