Taking a scrape of your koi or goldfish

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We all know that our fish are prone to parasite, they start flashing, hang in the water, sit on the bottom of the pond or hang around in front of your waterfall or outlet pipes, some will go off their food and refuse to eat .
All of the above are signes of parasitic infections but how can we tell , ok to eliminate other problems like problems with your water we must first take our test kits and test the water for signs of problems if non are showing then we kow we have parasites
Next you'll need a microscope a benching bowl and a net and if you habve one to hand a credit card or something similar .
Gently guide the fish to the surface and into the bowl , allow a few minutes for the fish to calm down , they gently gude your fish to the side of the bowl and hold it against the side of the bowl never sedate your fish when doing this sedating them removes parasites
Take your credit card then hold it at about a 45 degree angle, then starting just behind the fishes gill cover applying only light pressure work your way to just before the tail of your fish , never ever go tail to head or against the fishes scales even if your fish is a leather koi.
When you look along the leading edge of the credit card you'll see a build up of the mucus yor fish protect themselves with against parasites.
Next get a spare slide and apply the edge of your credit card to the glass hn add a little bit of water to the sample before fixing the sample with those little cover slips that come with your slides.
Next very gently press the slip on the glass to spead your sample out a little then place your slide under the microscope and using the x100 setting veiw the slide mucus moving the slide about until the sample has been covered if you see nothing try upping your magnification some more then look again whilst taking in the whole slide if you see nothing then you still cant congratulate yourselves and sit on your laurels "test more fish".
You'll need to test around about 5 or 6 fish to get an over all veiw if parasites are seen identify which you have then treat the pond accordingly .
It is important that these are done around about now as we go from spring into summer.
Bellow a rouges gallery of parsites and what your looking for on the slides

.
whitespot.jpg
White spot

Argulus x 400.jpg
Argulus

body fluke.jpg
Body Fluke

Chilodonella.jpg
Chilodonella

Columnaris.jpg
Columnaris

Costia.jpg
Costia

Epystylis.jpg
Epystilis

Gill fluke.jpg
Gill fluke

Paramercium.jpg
Paramercium

Tricodina.jpg
Tricodina

Dave
 
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Troutredds

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We all know that our fish are prone to parasite, they start flashing, hang in the water, sit on the bottom of the pond or hang around in front of your waterfall or outlet pipes, some will go off their food and refuse to eat .
All of the above are signes of parasitic infections but how can we tell , ok to eliminate other problems like problems with your water we must first take our test kits and test the water for signs of problems if non are showing then we kow we have parasites
Next you'll need a microscope a benching bowl and a net and if you habve one to hand a credit card or something similar .
Gently guide the fish to the surface and into the bowl , allow a few minutes for the fish to calm down , they gently gude your fish to the side of the bowl and hold it against the side of the bowl never sedate your fish when doing this sedating them removes parasites
Take your credit card then hold it at about a 45 degree angle, then starting just behind the fishes gill cover applying only light pressure work your way to just before the tail of your fish , never ever go tail to head or against the fishes scales even if your fish is a leather koi.
When you look along the leading edge of the credit card you'll see a build up of the mucus yor fish protect themselves with against parasites.
Next get a spare slide and apply the edge of your credit card to the glass hn add a little bit of water to the sample before fixing the sample with those little cover slips that come with your slides.
Next very gently press the slip on the glass to spead your sample out a little then place your slide under the microscope and using the x100 setting veiw the slide mucus moving the slide about until the sample has been covered if you see nothing try upping your magnification some more then look again whilst taking in the whole slide if you see nothing then you still cant congratulate yourselves and sit on your laurels "test more fish".
You'll need to test around about 5 or 6 fish to get an over all veiw if parasites are seen identify which you have then treat the pond accordingly .
It is important that these are done around about now as we go from spring into summer.
Bellow a rouges gallery of parsites and what your looking for on the slides

.View attachment 70754 White spot

View attachment 70755 Argulus

View attachment 70756 Body Fluke

View attachment 70757 Chilodonella

View attachment 70758 Columnaris

View attachment 70759 Costia

View attachment 70760 Epystilis

View attachment 70761 Gill fluke

View attachment 70762 Paramercium

View attachment 70763 Tricodina

Dave

Fascinating stuff, Dave. Such a precise identification technique - that takes care of half the battle in the diagnosis/treatment process. Great post! (y)
 
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Fascinating stuff, Dave. Such a precise identification technique - that takes care of half the battle in the diagnosis/treatment process. Great post! (y)
If it helps others in identifying problems and being able to go about testing or looking for the problem then all the better , there is nothing worse than fish dying and an owner not knowing why or what to treat them for .
Correctly looked after both koi and goldfish can achieve long life goldfish can livve to 40+ years koi 80+ as long lived a parrots sometimes even longer we have two aged 27+

Dave
 
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Mmathis

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What magnification is best for seeing these critters?

Also, any tips for scraping goldfish? Or maybe I should ask if there are tips for holding a GF....as well as scraping..... In videos they make it look somewhat easy to hold and scrape a koi, but with the smaller GF, I found doing a GF to be a challenge.
 
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What magnification is best for seeing these critters?

Also, any tips for scraping goldfish? Or maybe I should ask if there are tips for holding a GF....as well as scraping..... In videos they make it look somewhat easy to hold and scrape a koi, but with the smaller GF, I found doing a GF to be a challenge.
Maria I'm in awe and only $195 "me wants one":( Maggie the range at which you can veiw parasites is basically x 40 - x100 just experiment between the two it will give you the practice and experiance you need veiwing them , dont be suprised to see more than one type quater the slide and count them up it will tell you which is the guilty parasite

Dave
 
M

MariaTeresa

Can you do a scrape for parasites on a dead fish? Or do the parasites leave the body soon after the fish dies?

(Dead babies/fry are an awful lot easier to catch than live ones!)
 
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Why you say babies Maria Terasa what size do you acctually mean as there are sies you cant rall;y scrape , your best bet would be to scrape an adult goldfish in with them .
As Maria rightfully points out never do scrapes on gead fish :cool:

Dave
 
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No Maria terasa I that they are still very smal sol you could acctually do some damage trying to take a scrape from them scrape the adults but not that size of young fish .

Dave
 
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Thanks for this information. I'm trying to learn how to diagnose different health problems in koi. It's not easy!
 
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@vikinglord13 - Dave hasn't been active on the forum in quite some time. He and his wife were both experiencing some health issues. We hope they are doing well. But Dave was always a great source of information on koi health - if you look up his profile and postings you'll find a whole host of great information. He was a long time koi keeper, going from a HUGE indoor tank to an outdoor pond at one point. He frequently shared the list of his library of books that he recommended as well.
 

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