Slime Disease - Bit Of Advice Please.

[Jaymz]

Ok seems our Pond's got Slime Disease parasites in it - fish have been lethargic, not eating, flicking/rubbing against stuff and one's passed on. Seems to have set in pretty quickly as a couple of days ago they were splendid and suddenly they're all velvety and have ragged fins. We started a five-day course with Blagdon Anti-Parasite today but was wondering if I could chase some advice up.

We had a breeding last year which left us with about thirty/forty Shubunkins, and in all the ten years we've had the pond this is the first disease we've had. Could the fact these Shubs are maturing and therefore raising the stock levels be the cause of the outbreak? Degrading water quality or something? Would it be an idea to sell some of these on after the disease has cleared up? (Fingers crossed) Also is there anything can be done to assist the medication or is it as good as it can be on its own?

 

[black angel]

If youre really sure you have slime disease then treatment will be with formalin and malachite... water degradation is usally the main cause and if an injured fish gets it it can then spread on to others...noticed clamped fins and shimmying?
chilodonella is the parasite responsible and is worse than ick...making the fish really weak before anything is seen by the eye...

once you have done the treatment and i suggest upping air into the pond and no charcoal..that you completely drain the pond...sell the surplus stock and clean out the pond as best you can.


how many gallons is your pond and how many fish and rough sizes...as a general guide you want around 100 gallons per adult goldfish and 250 per 2 foot koi. do you test the water at all? and you need to make sure its filtered at least once an hour total water volume....of course the more experienced you get away with in balancing fish and filtration.

do you do water changes at all?

 

[saph.st24]

yeap sounds like over load of the filters and waterquality has dropped
what temperature is your pond at the cooler the water the less effect the medications have so you may need to retreat with another course of meds,
as black angel has said remove carbon from your filters,add extra air,sell/ rehome some of your fish.
you could also upgrade your filter system so you wont have this problem in the future.

 

[Jaymz]

We don't have any charcoal in the filter anyway, so that's not an issue. I noticed the fish were hiding, not eating, ragged/clamped fins, flicking/rubbing against things yes, so as soon as I'd looked it up we went and got the meds. The pond's about 4,100 litres but the Shubs are only about an inch/inch and a half each as they are. The fountain's running constantly now and the water goes down several waterfalls and the pond has oxyenating plants in a smaller upper pond. As I say we've never had problems before but I suspected the stocking was getting high.

The water's about 18c in the day, but if we need to run another course of meds then so be it.

I got a good look at one of the fish just as I checked the temp. and I saw large yellow dots on it, it that not velvet? The one that I got the best view of had the white slimy 'velvet' that I thought was a sign of Costia or Chilodonella, and it definitely has ragged fins and listlessness.

 

[black angel]

is there any way you can quarantine the wost affected? if you can then you may have a better chance of saving the survivors and treating more effectively the worse ones.

do you have tests for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate?

could be velvet youre looking at then as this causes a greyness and yellow flecks...at night shine a torch on them and see if you see it, it should stand out pretty clear.

slime coat thickens up when the fishes skin is under attack

 

[Jaymz]

There's no way I could think of to easily quarantine them aside from getting large containers for the worst-off, but then what about filtration or water changes while they're being treated?

EDIT: Any opinions/experiences with the Hozelock Easyclear range? We're looking at the 6,000 model as it combines filtration, fountain, UVC and pump that would drive the filter we currently have, bringing the filtration levels up a good bit.

DOUBLE EDIT: How about taking the fish out of the pond (it seems that mostof them are affected already, as I say it's come on awfully fast this) and splitting them up into several large containers plastic containers w/ fresh, dechlor. water and treating them according to the lower levels of water, for whichever disease they have, be it Finrot/Fungus or Slime disease, and while that's being done we can look at upgrading the filter system we have and then getting rid of some of the excess stock of fish. Sound like it'd work?

