Rich, what would be the timing of adding a product like Koizyme? Would be added based on the water temperature crossing a certain threshold?
Rich, what would be the timing of adding a product like Koizyme? Would be added based on the water temperature crossing a certain threshold?
As i remember, the directions were to double dose starting at 50, then drop to single dose at 60, and go to every other week at 70. But yes, the directions stated to start at 50F.
Zone 7 A/B
Keep your words sweet. You never know when you may have to eat them.
Richard
RichToyBox,
Yes, I am on-board with that idea and am currently trying to source some in Canada. We may see a couple days of only "slightly below freezing" here, and if so that would be a chance to add that in.
OP, I posted a link a couple of weeks ago on this thread. You can get AquaMedzyme from Webbs. It comes in dry powder form. If you can't get it from them, pls. p.m. me. I have the manufacturer's contact info and maybe he will send you a small pkg. Doesn't need refrigeration. You just have to keep the product dry.
all the best,
Ki Shusui Project : 300k Challenge : 500k Build : Flock Spawn Jamboree : Our Ki Midori Champions
Ten minute video of Russ Peters sexing our future ki shusui oyagoi. : http://youtu.be/AhROs1cjC18
Updated for the 2018 Harvest: What is "ki shusui?" Short version http://www.kishusui.com
Twelve seconds that are the entire point of the last seven years!
https://youtu.be/zNqTJgM3lpY
If you're reading this, you're on Team Ki.
Kichi loves company. Max
K-POTY 2014
My father and uncle raised game fish when I was growing up. For something like this the tank and equipment would be throughly cleaned and disenfected and then a cooling off (QUARANTINE) period for the setup before fish were introduced again. The conditions as reported so far seem to be more dire and intense than what most people report.
Perhaps when the weather improves enough an Intex pool could be setup, the remaining fish aggressively treated and the pond and equipment disenfected?
This is a sad thing to say but if this was a commercial operation all of the fish would have been euthanized and everything disenfected.
Perhaps your local vet can set you up with free or low cost services from a university associated with your Dept of Agriculture?
Last edited by BWG; 01-06-2018 at 02:00 PM.
re BWG's comments:
I wondered about that idea as well. Would it work to put the fish in an Intex, PP the pond to a very high level for 6-12 hours and then (after neutralizing) return the fish?
Or maybe even better would be something like Virkon Aquatic:
https://www.koiphen.com/forums/showth...Virkon-Aquatic
PM me if you decide to go this route.
I have given a 3ppm PP treatment 3 or 4 times over the Summer, and it seemed to have no effect on the bacteria, BUT, my suspicion is that the bacteria is internal to the fish since it seems to liquify organs with minimal trace of outside damage. So, moving the fish to a temporary pond would move the bacteria along with them. This does not seem to be a run-of-the-mill bacteria, unfortunately.
You should send a sick koi to a lab were they can determine what you have.
Found the chewy cipro instructions. Add 1 tablet (500 mg) into aquarium for every 2 gallons of water in the hospital tank for a 1-hour immersion bath. Add crushed tablet to some water, then add this suspension to the hospital tank. Repeat in 24 hours. Continue treatment for 5-7 days with daily water changes after each treatment.
Guess this means no distilled water.
Sorry when my fish get sick, I get stupid.
Chewy.com is amazing. Ordered yesterday and its here today
My big Ginrin Bekko died today... With a small break in the cold I peeked inside to see her swimming, and she saw me and headed towards me for food but due to internal swelling was unable to use her left pectoral and the current of the pond sent her tumbling. I knew she had just hours to live and when I returned later that day she was deceased. Same pattern as all the rest - minimal outward signs of trouble, then with 72 hours to go the symptoms show up and it is too late to do anything.
This Bekko I actually gave a combo of Dexamethasone and Ceftriaxone 48 hours prior. She had perked right up, which is to be expected given that Dexamethasone is a steroid. However, I believe her kidneys were already shot by that point, meaning she had no chance. I knew when injecting her that it was probably too late - her mouth had suddenly swollen up so badly that she looked like a kid with a severe peanut allergy who had just ingested a whole Snickers bar. An unreal progression for a fish who looked totally normal just 24-48 hours before.
