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