Water Gardening: Please look at this fish-what is this "bruise and spot"?, 1 by mothermole

mothermole wrote:
See attached photo of a fish that WAS all white with a yellow head 10 days ago but now has a brownish bruise and a few black flecks. Please read my posts about the fish crises at my house and then feel free to comment PLEASE!

Copied and pasted from Bonnies Forum . . .


Fish deaths and treatment options
by Mothermole on Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:48 pm

New pond person here. 4500 gallons, rock bottom no drain (with a 30 foot river and waterfall) with 13 small koi and my water is turned over 3 times an hour (if I remember that correctly). Saturday, two of my fish died within hours of one another. I took them to my pond retailer (reliable professional source but unfortunately the man I usually speak with is not in work as his father is dying so I spoke with the young assistant and noted some incorrect information) and the fish had the fish scraped and looked under the microscope. The (death occurred a few hours prior to scope)fish had fungus and chilodonella (I also looked at the slide and compared it to the photos as well to compare and b sure that the dx was correct). My pond levels were 0 on everything except Ph was 8.0 and the salt level was very minimal (a few weeks ago a fish was flashing and I treated it with salt for 10 days and did frequent water changes and had a lot of rain that pretty much reduced the salt.) Immediately I removed 1/3 of the water, added oxygen and when I refilled the pond I added the salt. Initially the salt reading on the electronic salt device read .46 ppt and I was worried I put too much salt in the pond. Well it rained a lot and the salt level is now .4 ppt. It is still raining on and off and I would presume that salt level is even a little lower. There have been no more deaths in the pond since yesterday morning but since they are new and skittish fish and I have the bubblers going I can't see any of them in the pond. I removed about another 800 more gallons of water tonight and then it started raining and lightening and I was back indoors. Automatic refill on pond and salt should be a little lower than .4ppt.

Other information worth noting, pond was very murky this past week with all the rain and I could hardly see into it (fine particles swirling around). I don't have much in the way of algae as I have a ton of plants (and yes I removed them for the salt treatment-ugh). Also, I am in the Chicagoland area and the weather has been very unpredictable. This week the weather finally was warm and the pond temperature was in the low 70's to the mid 70's for the first time with the fish in it. The fish swam around the most they ever did since I purchased them. Also, I suspect my young son has been secretly feeding the fish. I noticed fish food in the skimmer (but pond levels were all good). Pond had a pondish smell to it also (not very strong but the smell was there none the less).

So here are my questions:
1. How high is too high for the salt (I am worried and would change out some of the water to get that number into range)?
2. Young assistant advised me to put ProForm-C and Praziquantel (but when I got home and read the packaging it advises against adding this mixture in with salt treatments, so I didn't add it in thinking maybe the kid wanted me to throw everything at the fish including the kitchen sink so that they survive because he was inexperienced-am I correct?
3. Should I reduce salt and add the ProForm-C and Praziquantel to finish the treatments? If so, what is the protocol?
4. Should I be feeding the fish medicated koi food?
5. What are my next steps in terms of additional salting /water changes and additional treatments and length of time for the salt treatment.
5. What level of salt should my pond be at when fish are otherwise happy and healthy?

Thank you in advance.
Mothermole
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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Bonnie on Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:50 am

"killer Don" otherwise known as chilodonella is fairly common coming out of winter and can be the reason for massive die offs in the spring.

Some strains of it will die at .3 salt, other strains will not. It kills fish very fast so if there have been no more fish deaths in the past few days your level of salt may have knocked it out.

Tetrahyma looks very similar under a scope to chilodonella so it takes a very experienced eye to know the difference. Tetrahyma does not kill unless there are there in huge numbers..and it is usually associated with dirty ponds.

You can take the level of salt to .6 as long as you do it very slowly. One can go from 0 to .3 very quickly but after that it should not be raised more than .1 over 24 hours. When dealing with costia, I have gone all the way to .8 You can not keep the.8 level for more than a few days! Costia is a real bugger and very hard to get rid of and it too kills very fast. Many experts have missed it (myself included) because it is THE smallest of all parasites that attack fish. And most of the strains of costia I have seen are very salt resistant. If going above .3 salt one must make sure there is massive amounts of oxygen and water circulation in the pond!

Salt and formaldehyde (one ingredient in Proform C) are NOT compatible and one must make sure that the salt level is less than .1 when using.

They are recommending an aggressive approach in treating in parasites, and I do not have a problem with it except if the person is very qualified with the scope and knows what they are doing, I would not recommend the "shot gun approach"

I do recommend a shot gun approach here because I don't know what the person is dealing with. But if I have examined the fish and scoped it, and know what I am dealing with, I may recommend a product for what I saw in the biopsies.

Prazi kills flukes (Proform C does not touch them) and if he did not see flukes there would be no reason to use it. Flukes are very easy to spot under a scope.

Hope this helps and am looking forward to your reply

Bonnie

Bonnie
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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Mothermole on Mon Jun 09, 2008 8:56 am

Thank you so much for your response. The pond salt is now at .27 (ton of rain last night). I am going to continue to drain the pond down to reduce salt so I can add the Proform stuff. I am not very confident in this young guys opinion but I did look into the microscope myself and saw what appeared to be fungus and the "DON". I did not see flukes. My question is after I put in the proform c do I need to leave it in a special length of time and then drain it down with water changes? OR should I just follow the directions on the bottle?

Thanks again for your help!
Mothermole
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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Bonnie on Mon Jun 09, 2008 9:33 am

There are extensive directions, step by step on my web site. Click koi care and then parasite treatment

Be sure to watch the pH and KH when there is a lot of rain and rain in most parts of the country is "acidic". Just for kicks, run tests on rain water from a rain gage

Bonnie

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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Mothermole on Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:03 pm

I am following up with my posts of last week and my outcomes. I treated the pond with salt as high as .5 and did frequent water changes. Salt was at .4-.5 for 3 days and then was lowered slowly because of lots of rain. I used aeration and changed about 30-50% of the water out each day until water clear (very murky due to rain). Finally I saw the fish and the salt was low enough for Proform C which I applied tonight after I took all filtration out. I noticed fish were spunky and active but also that two fish had "bruises" and black speck marks on their bodies that weren't there two weeks ago. See photo bucket

http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b369/mothermole/

What is that-is this from the treatment with the salt and they are improving or are they still very sick? I would appreciate any and all comments on what this is on my fish and if I am going about the treatment appropriately?

Thank you in advance!
Mothermole
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Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:57 pm
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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Bonnie on Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:30 am

The link does not work.......

Not sure why you took the filter media out but it needs to be treated to. And Proform C is safe for the biofilter.

You will be dealing with a whole new set of problems if you don't have a biofilter working....

Bonnie

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Re: Fish deaths and treatment options
by Mothermole on Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:05 pm

I put in praziquantel and Proform C and was told by pond resource to remove filter media-is this incorrect? I get so frustrated with all the misinformation out there regarding ponds. Send me your direct email and I will send my photos directly to you -maybe you can post. Fish all seem happy and healthy and lively!
Mothermole
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