I should note here, for anyone reading in the future and in a similar situation, that for fish in this situation, Dexamethasone is advised to be given at the same time as Ceftriaxone because the latter has a risk of aggravating internal bleeding/hemorrhaging. In addition, Dexamethasone will perk the fish up for a short period of time and get their systems running to full capacity while other antibiotics fight the bacteria. Dexamethasone doesn't do anything other than that though, so it's not going to be effective by itself.
In the interim I also dosed my very favourite fish, my Asagi. He has developed some swelling in his abdomen indicating a kidney inefficiency. I have my fingers crossed.
Today I also saw my Golden Ginrin Chagoi with a small sore in her mouth. I pulled her out and she has mild red staining in her tail meaning she is affected too. This confirms what I've feared and what we all seem to suspect - this is a pond-wide Mycobacteria assault! I gave her the last dose of Ceftriaxone that I had, despite heavily suspecting other koi in the pond are also affected. And this bacteria is the stuff of nightmares; it kills with exceptional efficiency. I'm pretty sure it's a superbug from the two Jumbo Tosai I purchased from a local dealer which he brought in from Japan. I suspect this because those two fish are totally fine - not a mark on them, which might make them a carrier.
In the past days I have tried nearly every vet/medical supply/other asking for help and I always get the same excuses. "We don't treat fish," or "We don't dispense even if you're sure what you're dealing with", or "Why don't you try somewhere else?". I was thoroughly dejected at the minimal care and interest the situation was being shown - these antibiotics are so closely guarded in Canada that acquiring them is nearly impossible.
Finally, as a last-ditch effort I attended a local vet and brought pictures of my dying fish... and the vet agreed to prescribe Ceftriaxone for them, provided I sign a waiver and administer it myself. This person agrees that it certainly does look like a bacterial attack, and so I was allowed to place an order for 10 vials of Ceftriaxone. The trouble is that it will take 72 hours to arrive, and the weather is set to go to -10 again very soon, so it's a race against the clock because I cannot treat when it is that cold. It's even a small miracle that I can catch them because the greenhouse frame over the pond means I can only move the net around in small areas at a time before having to withdraw the whole thing and moving it over the next wooden crosser. A great greenhouse except when it comes to catching koi. On the other hand, with no greenhouse and a frozen-over pond I would have come back in the Spring to find all the koi dead.
The plan now is to administer 2 full doses of Ceftriaxone starting "as soon as weather permits" with the final shot occuring 5-7 days later or "as soon as weather permits". But I'm stuck waiting for this medication and then racing the weather, so this is turning into a high-stakes game where the wager is the rest of my koi.
I've never seen Mycobacteria in action before, but folks, this is one bacteria that you definitely don't want in your pond. I am already approaching losses of 50% and I think it's going to rise some more. Whether I have the heart to keep koi any more is a question I have yet to answer.
Last edited by pond happy; 01-29-2018 at 09:50 PM.
My heart goes out to you my friend wish I could help.
So so sorry. thank you for posting this heartbreak. i hope you can beat the machine.
Ki Shusui Project : 300k Challenge : 500k Build : Flock Spawn Jamboree : Our Ki Midori Champions
Ten minute video of Russ Peters sexing our future ki shusui oyagoi. : http://youtu.be/AhROs1cjC18
Updated for the 2018 Harvest: What is "ki shusui?" Short version http://www.kishusui.com
Twelve seconds that are the entire point of the last seven years!
https://youtu.be/zNqTJgM3lpY
If you're reading this, you're on Team Ki.
Kichi loves company. Max
K-POTY 2014
Your vet could tell you were to send samples. No it is not at the top. TB in koi is very rare. You do not know what the organs look like as you well not take a look. But would imagine they are in bad shape. Ceftriaxone treats aeromonas, pseudomonas bacteria. This is a good start but I have never used it. It would not treat TB that I have found. TB might not even be treatable in koi.?
Yes, the koi book I read said [paraphrasing]: "Your Koi have TB? Have fun picking out new fish next year."
