What's this on my Moor?

[LuLu]

Fungal?

 

[LuLu]

Now he's also lethargic and not eating. Any ideas?

Oh, and his tail is beginning to look tattered.

Thanks.

 

[addy1]

Wish I could help, I don't know anything about them.

 

[j.w]

Me neither but sometimes salt water can help I think. Hope somebody can help you soon w/ the poor guy :lol:

 

[fishin4cars]

Appears to be a fungal or bacterial infection, first thing is check the water, what's the parameters, second, get it out and dose it with .1%-.3% Salt, Don't add the salt to the pond, your plants and white clouds can't handle that much, try and feed it a antibacterial fish food. This is most often seem with high nitrates and overcrowding.

 

[LuLu]

(Preface: it sucks that I haven't had much time to visit the forums, or I mighta been able to save a few fish My employer seems to think I'm super nurse lately, which... Glad they have the faith in me, but working in one department at one facility, and another department at another facility on the other side of St. Louis, sometimes IN THE SAME DAY? I dunno if I NEED that kind of faith, ya know?)

So here's the run down...
1) I no long have minnows. I noticed them missing about a week and a half to two weeks ago. I haven't even found one lil' minnow corpse, so I'm assuming that Fred, the one-armed koi, ate them. He's the only one who would be fast enough to catch them AND big enough to eat them. Plus, he finally appears to be putting on weight, ie: no longer looks like a fish head on a stick. For those of you playing along at home, that left total pond inhabitants at 7... 6 assorted goldies and 1 goldfish impersonator/koi:
1 large white fantail
1 large black moor
2 fat lil' calico fantails
1 med calico comet
1 small orange comet/feeder (the only one who originally survived cycling)
and the handicapped goldfish impersonator/koi.

2) Last week it was INSANELY hot here. For 3 days straight my water temps were at or just above 90 degrees for 3 days straight. Which sucked cause my pond is shaded 95% of the time... it was just HAWT! All of my water parameters have been perfect since cycling. Even built myself a DIY python using a waterbed drain & fill kit hooked up to the garden hose, so I could vacuum the pebbles at bottom/change some water - which I do about once every 2 weeks, sometimes weekly, replacing @ 35-50% of the water. The usual water norms are:
PH: 7.6 - 8. (Usually 7.6, but can climb to 8 after a hard rain, but it drops again a day or two later.)
KH: 120
GH: 75
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0 (MANY plants and my "Bog in a Bucket" filter)
AND, my water is always sparkling clear... doubly so since the addition of the veggie filter.

3) Once the water temps went up last week... I started losing fish. 1st day, it was the calico comet. I couldn't find anything wrong with him - no sores/lesions, fins were intact, his gills weren't really that pink, but I don't know how many hours he'd been dead before I got home from work. I changed out some water... if for no other reason than to cool the pond a bit. 2nd day, I lost my beautiful white fantail! Again, I couldn't find ANYTHING WRONG. Changed out some more water. Seriously though? Each morning everyone would be swimming along... coming up to the side to say good morning... eating breakfast... and each evening I'd come home to a dead fish? *scratching my head* Day 3, my small comet/feeder was gone. Same scenario AGAIN... NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM! Just found him floating amongst the lily pads. This day though... I also noticed a white dot on the tail of one of my calico fantails, even though it was swimming along merrily - the dot was SO SMALL that I couldn't even tell if it was cystal-ish or not, just a dot. Definitely didn't look FUZZY tho. The moor on the other hand was not swimming along merrily... he was somewhat lethargic and wasn't eating with the rest of them. AND, the koi's only pectoral fin looked a bit ragged/shredded. There was not fuzz around the edges, nor were there any red streaks, etc. This is when I freaked a little. Up until this point, all I could think of was maybe that the water was too hot, and I was actually thinking about buy a little fabric gazebo/unhooking the veggie filter which is in full sun most of the day, just to keep my little puddle cool. I mean like... God tricked me into buying a handicapped koi outta the goldfish tank at the LFS, so I'm obviously supposed to take care of the lil' minnow eater. He's only got one good arm, ya know? I couldn't let the other go to poo! I changed out about 50% of the water and vacuumed the bottom - while crying mind you. *shaking head* (Yeah, yeah... so I'm one of those hypersensitive idiots...) All I had on hand was pond salt and Melafix so I added both not even caring what would happen to the plants.

4) The next day I did another 50% water change and and added enough salt & Melafix to replace what I'd removed. Moor was still sick/lethargic and covered a white film. Not fuzzy, just... milky. Like in the photos posted above... and his fins/tail were starting to shred. The white spot on the calico fantail was gone/had fallen off. No change noted on the koi.

5) A day or so later, the moor was looking much better, swimming a bit more, no more white film.

