Zombie Koi

[Kielyko]

Hello,

I would greatly appreciate an insight to what my koi may have. I live in SoCal, and had baby koi that we transferred into our big pond. I noticed the koi started dying after all that rainfall we had in March. They all ended up dying. So afterwards, we cleaned the pond what I thought was pretty thorough to get rid of whatever disease and set it up so we can have more koi.

This week we noticed one of the new koi started isolating itself. Few days later, it’s looking like a zombie fish. None of the other fish seem to be sick or catching what this one has, but I’m afraid it will only be a matter of time before all of them are infected. Is there any remedy to save my koi??

I wish I could attach the video for a clearer image.

 

[Jhn]

Looks like its scales are pine coning, look into dropsy. Also, check your water parameters, the symptoms your fish is showing are due to water quality issues putting stress on the fish. How large is your pond and pond volume?

Point being you want to treat the symptoms, but also get at and fix the cause of the problem. Adding too many fish to a new pond ( which yours is once you thoroughly cleaned it)too quickly can cause water quality issues and start showing up as infection and bacterial/fungal disease in your fish.

 

[j.w]

@Kielyko
Sorry you are having all these problems all over again.

 

[Kielyko]

Thank you for your response. These were the parameters yesterday and the pond is 2500gals.

pH 8.2
Temp 27 C
Nitrite 0.25
Ammonia 0
Phos 0.25
kH 107.4 ppm
Salinity 2.2 ppt

There’s probably a total of 9 fish in there, with the two largest at 16 inches. The rest are just little guys much less than 10 inches.

My husband also said it looks like droopsy.
I took a look at the fish once it died and gills looked clean. There was mouth rot and tail rot, and clear-white film over the whole body. I’m think maybe it got hurt and was stressed and couldn’t recover.

 

[GBBUDD]

There was mouth rot and tail rot, and clear-white film over the whole body

thats a water conditioning issue more than likely

 

[WaterGardener]

What you are describing are water quality problems, as has already been stated, not injuries.

Are you using testing strips? If so those are not very accurate. Liquid tests are more accurate and will give you a better picture of what is going on with the water.

The nitrite is too high. That should never be above zero. You can use Prime to bind the ammonia and nitrite so it won't harm your fish. For that use, it has to be dosed every 48 hours until your water improves. That can take several weeks.

Please keep asking questions if you have any and someone here will be happy to help you. Good luck with your fish.

 

[Kielyko]

thats a water conditioning issue more than likely

Kindly, what kind of water issue and how would you recommend treating it?? I appreciate the help

 

[Kielyko]

What you are describing are water quality problems, as has already been stated, not injuries.

Are you using testing strips? If so those are not very accurate. Liquid tests are more accurate and will give you a better picture of what is going on with the water.

The nitrite is too high. That should never be above zero. You can use Prime to bind the ammonia and nitrite so it won't harm your fish. For that use, it has to be dosed every 48 hours until your water improves. That can take several weeks.

Please keep asking questions if you have any and someone here will be happy to help you. Good luck with your fish.

Thank you! We use the water lab testing kit. Yellow is for ammonia, not pH. For pH we use a meter. I’ll look into prime

 

[Kielyko]

What you are describing are water quality problems, as has already been stated, not injuries.

Are you using testing strips? If so those are not very accurate. Liquid tests are more accurate and will give you a better picture of what is going on with the water.

The nitrite is too high. That should never be above zero. You can use Prime to bind the ammonia and nitrite so it won't harm your fish. For that use, it has to be dosed every 48 hours until your water improves. That can take several weeks.

Please keep asking questions if you have any and someone here will be happy to help you. Good luck with your fish.

Also, my husband said he uses the Bigboy filter with a carbon filter so that’s why he doesn’t use conditioner. What do you think??

 

[WaterGardener]

Your testing kit looks like a good one.

I'm not familiar with that filter, but it looks like it would be fine for chlorine and some minerals.

What other filtration does your pond have? And what size is it, how many gallons?

 

[GBBUDD]

Pictures of the pond, it's clarity and how often do you feed and with which food ?

 

[Mgessert]

Nitrite is very toxic. I would stop feeding for a few days and do daily 20% water changes until it’s zero. Then increase your biological filtration. Something is inhibiting the bacteria that usually change nitrite to nitrate. When you thoroughly cleaned the pond you may have killed them off. Did you add chemicals? Any chlorine or chloramines in the water?