All vets I spoke to had no idea where to send samples. Only one university will even talk to me, and by "talk" I mean I haven't received a "sorry, can't help" back from them yet. At this point, I am on my own, it seems. For that reason, and based on the very efficient killing nature of the bacteria, the number of treatments I've already provided which have done nothing/little, and the way the fish are dropping one-by-one instead of all at once, I am forced to believe it is an internal bacteria of an aggressive nature which moves on from host to host through direct contact with infected koi rather than particularly waterborne. All of these would describe Mycobacteria from what I have read, but even if it is not, it's some form of aggressive bacteria, which is why I'm casting a big of net as possible with Ceftriaxone.
Last edited by pond happy; 01-30-2018 at 12:55 AM.
Unfortunately yesterday ended up being too cold to risk taking my koi out for injections. However, today I found a 3.5 hour window where temps were above freezing. I had to act because the next two weeks look to be all -10C (14F) or worse.
One-by-one I reached through the greenhouse zipper and removed the koi. Anyone showing any mouth sores/leisons or ulcers went into a prepared Oxolinic Acid Bath for 10-15 minutes before being moved into Clove Oil Water for sedation and injection of Ceftriaxone. Any fish not showing lesions/ulcers, just went straight into sedation and injection before being returned to the pond.
Most of the fish are showing signs of bacterial attack, though fortunately some are just subtle. The subtle ones are usually mild red blood staining in the extreme lower edge of the tail - no way in the world to spot it except to have the fish bowled. Two chagoi are showing lesions in their mouth, though not horrible just yet.
My Ogon looks spectacular, but this was just an illusion because just in front of her vent I found an ulcer:
Note that the angle of the picture makes it seem like this is the vent, but it is actually just in front of it.
For this fish I bathed her in the Oxolinic Acid bath for as long as possible in order to help kill bacteria in the wound. Once injected I had to return her to the pond very quickly since her breathing was going quite shallow and temperatures in the bowl were dropping dramatically with the windy day. I did not want to kill her with temperature shock, but I wish I had more time to clean the wound a bit more. Still, here's hoping the Acid Bath will slow that bacteria down while the injection does its work.
My Golden Chagoi was dosed again, though she is looking a bit chubby and has a lesion in her mouth. She is otherwise quite cheerful and fought the sedation for quite a while. I hope she's just a chubby type and not getting dropsy.
My Asagi was up for his second dose in three days and his swelling in the abdomen seems slightly better. I gave him another full dose of Ceftriaxone and a little bit more Dexamethasone (steroid) to see if I can help him flush that fluid out of his system.
Despite working alone and forced to reach into a greenhouse through a zipper to catch koi, I managed to catch, acid bath, and inject 8 out of my 10 remaining koi. After that I noted the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and water left in the bowl between fish was freezing inside 60 seconds, and so I called a halt there. The two fish that did not get injected were the Showa which my friend helped to save about 2 months ago (2 rounds of Ceftriaxone at that time) and a very messy little Kohaku who, as you all know, will certainly be the most durable fish that I own because he's worth about $20 (plucky little guy though, so hard not to like him).
Now I have to wait for 2 weeks until the weather improves. -10C is just too dangerous to start bowling fish, and so I hope the antibiotics do the trick.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ____
Other notes:
i) One of those two Jumbo Tosai that I suspect may have imported the bacteria now shows mild signs of bacteria, with minimal blood in the lower tail. He was given antibiotics as well as his sibling who shows no symptoms at all.
ii) I thought I nearly lost my big red chagoi to sedation. With the weather sinking nearly 6 degrees celsius in just 20 minutes, the cold water and sedation put her way under really fast. I rushed the injection and then ran her back to the pond, but her breathing was very, very shallow. Holding her carefully I pushed her back and forth through the water for over 15 minutes before it was clear she was waking up. The water was so cold on my hands that I think the whole neighbourhood considers me to be a potty-mouth now. Oh well, she's swimming happily now so it was worth it.
Last edited by pond happy; 02-01-2018 at 05:53 PM.