6) Fast fwd to um.... the 24th maybe? (the past couple weeks have been a blur, I'm sorry!) The moor had no white milky film, but had a couple white spots here and there. They were big enough for me to actually SEE this time... one on his lip, on along the edge of his gill, one on the other side under his pec fin (in his arm pit). And a few pin point sized ones on a pec fin. They definitely weren't fuzzy, and they weren't crystal-ish, they were like... um... hmmmm, I dunno... OH! they looked like he mighta been crafting or something while I was at work, and accidentally got Elmer's white glue on him? *nodding* I REALLY freaked out this time. I got online and started reading everything I could about fish diseases since I couldn't get in here (due to remodeling - place looks great, btw) and decided that since the deaths were so quick, that it was maybe Columnaris, which is apparently omnipresent in most aquariums/ponds, but only takes hold during times of stress or overcrowding. Stress could be 90 degree water, yes? Straight to the LFS I went, came home, cleaned the heck out of the pond - changed out approx 90% of the water, and dosed with CopperSafe. And yeah... I know that with copper, one must be VERY CAREFUL not to O.D. the babies, but I didn't want something that was gonna turn my pond orange/brown (I have rock-on-a-roll covering the sides and didn't want it permanently stained), and I didn't want something that was FOR SURE gonna kill my biofilter. SO... copper was one of my only choices, and since it said that it'd kill ich AND Columnaris, and I didn't know which one was on my calico fantail for that one day and I wanted to make sure that I'd kill 'em both, should it be that I had both. Even though I didn't *think* it was Ich cause like... don't people turn their heaters UP to kill ich? And I was already running at about 90 degrees so... yeah? I dunno... just rambling. Called a few places nearby to ask about antibiotic fish food, couldn't find any, so I ordered some online.

7) The next morning my moor was still lethargic, not eating, but occasionally swimming, mostly just hanging out in plants though. I came home from work that evening to find him floating. He appeared to be gone for at least a few hours at least when I got home because his color had faded quite a bit... I could now see that he had dark spots under his skin. One entire side of him had a black spot the size of a quarter that I couldn't previously see because of his own black color, and he had a couple smaller dark spots on the other side as well. Gill tissue was brown. So... I guess I'm sticking with my diagnosis of Columnaris unless anyone has any other imput?

8) The 3 remaining fish that have now been soaking in copper for the last um... 3 days? 4 days? (I need a day off)... have shown no signs of illness. No lethargy, still hungry as ever, swimming and playing, no spots/dots/discolorations. The koi's fin hasn't improved quite yet, but it hasn't gotten worse either, still no fuzz or red streaks, and it was only the very edge that was affected. Actually now that I think about it... the edge may look just a tad "cleaner," not that it actually looked dirty, just the tiny little filaments at the edge look more together than shredded.

After all of this... my next question is: How long do I let my remaining babies soak in their copper puddle? I read it can be harmful long term, more harmful than most meds anyway since it's an actual mineral. Some places I read said for 10 days after any noted symptoms are gone. The bottle of CopperSafe said it would stay in the water for up to a month. Wikipedia says the Columnaris life cycle is 32 days. Should I leave 'em for the full 32 days and just replace whatever copper I remove during water changes?

Please advise.

Have I told y'all how much I whole-heartedly appreciate each and every one of you lately? Cause I do.

 

[fishin4cars]

someone has been doing there whole hearted homework. Your very correct, Copper can be bad if left long term, Meaning months, Coppersafe is designed to work for a long period without causing the problem of straight copper metals to your fish. I would do as directed and keep it as long as possible. Columnaris sounds like a good diagnosis, I would try not to do more than 50% water changes at a time, You can stress the fish just as easy with large water changes as you can with the heat, or with ammonia, nitrites, etc. daily smaller water changes are less stressful but I also understand your scheduling at work is not the best for daily pond duty. I still think that over crowding had some to do with all this, water temps here hit 93 yesterday, But my fish have adapted to this over long periods of time and I have a lot of water movement and aireation. Keep you salt level up, and leave the dosage of coppersafe as directed by the instructions. One note, Ich is not your problem if the water temps. are above 82. raising the temp above 82 degrees is one of the methods of killing the ich cycle so you can pretty much eleminate that one off your list of possible problems. Hopefully the salt and medication will stop what ever it is and maybe your little pond can settle down. As your seeing, this is why bigger is better when it comes to ponds. Not only for the over crowding but for more stable PH from morning to night, ( Shouldn't read more than .2 movement in a 24 hour period of time) and more stable temps, again a temp change of more than 2-3 degrees from morning to afternoon is very stressful also.)

 

[HARO]

Fishin; just like to point out that the reason we raise the temps to treat ich is not to kill them, but to speed up their life cycle. The little buggers cannot be killed while on the fish, but only once they drop off and go into the free-swimming stage. It is then that they succumb to the medication. John

 

[fishin4cars]

Raising the temps breaks the life cycle, your correct it speeds it up and onc ethey are off the host the reproduction cycle is slowed way down, to kill them they still need to be medicated. I have found that just breaking the cycle and keeping the temp up and and stable in 90% of the cases this is all that is needed to to stop the outbreak. In my fishtanks (Other than my goldfish tank) I maintain the temps @82-83 degrees and I haven't seen a ich outbreak in years.

 

[LuLu]

Thanks Fishin' for the support!

I may sometimes push boundaries, but I always do recon before heading into battle!

 

[CometKeith]

Lulu, I'm sorry to hear about some of your fish that have either died or are diseased. You will always find some element of disease in every pond and when your fish are most susceptible is when they are stressed out. I'm sure you are aware of many of the causes of stress. The best way to keep your fish healthy is to not overcrowd them, maintain good O2 levels, watch the water temps, check nitrites, nitrates, don't over feed, blah, blah, blah. I would suggest when you are ready to replace them to keep your pond bio-load much lower and this will help keep them healthy. I think a lot of us have made a lot of the same mistakes early on and have learned from them. I know I have. Good luck with your fish. Make sure that any element of disease is absent for a few weeks before you add any more fish.