KOI Health

When it comes to koi nothing trumps good water quality. We are first going to discuss water quality because its the foundation for the health of your koi.

Water Quality

For the health of your koi the first and most important thing to keep on your mind is water quality! I will say it again, it is not parasites or worms, but water quality! Even parasites or worms are often just a result of poor water quality. The first most important and number 1 fish killer is Ammonia in your pond. Second comes Nitrite. We recommend that you get comfortable with testing your water for these two things. Before adding fish to your pond you should make sure that both these levels are at zero and always stay there. Any new pond or fish tank has to go through a cycle of good bacteria being built up in the system in order to break down these other harmful wastes. So, please, make sure your new pond is cycled before adding new fish or that the volume of water far outweighs the number of fish that you put in for the first couple weeks or months. If you are unsure,please contact us and we will be able to help you out. You can also bring in some of your pond water if you don’t know how to test your pond and we will do it for free and guide you.

Please note that high nitrates (the third step in the biological filtration) are not good either. They should be always kept at 40 ppm or max 80 ppm, but preferably zero. For the sake of this article nitrates are not as important. I will not be going into detail about them because in most cases where ponds are outdoors and have plants and sunlight it usually is not much of an issue. The pond plants use up excessive nutrients such as the nitrates and phosphates in the pond. The only thing worth mentioning is that if these levels get too high you will most likely have algae issues. (Aka may effect water clarity.) Algae, much like pond plants, feed off nitrate and phosphates. This is why it is a good idea to have some pond plants in your pond. The pond plants out compete the nasty algae if everything has been setup correctly. Nature always works best! Just the way God designed it to. Always remember that!

For those of you who do not understand the cycle I am going to give you a basic description:

The cycle is the buildup of good bacteria in any new system. Any new system takes time to achieve this buildup. To get a cycle started you need something for the bacteria to consume and grow into larger colonies. Then ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate can be broken down properly when your fishes start expelling waste. If the cycle is not complete before adding fish, you will harm them. First, the cycle starts with ammonia (you can add food or any kind of waste really to get this cycle started). You can also google this. During this time it is actually good to see the ammonia levels going up. Once the levels of ammonia are detectable, you need to wait for the nitrite levels to be detectable. Once the Nitrite levels are detectable it means that the cycle is starting and there is good bacteria consuming the ammonia. Once the ammonia is back down to zero the first stage of the cycle has been completed. (Please note this can take days to weeks.) Now you need to watch your nitrite in the same way. Now the third step is to check your nitrates. Once you have a detectable level of nitrates the good bacteria are starting to consume your nitrite. Once your nitrite levels are back to zero, your cycle is complete! When the ammonia and nitrite has spiked and gone back to zero you can now add fish! Note: Nitrite sometimes can take longer then ammonia.

Note: Sometimes with a large pond you don’t even have to worry about the cycle because the small fish load in comparison to the large water volume. However, if you decide to add fish before cycling the pond, we recommend contacting us first and also testing your water for ammonia and nitrite during the first month of fish addition to make sure it never becomes a problem.

Lets Talk Sick Koi:

If you ever have a problem with a fish health wise these are the things that you would check first before anything else. Always check your water first. If the koi are acting funny, check your ammonia and nitrite first. After that, double check it again! If your water is bad even if you also have parasites or worms on the koi, the first thing you have to do is to get the water straightened out or the koi will not heal. There are no shortcuts here. Your koi will just slowly or quickly (depending on how bad the water is) die.

The only things that you can do to buy yourself some time is to add an ammonia remover for ammonia and nitrite. Or if you have a problem only with nitrite you can get away with salting your pond to .15 -.30 salinity in order to prevent fish death. However, if the problem persists for a long period of time and the filter does not catch up with the biological filtration, you could still be facing fish loss. If your ammonia and/or nitrites are high and you can’t relocate the fish into another pond until your filter catches up, all you can do is keep the ammonia and/or nitrite as low as possible by doing large water changes and add adding ammonia remover and or salt for nitrite. Just remember that this is the first step in pretty much any situation.

Next once you have solved the water quality issues or relocated your koi to another place with clean water, you can begin to take action if any sores exist or if your koi are hurt.

Koi Sores

For koi sores, depending on severity, you need to treat the wounds. First, sometimes just getting the koi into good, clean and warm water as mentioned will heal them if the sores or sick koi have not progressed too far. Raising the water temperature to at least 70 degrees (preferably 80) will go a long way in healing your koi because the koi’s immune system is fully activated at that point and sometimes it can fight off the infection on its own. You can also add salt as it will help with their slime coat and relieve some stress. If the wounds aren’t too bad, you can get away with just adding a bandage. The way to do this is to dry the area first, then apply Betadine (only do this once as multiple applications can cause the wound to not heal properly). Then once the Betadine is done, you can add Neosporin to the wound and then dental fixture powder on top of that. You can do most of this just using your finger. Finally you can add liquid bandage to seal off everything and keep the bandage on for up to 24 hours while the koi is healing. Sometimes you need to do this multiple times. If you do need to do this multiple times just cut out the Betadine because that can only be used once, as mentioned. Then return your koi to the pond or quarantine tank.

Most times the koi also need antibiotics to heal if the wound is deep. People used to use antibiotic food milled in. This antibiotic food is no longer available due to strict government rules that bans its use nowadays. Please note this also poses a problem if the koi are too sick to eat. At this point if the wound is bad, you need to inject your koi with antibiotics. The most common is to inject with Baytril at least 3 times everyday and then sometimes 2 more times every other day if needed. You can get Baytril online yourself and buy syringes and do it yourself if you wish to still save your koi at this point. It is easier than it sounds. Or you can contact your local vet or other service to do it for you. This is often not a option for some as it can be very expensive. Please contact us for more information if you decide to give this a go for your self.

Next we recommend to try and find out what caused the sores or sick koi in the first place. Sometimes it is just the water quality. However even if it was just water quality that caused the fish to be stressed, most often this can lead to secondary problems like parasites or flukes. We highly recommend learning how to use a microscope and doing skin scrapes and gill biopsies. If your water quality wasn’t bad, then most likely you just have parasites or worms effecting the fish. Either way you can look below on how to also treat parasites and/or worms.

Please Note: If a koi is bloated looking(pine cone disease) it just means that there is an internal infection and your koi will die if it does not receive antibiotic injections. Anytime you see any kind of sore or bump that looks like its starting from the inside of the koi, that is almost always an internal infection and it needs antibiotics to heal. Just like a human would die from an internal infection without antibiotics, it is the same way with fish.

Treatment for Parasites:

We recommend treating your koi and fish twice a year in the spring and fall with microbe broad-spectrum disease treatment and praziquintal(for flukes). We also recommend these treatments whenever a parasite or fluke has been identified. We also recommend these treatments for those uncomfortable with using a microscope as a broad spectrum treatment that will cover most parasites and worms. We carry both products. The reason we recommend these particular treatments is because they are very safe, will not harm your bio filter and will prevent your koi from getting secondary infections, such as ulcers, that are very common when coming out of winter when the parasites are present and the koi’s immune system is low. We recommend spring and fall because of the low water temperatures, which make the koi much more susceptible to parasites and worms. Once the water warms up to 70 and above, the koi’s immune system is pretty much fully activated. If you experience problems with your fish, we recommend you contact us asap for advice. We check all our fish regularly with the use of a microscope to insure you are getting healthy fish and treat them regularly.

Note: Please note that there are always parasites in the pond environment to some level. They usually only effect koi when there are high numbers of them in the pond or the koi are stressed for some reason(usually due to water quality). Remember the idea here is to keep the number of parasites low in the pond so that they never become an issue. One thing to keep in mind is that in the outdoors, even if you could kill all the parasites, the next day a bird could fly overhead and crap in your pond and leave behind a nice little present of parasites all over again. (Usually birds leave behind a parasite called trichodina).

Common Parasites: Some of the most common parasites that would do you well to research are:

Signs to look for:

Flashing(rubbing or turning sideways and flashing on the bottom indicate that something is irritating the fish)

Lethargy (acting sluggish)

Sitting on the bottom not moving

Tail rot, mouth rot, ulcers, missing fins etc

Sores

Floating on the top

Gasping for air

Red veins

Acclimation of Your Fish:

Basic Information:

Please note that this is just some basic information as I can not address every single issue here. In the near future, as I have time, I will be adding more information and specific steps for keeping your koi happy and healthy. In the meantime there is plenty of more information on the web regarding all these issues and even youtube videos if you would like to learn more in depth which I encourage you to do so. However if it is an emergency and you need help with your fish, if it is sick or dying, we can offer help over the phone. Please feel free to call us or text us. However please note that our time is limited and we do not make house calls for sick fish; but you can bring us your water and we will test it free of charge and offer you solutions to your problems. If you do not wish to tackle the problem on your own, you can still contact us and we will help get you into contact with the right people if you have really expensive koi and need to save them.

Contact us today:

Hilltop Koi

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