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View Full Version : Lets talk Costia.



Blammo
05-14-2004, 10:18 PM
Costia.... correctly Ichthyobodo
This is one of the nastiest little bugs on the planet.
It'll mop your whole pond in under one week !
One cutesy wootesy little WalTrashMart butterfly can take out 50 grand in Koi in 3-4 days !!!!! I've had the calls... lots of them.
So. What's this post about ?

People see flashing, milkiness looking fish, clamped fins, etc
What's the first step ?
Salt cause all the boobs say so and I read it some a books some vets wrote !!! Yipppeeeeee !
NONONONONONONON....NO!!!!!!!
Leave the dang salt in the cabinet for cooking. !
"Fluffy looks all milky"
Right Einstein
The Costia quadrupled the slime coat on the fish ! Now ya gotta get through that mess to get the meds to the bugzzz !!!
So put some salt in there so nothing will work !
But I read in " The Book" salt kills costia in 14 days...read the first paragraph again Dubya.

Costia divides by binary fission that means one becomes 2 about 1 million times an hour...Ok...close. No eggs, no babies, ready to attack and divide again.

The trick is to slap the heck out of it twice and close together.
You can get it once but its hot stuff.

You guys all use ProForm.... the most overpriced crap on the market next to Supaverm. I have no earthly idea why? It's the Shirley Temple of the liquor store but Ok, what the heck.

I use PP to eradicate Costia with a one hour dip. Never fails but I will NOT post the dose. It was given to me by a REAL Koi health expert...hint...he aint in the USA... and I have shared it with a VERY few that I know wont screw it up.

The last 2 cases I found I decided to attack with formalin Malachite at ProoForm$ dosages.
It didnt work. 15 ppm for 12 hours didnt even phase it.. the next day 25ppm set it back but they were all back in 24 hours with help !

Then I worked my way up to a professional level dose of
37%formalin with 15 grams Malachite to one gallon.
It's the same as a product called Quick cure.

I treated this batch of crappy Chineeze black Koi at 50 PPM for 1 hour, diluted it by 50% with a water change and let cook one more hour followed by a complete water changeout.
Later that afternoon I broke out the scope and found a little Costia around the anus...par for the course. I repeated the treatment that afternoon.
About ??? 4-5 days later the scope showed nothing on several fish.
Always check more than one fish.

I haven't done the math but that appears to be about a triple dose of ProForm R . It was successful on that Asian strain of Costia on a batch of about 35 fish of which 6-7 died before I began treatment.
2-3 died during tratment...too much gill damage.

Leave the salt in the cabinet until you positively know what you have.

Nitrites ? Sure. Use it.
Spawning injury ? Sure
Ulcers ? Only AFTER you eradicate the parasite

If you suspect Costia get to work quickly.
If you dont have some chemicals to get it killed ? buy them ...YESTERDAY

This one will get me in trouble with some other "experts"...those 5 fish warriors of Koiness. If you see milky skin and clamped fins and have no way Jose to get a scope or noone to run it for you.
Bomb the pond with your Proform. It's sure as hell better than salt, will definately whip Costia and Chilodonella and buy you a little time to get scope work done.
I 'll challenge most folks to even find costia in a scrape even, if it's loaded !

I've seen Costia kill several hundred Koi in the last year and the "bomb" would have been a better choice than their first move...you got it....salt.

"But so and so keeps .3% in his pond year round"
That's because he is a brainwashed idiot.

Somebody please post results and dosages of ProForm on CONFIRMED Costia cases...preferably asian (came in on chineeeezzzze fish) Maybe I'll quit bashing it...doubtful. The price is pure rape...plain and simple.


Hey . That was fun :D:D

Sarge
05-14-2004, 10:29 PM
Zzz, so what is the majic or right treatment??

email me at pamcash@charter.net :D

Tom C
05-15-2004, 12:11 AM
Blammo, you talked about PP dips for a hour. You have me wondering what level you dip them at. I do PP dips, but only for 2 1/2 minutes. The level is very high and I don't suggest this to anyone. I do them at 200ppm. As you can see this doesn't give you much room to mess up.

Here is a koi with a bad case of costia.

http://www.pondpetsusa.com/images/costia.jpg

http://www.pondpetsusa.com/images/costia2.jpg

As you can see the costia is sucking the life out of the koi.

Tom

Blammo
05-15-2004, 12:19 AM
Hey Tom
Toss me an email... Your address is on my office machine..
.......Doug

JgR
05-15-2004, 09:22 AM
Lost most of my pond to costia because didn't work as promised and neither did pp at 4 ppm. Knocked it back for a week but then floating fish in the morning. Not somethin I enjoy waking up to.

Blam, although the dips may be fine they are not for most of us. I include my self in this as I doubt I'd ever dip my fish in something as strong as you are talking about. Also won't the parasite still be in the pond????

Blammo
05-15-2004, 09:43 AM
Lost most of my pond to costia because didn't work as promised and neither did pp at 4 ppm. Knocked it back for a week but then floating fish in the morning. Not somethin I enjoy waking up to.

Blam, although the dips may be fine they are not for most of us. I include my self in this as I doubt I'd ever dip my fish in something as strong as you are talking about. Also won't the parasite still be in the pond???? So rather than a dip that works, the next time you get the problem(and you will), you'll repeat what already did NOT work and lose most of the fish again ???? Help me out here......

