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  • Results 1 to 14 of 14

    Thread: Help please. Pure Neglect :(

    1. #1
      Sdspears is offline Junior Member
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      Help please. Pure Neglect :(

      HELP!!

      Backstory...

      We have an 10,000+ gallon, over 15 year old water garden with koi that we built and dug by hand with info learned in this forum.
      Last 4-5 years the house sat empty 90% of the time, due to my child hospitalized out of state with several open heart surgeries, then caring for father in another state and husband works out of state. Regardless of our reasons, sadly our pond was left unattended and 100% pure neglect due to life circumstances. Haven't been in this group in about 7 years. Couldn't access my account and started new one.

      Now that we are back here living we saw a heron coming a few times but I hadn't seen fish in a long time. Caught a raccoon on our camera's. Caught a 4' plus water snake on pond edge. We assumed neglect and predators wiped us out.

      So we decided to get in and bring it back to life, add a net, extra filtration, new pumps, clean up plants, muck and eventually add koi this year.Even added hotwire and a new deck prepping for a beautiful summer.
      No bottom drain. One of those... wish we would of..... after the fact.
      (have a couple koi given to us in a QT tank. But they are not the problem).

      After most of a day inside the pond... "mucking" the bottom with muck net (poo, leaves, sticks etc), trimming lilies that completely took over and created island, adding two 12" round aerators, bio bead filter, new uv, cleaned out bog and also have savio skimmer with mats....we spotted fish. SHOCKED!!

      We decided to stop stirring things up any further, let it settle, then finish mucking later with Oase vacuum from outside instead of inside with muck net. It was almost clean at this point anyway. I was worried we just stirred up way too much crap (parasites? bacteria? etc ... believing we didn't have fish)

      It cleared up pretty quickly and found koi and comets still alive. None of our original, but clearly fish had survived and spawned SOMEHOW???

      We did not drain it as we thought if we mucked it by hand, then let filter, it would regain life/cycle quicker than 100% starting over with city water.
      If I knew we had fish, I would of went the drain, net and clean route.

      We've had severe thunderstorms and now it's not clear again but spotted 2 fish with white marks visible to eye. Looked too big for ich. Visually looked "fuzzy"
      and pimple size, lead me down fungus/bacteria ?? Moving so quickly, water movement and sun glare can't get a good look.

      One other is flashing up out of water (but no white marks) taking me down the poor water quality and/or parasites route.

      All our equipment has been weathered and aged sitting outside in 0-100 degree temps over the years. Trashed it all. Not even thinking we had fish alive.

      I've ordered fresh PreForm-C, Prazi, Prime, XL net and test kit. Should all be here Wednesday. Crossing fingers.

      I do not have a scope. Have never used one. Never even needed one (until you do).

      And being a "water garden" hard to get any fish caught. It's odd shape, lots of caves and tons of plant pots.

      At this point, afraid to get in and stir up anything more and not even help catch them. Want to be slow and carefully vacuum rest of muck. After we figure other things out maybe use one of the "muck products" to help after very good vacuum..

      Anyway.... I got the best photo I could of one of the fish with "white marks".

      In photo they looks NOTHING like what I thought I saw looking into the pond. I "thought" it was fuzzy pimple (in size). Photo shows irregular shape.

      When bigger net gets here this week I will attempt to catch fish but not confident.
      Then, I don't have a scope (husband is looking online right now but doesn't help us TODAY) live in the boonies far from any pond experts.

      Hate to shotgun my pond with chemicals. But am about to that point if I can't catch them.

      Kills me to use best (un)educated guess to treat and start doing water changes when order gets here this week. But here I am.

      And the story always goes.... what would you do????
      What does it look like in the photo?

      I have my suspicions that have changed in the last 24 hours but.... I'm here being "one of THOSE people" asking arm chair experts to make (uneducated) guesses without being scoped
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    2. #2
      icu2's Avatar
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      Welcome back! Wow, what a story... so sorry for all you've gone through.

      Uneducated guess... I wonder about anchor worms? They are one of the few parasites that
      are visible without a scope and just looking at the pic, the white things remind me of them.

      Do you remember your username or a portion of it? I can combine your old account if we can
      find it.

      Glad to have you back with us!
      --Steve



      Koiphen 2021 Koi Person of the Year!

    3. #3
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      I don't remember my old user name and not even sure what email I had back then Not that I was much of a poster. I'm a quiet reader to sit back and learn.

      I've never seen an anchor worm "in person". But is one I'm sure I could ID if I can catch one of the fish with visible signs and remove it. Even then, I thought if I ever had anchor worms I'd see a "tail". I don't know. That's why I'm back here.