 

[black angel]

sounds like a lot of expense really...and as most are now sick maybe just treat them as one whole group and go for the most prevalent disease.

as for the filter i have hozelock and not had problems with them.good luck with it all and keep posting

 

[Jaymz]

Augh, lost three more fish, that's four thus far. Still unsure about whether it's Fungus or Slime Disease. I'll post some more tomorrow if anything's got any worse, or better. I'll try and get the Hozelock all-in-one tomorrow as well, many thanks for the help.

 

[saph.st24]

what filter is the one you have now?

if its a black box type one you should just need to add a addittional filter to add onto your old filter and pump if it is 4100lph or bigger,
its not flow rate you need really (pond should turn over once every 1hr30- 2hrs)
its media surface area thats needed, the more nooks and crannies in your filter for filter bacteria to live in the better, you can use some of your mature filter media to seed the new filter so it will mature quicker

did you do 10-20%water changes before each dose of meds (meds are not only toxic to the parasites but over a period of time they are also toxic to the fish doing water chages between meds means there is no toxic build up to hurt the fish)

if you havent done a water change during the course of meds then you should do one asap and doing weekly 10% water changes will help with water quality also clean your filter out on a regular basis clean filter media in pond water never tap water(cleaning the filter weekly/ fortnightly means the bad bacteria doesnt build up in the filter)

you say they have yellow dots a syptom of velvet is a golden velvety coat on the fins and body of the fish. its hard to see on goldfish that are mainly orange in color as its almost the same color as the disease if you could try salt baths for the fish can
also help

 

[Jaymz]

We're looking at getting a Hozelock EasyClear 6000 today or tomorrow and also considering replacing the filter we have with something better. Question; would the Hozelock's pump be sufficient to run a box filter as well? I think the output's about 1,400lph, but consider that it's filtering on its own as well, would it be enough to run a filter big enough for the pond, or would we be better getting a seperate pump for that too? I.e. a Hozelock Titan running solely for the box filter?

 

[saph.st24]

i would spend the money on external box filter
you need a filter at least double the size of the pond
internal pond filters just dont cope with medium to heavy stocked ponds they will do a small pond with a few goldies

theres loads to choose from so have a look around
green genie, kockney koi blackbox filter, pontec filter and pump combo kits, oase

what pump and filter are you running at the moment? you may be able to run them in line with one another

 

[Jaymz]

I'm more up for updating the whole lot, pump and filter to be honest.

At the minute we've got a Hozelock Super Cascade 3,000 running into this filter that the guy built. It's say... a 100l box crammed with gravel and old Bio-max from my tank's filter. Ideally we'd want a pump with a fountain and not just a pump on its own. I was looking at either this offering from Hozelock or this Green Genie (or maybe the 12k).

As I say though, we'd ideally want a fountain/pump combo, so what would we want to look for in flow rate? I got the bit about once every hour-and-a-half or so bit, but what if it's 'sharing' the flow with the fountain its producing? Or does that not make any difference to the output of the pump.

Sorry if that's a bit garbled. Also, looks like the fish are getting better; more active, eating a TINY bit.

 

[saph.st24]

hi
if i was going for the green genie go for the 12

for a pump that is solids handling, so you dont need the sponge (the sponge is not filter for fish ponds they are to protect the impeller on fountain/waterfall pumps from solids)
have a look around for fishmate,Laguna,lotus they all do a pump that will do the filter and fountain

http/www.pondsuperstores.com/index.php?c...CFZ0U4wodqi_leQ

 

[Jaymz]

Is there anywhere that has review of the Green Genie filters? Or does anyone here have personal experience with them? We're looking to get one this weekend but I just want to be sure they're good filters. We're a little budget-concious at the moment so something priced like the Genie or the Blagdon Minipond would be ideal.

Also, we kept up with water changes, completed the medication and whatnot and the fish are looking an awful lot healthier, so many thanks with the help. Now we jsut need to get this filter upgraded.