adding new Koi

I visited a Koi show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this past Saturday.
I added three fish to a happy pond. Bought two and he gave one for free.
The largest of the new guys was dead on Tuesday morning and another is
scratching at the bottom.
The third seems to be getting along. The vender says to add 2# rock salt/100
gallons of pond. I'm concerned
weather I just contaninated my clean pond environment.

Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(

Quarantine sucks but it's the only way to keep everything safe. 2#
isn't enough (won't kill anything), you need 4#, Use non-iodized,
mineral-free salt only. Dosage is 4 lbs. of salt per 100 gallons of
water add the dose over a day or two. Needs to be left in for at least
21 days. Followed by 50% water change.

Be sure to remove the plants before salting It's best if you can get a
look at what they've got under a microscope.

good luck


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:12:32 GMT, "bk" wrote:

I visited a Koi show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this past Saturday.
I added three fish to a happy pond. Bought two and he gave one for free.
The largest of the new guys was dead on Tuesday morning and another is
scratching at the bottom.
The third seems to be getting along. The vender says to add 2# rock salt/100
gallons of pond. I'm concerned
weather I just contaninated my clean pond environment.

#&$% !!!
Where do I get this salt?
It certainly sounds like a ton of salt for my little pond.
1200 gallons at 4/100 is 48 pounds. Man I never expected to have more slat
ware tanks.

Quarantine:
Should I be removing the rest of the fish or just the sick ones.
How big of a contanter can they survive in during the process?
How long is teh qurantine process.

This does suck. Three years and never the slightest problem.
"DesertPond" wrote in message
...
Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(

Quarantine sucks but it's the only way to keep everything safe. 2#
isn't enough (won't kill anything), you need 4#, Use non-iodized,
mineral-free salt only. Dosage is 4 lbs. of salt per 100 gallons of
water add the dose over a day or two. Needs to be left in for at least
21 days. Followed by 50% water change.

Be sure to remove the plants before salting It's best if you can get a
look at what they've got under a microscope.

good luck


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:12:32 GMT, "bk" wrote:

I visited a Koi show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this past Saturday.
I added three fish to a happy pond. Bought two and he gave one for free.
The largest of the new guys was dead on Tuesday morning and another is
scratching at the bottom.
The third seems to be getting along. The vender says to add 2# rock
salt/100
gallons of pond. I'm concerned
weather I just contaninated my clean pond environment.

Get the salt at Home Depot or Lowes. The plain 99% pure water softener
salt, not the one with corrosion inhibitors or whatever. It comes in a 40
pound bag and is just a few dollars. For your size pond, I would use one
bag, split over two or three doses. Flashing generally means flukes and
salt is only effective with flukes about 1/3 of the time. Better would be
Praziquantel, or SupaVerm. Both of these are specific to the flat worms, of
which the flukes are one of.

The quarantine should have been performed for the new fish before they were
introduced to the existing pond and fish. Typical quarantine time is 3 to 6
weeks, and the quarantine facility has to have very good filtration, or the
fish will not survive. Water quality testing is imperative.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"bk" wrote in message
link.net...
#&$% !!!
Where do I get this salt?
It certainly sounds like a ton of salt for my little pond.
1200 gallons at 4/100 is 48 pounds. Man I never expected to have more slat
ware tanks.

Quarantine:
Should I be removing the rest of the fish or just the sick ones.
How big of a contanter can they survive in during the process?
How long is teh qurantine process.

This does suck. Three years and never the slightest problem.
"DesertPond" wrote in message
...
Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(

Quarantine sucks but it's the only way to keep everything safe. 2#
isn't enough (won't kill anything), you need 4#, Use non-iodized,
mineral-free salt only. Dosage is 4 lbs. of salt per 100 gallons of
water add the dose over a day or two. Needs to be left in for at least
21 days. Followed by 50% water change.

Be sure to remove the plants before salting It's best if you can get a
look at what they've got under a microscope.

good luck


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:12:32 GMT, "bk" wrote:

I visited a Koi show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this past Saturday.
I added three fish to a happy pond. Bought two and he gave one for
free.
The largest of the new guys was dead on Tuesday morning and another is
scratching at the bottom.
The third seems to be getting along. The vender says to add 2# rock
salt/100
gallons of pond. I'm concerned
weather I just contaninated my clean pond environment.

How large of a quarentine setup is required?
I've gone a limited yard. I couldn't do more thatn say a 20 gallon platic
tub or tank.
I assume water for quarantine should be from the pond?
"RichToyBox" wrote in message
news:APZPb.103559$5V2.387246@attbi_s53...
Get the salt at Home Depot or Lowes. The plain 99% pure water softener
salt, not the one with corrosion inhibitors or whatever. It comes in a 40
pound bag and is just a few dollars. For your size pond, I would use one
bag, split over two or three doses. Flashing generally means flukes and
salt is only effective with flukes about 1/3 of the time. Better would be
Praziquantel, or SupaVerm. Both of these are specific to the flat worms,
of
which the flukes are one of.

The quarantine should have been performed for the new fish before they
were
introduced to the existing pond and fish. Typical quarantine time is 3 to
6
weeks, and the quarantine facility has to have very good filtration, or
the
fish will not survive. Water quality testing is imperative.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"bk" wrote in message
link.net...
#&$% !!!
Where do I get this salt?
It certainly sounds like a ton of salt for my little pond.
1200 gallons at 4/100 is 48 pounds. Man I never expected to have more
slat
ware tanks.

Quarantine:
Should I be removing the rest of the fish or just the sick ones.
How big of a contanter can they survive in during the process?
How long is teh qurantine process.

This does suck. Three years and never the slightest problem.
"DesertPond" wrote in message
...
Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(

Quarantine sucks but it's the only way to keep everything safe. 2#
isn't enough (won't kill anything), you need 4#, Use non-iodized,
mineral-free salt only. Dosage is 4 lbs. of salt per 100 gallons of
water add the dose over a day or two. Needs to be left in for at least
21 days. Followed by 50% water change.

Be sure to remove the plants before salting It's best if you can get a
look at what they've got under a microscope.

good luck


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:12:32 GMT, "bk" wrote:

I visited a Koi show at Fairchild Tropical Garden this past Saturday.
I added three fish to a happy pond. Bought two and he gave one for
free.
The largest of the new guys was dead on Tuesday morning and another
is
scratching at the bottom.
The third seems to be getting along. The vender says to add 2# rock
salt/100
gallons of pond. I'm concerned
weather I just contaninated my clean pond environment.

Hi bk, I'm a certified KHA (Koi Health Advisor) thru the AKCA www.akca.org
just to give you some back ground on where my advice is coming from.

Sorry about your "slap in the face" submersion to koi keeping. This is the
article you should read regarding the why's and how's to quarantining:
http://www.koivet.com/html/articles/...t%20 Articles

That said, what to do now?

The koi that died may have died from shock. Since you didn't know to
quarantine, you probably didn't know that sudden changes in pH &
temperature could kill a fish. Or that taking a bagged fish, and letting
the bag sit in the pond, to adjust to the temp, isn't good enough, perhaps
you added pond water to the bag? This can be deadly if the fish was bagged
for longer than 30-60 minutes. So if the fish was weak to begin with.....
As far as the flashing fish, it could be flashing due to the different
water, though I bet it does have something on it.

Regarding salt, Morton's 99.9% water softener salt is fine. This is to be
added slowly, and not to your filter, or skimmer where it feeds direct into
the filter. The killing ratio with salt is measured in % not pounds,
usually, but not always, 0.3% will kill most things, but 0.1% will
sometimes help the fish fight off the problem on it's own. The measurement
is 13oz salt to every 100 gallons of water. Do you know exactly how many
gallons you have? This is important when dealing with medications. Most
people, me included, have over estimated their gallons using the DXWXLX7.48
= gallons method. Click2Roark.com has a calculator to help one figure out
gallons by using salt. So this might be a good time to check for sure.

If you decide to use salt divide the maximum amount up by 3 to 5 and add
over that many days. Otherwise you'll affect your filter and have water
quality problems besides fish health problems, and water quality is far
more important than a few parasites on a fish. That's not to say what you
did was okay, as there are worst things out there than parasites. ~ jan

See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:09:34 GMT, "bk" wrote:

How large of a quarentine setup is required?
I've gone a limited yard. I couldn't do more thatn say a 20 gallon platic
tub or tank.
I assume water for quarantine should be from the pond?

bk wrote:

Where do I get this salt?

Try the hardware stores, maybe the bulk foods outlets, places that
sell to commercial fishermen. 50# bags of salt should run less than
$10/bag.

Coarse salt is used on roads, sometimes. It's cheap, but messes up
cars and roadside vegetation. Fine is generally used in food processing.

The coarse salt is slower to dissolve, but is "better behaved" in that
the grains are less likely to float out into areas where you don't
want grains of salt. I'd put it in a mesh bag and hang it in front of
the water flow into the pool. The fine salt should be disolved in a
bucket, a bit at a time, allowed to settle, then the brine poured into
the pond. That's a lot of fussing around.

Dumping the salt straight in could result in a fresh water layer on
the surface and a potentually lethal concentration of brine near the
bottem. Even broadcasting fine salt over the surface seems a bit
risky, especially in cold water. Coarse salt would be worse.

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:05:38 -0900, Offbreed
wrote:

Try the hardware stores, maybe the bulk foods outlets, places that
sell to commercial fishermen. 50# bags of salt should run less than
$10/bag.

Try the water softener section of Lowe's for about $4 a 40lb bag.

Regards,

Hal

"DesertPond" wrote in message
...
Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(
snip

My 2 cents...You added three fish. One died, the others are fine, and your
pond is fine, or appears to be. Something in my guy says treating the whole
pond for one dead fish is too preemtive.

BV.
www.iheartmypond.com

Thanks,
From these posts I may have taken some poor advise and steps.
In an effort to save the remaining fish I ran out last night to a local fish
retailer. He sold me $50
worth of stuff. Two containers of Aquarium salt each about the size of a
half gallon. Also a water conditioner
powder that was to help the ph. 5 containers of that, each was good for 250
gallons. I did as they told me and poured it
all in at one time. Some salt was on the pond bottom last night, but I
didn't notice this morning.
I'm hoping that I didn't worsen a bad situation. I'll return home in a
couple hours to see how things are.

The store found my ph a little high, but he said not too high.. They thought
our coral rock waterfall and
back wall of the pond could cause that. He said plenty of Koi live like that
here (Miami).

All that said. I have had my share of salt water tanks over the years. When
ever I bought or caught
fish, I would give them freshwater dips and quarantine for a few days. My
Koi and Goldfish are tough as nails.
This is the first time we've had any problem.


"BenignVanilla" wrote in message
...

"DesertPond" wrote in message
...
Yep, the ponds been nailed :-(
snip

My 2 cents...You added three fish. One died, the others are fine, and your
pond is fine, or appears to be. Something in my guy says treating the
whole
pond for one dead fish is too preemtive.

BV.
www.iheartmypond.com