      Before "life happened" we had 10 years of pure bliss and good pond luck. Keeping things clean and occasional water test kept me 100% disease/infection free.
      I've never had to DX anything with our fish. I've never had to treat anything (except dechlor). But always watched, read and learned over the years in this group.

      I still swear the spots are like a fuzzy pimple. This photo I caught has me thinking I need new glasses.
      I'm going to try and see if I can get a photo of the other fish. Maybe I'm dealing with 2 things.

    4. #4
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      UPDATE with additional photos:

      Was taking a photo of the 2nd fish with white spots on it to get another view and see if I have 2 issues or the same on both fish.

      Again, once I take a photo, doesn't look like a round fuzzy pimple in photos like it does in person.
      I was taking the photo to see it's side shot (picture with arrows).
      But when taking photos, I see something near it's head as well.

      With these two photos..... what is the "guess" since I still couldn't net either tonight.
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    5. #5
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      WOW, Sorry to hear what you have gone through and welcome back.

      Could it also be Koi Carp Pox? I can't really tell from the pictures, I have bad eyesight.
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    6. #6
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      I’ve never even had to deal with carp pox but these seem to have structured lines in my poor zoomed photos I just don’t know.

      The water is clearing up so I can see better but more storms coming through.

      Drove an hour to pet store for dechlor while I wait for my Prime to get here tomorrow.
      Doing a water change now.

      Sitting here not know what to do and so unsure what this is. Like a mom sitting in an ER room


      Quote Originally Posted by EmeraldDragon View Post
      WOW, Sorry to hear what you have gone through and welcome back.

      Could it also be Koi Carp Pox? I can't really tell from the pictures, I have bad eyesight.

    7. #7
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      Just enjoy the pond and watch over the Koi. Seeing how they progress. Check the water, do water change as needed. The Koi will get well soon.

      Oh yea! Post lot of pictures...
      -=[Sunny]=-
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    8. #8
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      Easier said than done. I’m a mother hen and want to figure out what’s wrong and fix it before it spreads!!! I’ve never had any fish “issues” and worried it’s something that could wipe them out if not caught and treated quick enough.

      I dropped a 39” shrimp net in. Let’s see how this goes at catching the ones Witt marks on them.
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    9. #9
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      I don't know if the Proform C will be needed, but you will need to know actual volume of the pond for the dosing, to be sure to get enough and not so much that it kills the fish. I would recommend getting a salt meter or TDS meter, and use the calculator at the top of the page https://www.koiphen.com/forums/koicalcs.php?do=calcsalt and getting an initial reading before adding any salt, add a 40 pound bag of water softener salt, available from Lowes or HD or similar, and allow for complete dissolution and get a second reading. The difference in salinity with the known weight of salt will give you a volume. This amount of salt in 10000 gallons should only change the salinity by about .05% which is easily tolerated by the plants.
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    10. #10
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      Just got home and my husband said he saw one of the “black fish with something white sticking straight out from its side”.

      I guess we are looking at anchor worms. The only thing I didn’t order to treat 😳

      Which product do you all recommend? Dimilin-x? Microbelift’s? Or ??

      Nothing local, I have to order tonight.
      Will continue with water changes

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    11. #11
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      Since it is full of plants I can’t salt, correct???

    12. #12
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      No. Few plants are harmed with that level of salt. https://koiorganisationinternational...salt-tolerance shows very few plants that are susceptible to 0.1% and I am trying to keep the salinity at half of that. Because of the water changes associated with the Proform C or BSDT, the salinity will be diluted down significantly in relatively short time, whereas the study that went with the chart above was using 2 weeks treatment.
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    13. #13
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      Update.
      All (medicated) products have come in so at least I have it on hand if ever needed.

      Water parameters are good.

      Finally able to catch the couple fish in question and just seems to be missing scales, spawning or ?? (No microscope so didn’t scrape)

      I have seen ZERO anchor worms like my husband thought.

      In the last week I saw one fish flash a few times. Hasn’t since and is showing no other stress.

      So…. Been testing water. Doing a few winter changes with prime. And watching closely.

      Did catch a large snapping turtle in my pond. Did a video of the “life” on his shell…. (Doesn’t look like I can attach a video using Tapatalk)


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    14. #14
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      Koiphen can't host the video but if you upload it to YouTube or Vimeo you can share it
      with a link. But you can't embed it with Tapatalk. Iirc you can't view embedded videos
      either using Tapatalk but I try and remember to include a link as well when embedding.
      --Steve



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