Still in the pond...Noop. Because while you are dipping in Q or Rubbermaid or ?
You can PP the pond and hit it hard and quick for ANYTHING that might be in there while you treat..
Costia flagella die within 1 hour without a host in the pond anyways. !-1/2 hours guaroooonteed.

A pond can also be(has to be if its huge) drained half way, or 3/4, treated with the F/MG at a high level and fire it up at the one hour point filling it up and flushing completely, or close enough, over the next 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
All systems are a treated little different due to volume of water and pump capabilities.

This is another reason a "proper" Koi pond is necesssary to be a long term KoiFanatic.

JgR
05-15-2004, 09:58 AM
Actullay Proform C worked very nicely for me at the recommended doseage.

So you are saying that I can take all my fish out and treat them and if I leave them out of the pond I don't have to treat the pond??? I can keep them out for 24 hours easily and will save a lot of money on meds.

Blammo
05-15-2004, 10:11 AM
Actullay Proform C worked very nicely for me at the recommended doseage.

So you are saying that I can take all my fish out and treat them and if I leave them out of the pond I don't have to treat the pond??? I can keep them out for 24 hours easily and will save a lot of money on meds. That would be Costia and Chilodonella that dies.
Trichodina can go a full day without a host so 36 hours would be good.
Once you get those "BIG THREE" terrorist whipped the rest of the bugs are easy..... well, at least you have time to get what you need for them.

PP at 20 PPM will kill everythting else..fluke eggs..Ichlets(swarmers)....etc...
Ichlets live 4-5 days without a host. Flukes too.

I highly recommend PP for the empty pond. Filtration off, of course, It's cheap and fast. At that level give it 3 hours, neutralize, and bring the filters back online.

Koimum
05-15-2004, 10:59 AM
Other than coming in on a newly introduced fish (host), how does costia get into an established pond? I have read a little about costia and it's very scary.

JoAnn

Blammo
05-15-2004, 12:15 PM
Its common on all water creatures. Frogs, tadpoles, turtles, even tiny mosquito fish.
Its one of the smallest parasites affecting us and is literally everywhere.

When those wortheless purple martins come back to the house after hitting the lake for water...he has some in his mouth ,then hits your pond and has it on him etc.
If the Koi is healthy, happy, and unstressed he can live with some around like every other aquatic creature.
When he gets hurt, stressed, transported etc is when the bug has a heyday and reproduces profusely. The young need a host to survive and they jump on everything. In nature an injured fish will get attacked and go off and die... the others are hours away so the vast majority of them die off before finding another host...a few find a frog....another little fish and then another sick/injured fish comes along and they cycle is repeated.
Not so in our little fish bowl atmospheres.
Its like roaches.
They're everywhere but when they have optimal conditions you'll get millions.
Aint it fun ! :(

That's why I took the time for this thread.
There is waaaaay too much disinformation about it and kazillions of pet fish are lost, due to that disinformation. I said pet fish.
The pro aquaculturist CAN NOT let it happen. It's their livelihood.

Know the signs, confirm the bug and DESTROY it ! Quick

I wish I had allot of the nice, nice, koi I've seen lost to stupidity..er...disinformation.....including some of my own !!!!

Koimum
05-15-2004, 12:24 PM
ZZZ, great explanation! Thank you for taking the time to explain it so well.

How does one scrape for costia? Near the gills? Or is this where a gill snip (horrors) would be needed?

JoAnn

Busy B
05-15-2004, 09:25 PM
To the Z Man....want to thank you for pointing out symptoms..I went to 4 fish stores in Anchortown last weekend and every koi had either ick or milky slime....They all had to stay there :( Unfortunately...today...I made the cardinal newbie sin and brought home 2 platinum's.....and a bottle of Quick Cure just in case...It's awful hard to find the med's here so it's nice to know what to ask the owner if he can get in his next shipment or shop online and plan ahead...thanks again!

Jeff R.
07-06-2004, 07:27 PM
Doug:
Are the hot doses of PP or ProForm utilized excluzivly for Chineeze Coztia or all Costia? Does the doze vary if the koi didn't come in from China but from Japan instead? Hope you can read this as I am not adept at spelling in your manner.
Regards,
Jeff R. :D

Blammo
07-06-2004, 08:23 PM
Doug:
Are the hot doses of PP or ProForm utilized excluzivly for Chineeze Coztia or all Costia? Does the doze vary if the koi didn't come in from China but from Japan instead? Hope you can read this as I am not adept at spelling in your manner.
Regards,
Jeff R. :D Well. Under the scope cotia is costia is costia... I don't take any chances.
NUKE IT.
It's such a devastating parasite we can't afford not to.
I'll go out on a limb and venture to say that a VERY large percentage of unconfirmed "KHV" was/is costia not responding to traditional treatments.

schildkoi
07-06-2004, 08:52 PM
I must say that I concur....if you change the verbaige from "undiagnosed" to "unconfirmed". Diagnosises can be wrong as we both know :) Heck, I know a certain PhD that told a woman that the syptoms she "described" was KHV and advocated her killing all her Koi and sterilizing her pond. This PhD holds himself out as an expert on KHV. The problem is that this "expert" was in fact WRONG and the case was ultimately diagnosed and CONFIRMED to be only costia! That person did have a little help in getting it set straight though :)

Until KHV is actually confirmed through proper testing, my recommendation is to act under the assumptiuon that the problem is most likely Costia and treat accordingly while they continue to attempt to isolate the parasite and/or send a specimin in for proper testing for KHV.

Steve

Noahsnana
05-27-2021, 08:18 PM
:gthread: