Help Needed Urgently! Dieing Fish!

[speedingorange]

Hello people, i urgently need some help!

Yesterday i noticed the fish in my pond where behaving strangely, the pond is about 2000 uk gal. Ive recently put a lot of work into this pond installing a new filter ( ive left the old filter alone and the water from the new filter runs through this for the biological effects)

water quality

ph. 7.2
nitrites and nitrates are fine ( i dont remember the readings but i checked them several times, as did my LFS)
and the hardness is perfect.

The pond has 6 LARGE koi about 1 to 1 1/2 foot in lenth and 3 ( did have 4 untill yesterday) large golden orf.

All the koi and carp are laying on the bottum of the pond in lines... like next to each other, the goldfish are all grouped together near the top of the pond amongst the plants. All the fish are also jumping out of the water, and rubbing there gills on solid objects.

None of the fish are swimming about like there normal behavier. However when food is introduced they will go for it.

Now yesterday i came home from getting some aquatic plants for the pond thinking it may be there where seeking shade laying on the bottum of the pond etc and also bought some interpet anti parasite thinking it was gill flukes, only to find our largest golden orf dead. I took him to the aquatic center to be told its Lymphocystis.

I was told to treat with the anti parasite and follow the guidlines. ive set up a 2nd venturi pipe as i know that this treatment can suffocate orf, tench, and sterlet ( i have all of these).

But after reading about the symptoms they dont fit !

Please help i need a 2nd opinion and some guidelines on what ells i can do?

 

[black angel]

How deep is the pond? Is it always in the sun and have you taken a temperature reading?
The scratching does sound like flukes but could also mean poor water quality. I know youve had your tests checked but could you tell us what you get for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?
If it was low oxygen then the fish would be swimming at the top.
Bottom sitting in most fish is due to bacterial problems usually.
Have you done any water changes and how long has the pond been going?

I think you need to give a full list of fish as you said you have a sterlet. How big is it and your pond may well be overstocked.

How many gallons does the filter do and is the pump a good size too?

Lymphocystis is a viral disease and any infected fish should be taken out the pond. It isnt life threatening in itself but does weaken the fish, and can cause secondary infections and tumours.

Clean water is the key

 

[speedingorange]

ok

Pond dimentions .

Average depth of 1.2 meters
lenth 4 meters
width 2.4 meters

areation was just 2 large waterfalls but have now added a venturi also

I will go do more water checks right now and record all the findings and post them here

full stock list

1 sterlet
2 mirror carp
5 koi ranging in size from 20cm to 1ft ft and 1/2
3 golden orf
and about 10 small goldfish ( bleeders keep breeding)

ive only added one fish recently and that was the sterlet.

think tahts it for fish

the pump im not sure the specs of it as my dad installed it and the pond is 18 years old and has had steady water conditions for that time.

the filter is aprox 1/4 the size of the pond.

and there is a good flow rate with the water being procesed through the filter quite frequently ( not surer of exact figues as there is no way to really test.

We havent changed anything of recent apart from clearing a lot of rotting material from the base of the pond about a month ago ( the pc was still 7.2 then) and also adding the filter as the water used to be dirty with a lot of silt floating about.

*runs off to take a water test*



reults.

ph 7.2
general hardnes 7°dH
nitrite <0mg/l ( most acurate reading on my test kit)
nitrate 10mg/l (as above)

Hope that helps... the booklet assures me that is all acceptable for a pond.

oh and water changes i did a 25% yesterday with interpet dechlorinator as we suspected a low ph when we went to the aquatic center... but it turns out i did not clean out the coke bottle well enough :doh

 

[speedingorange]

Just hit it with another bout of anti-paracite.

thats 2 days

3 more to go... and if the guy in the fish store was correct.... it should be gone...

he must have some idea he took a scraping from the fish and everything

 

[speedingorange]

Pics of the setup incase it helps



the new filter



The old filter



the fish



One of them laying on the bottum



this fish as you can see is in the same position on the other pics the rest where all laying with it but moved when they thought i had food.


Just incase there is a blatent problem with this fish that i have missed. He was also laying on the bottum but came to surface as it thught i had food.

 

[black angel]

Im really impressed with your pond as its exactly how I would like mine to look.

I think if the sterlet was introduced recently then he may be the cause of the flukes.
When the shop bloke took the skin scrape did he scope it in front of you and say what type of fluke?

Bottom sitting though to me is a bacterial problem so i suggest that you do another water change after the last parasite treatment.
As the new filter gets going it may well give you an ammonia and nitrite spike so keep an eye on that and really i think you need to take some of your fish out the pond.

 

[speedingorange]

Im really impressed with your pond as its exactly how I would like mine to look.

I think if the sterlet was introduced recently then he may be the cause of the flukes.
When the shop bloke took the skin scrape did he scope it in front of you and say what type of fluke?

Bottom sitting though to me is a bacterial problem so i suggest that you do another water change after the last parasite treatment.
As the new filter gets going it may well give you an ammonia and nitrite spike so keep an eye on that and really i think you need to take some of your fish out the pond.

take some out as they are ill? or take some out as its overstocked?

there is also another pond running off this fileter system but its not got anything in it so jsut really acts as yet another filter as it is full of floating plants.

right... so plod on with the treatment. Do a bit of a water change after the last one and cross my fingers etc.

the flukes may have even come in on the plants mayb?

i did look through all the tanks when i bought the sterlet to check for odd behavior etc as i know the centralised filter systems spread infections / viruses fast.

anything i can feed them that will help? i curently feed them on yamitsu kockney koi peaches and cream.
...
they get 1 hand full 3 times a day takes them about 3-3.5 mins to eat it all

thanks for the comments too i shal let my dad know he did a good job on building the pond.

you said the new filter may well give an amonia spike? how would this be when i have the old filter still running the same as it ever was...

When the shop bloke took the skin scrape did he scope it in front of you and say what type of fluke?

um he said it was something similar to white spot and showed me... but to be quite honest i couldent see what he was telling me to look for ...

and then said the treatment i am using should do the trick

 

[black angel]

You need to take some out as its overstocked, even with a great filter system the fish are constantly growing and making more demand on it.
The new filter may well spike as it is starting its own bacterial colony.

Yes, the plants could have brought a parasite in if less than 6 weeks in your system.

I have never heard of the type of food you are feeding but i reckon they could do with something else in the diet. Koi and goldies love to eat orange, so chuck in a half orange to give them extra vitamin c. Garlic in the food gets through to the skin and parasites hate it, so see if you can find some mediflake from dorsetdiscus.com i think it is but get the pellets.

You can feed them most fruit and veg but give sweet fruit as a treat as it can upset the digestion.

As for something like whitespot then he must be talking about a cilliated parasite which isnt a fluke. I cant think of anything other than whitespot and velvet but the fish dont have that unless its at the beginning of the disease, as whitespot can cause fish to flick and scratch before showing signs of the spots.

What is the name of the med and is it blue or green? Do you have uv in your filter?

 

[speedingorange]

Thanks again for the reply as you probly noticed io made a double post this morning... the paralel thread to this has had some " developements" lol

um the food is aparently very good and is stocked EVERYwhere round here... will get a linkypoo

http/www.kockneykoi.co.uk/productpages/kkfoods.htm

the peaches and cream off there...

btw the other thead is here

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...8&#entry1236348

i will bear the overstocking in mind and may get shot of some of the goldfish as i am not a fan

 

[black angel]

Just read the other thread and i am not a fan of mixing meds though others do it.

Once you have finished the course let us know how its going.

 

[speedingorange]

Just read the other thread and i am not a fan of mixing meds though others do it.

Once you have finished the course let us know how its going.

dont worry i will be keeping you all updated