How long to quarantine ?

[Dave in Innisfil]

Last Friday, we caught a number of Phishi's mud pond koi, seven of which came home with me. I've been keeping them in a Desafin medicated preform the past six days, doing partial water changes, and the majority of the fish look in great condition and are now eating. One fish is rather lethargic, and it looks like we may have removed too much of its slime coat handling it. It also has a small tear at the top of it's gill opening that is red and looks sore. This is the same fish that I thought was dead, but "came back" after several hours of TLC. I'll probably keep it in quarantine until he's healthier

Phishi hasn't seen any disease in any of her fish, but uses a different chemical quarantine method.

Last night something, probably a racoon, was scoping out the quarantine pond. I've also caught a few trying to escape, so far with no injuries. While I'm fairly confident my protection efforts were successful, the fish will be much safer in our main pond.

Is it too soon to put the healthy fish in with the others ?

[Jackie Ramo]

I'd wait for a minimum of 2 weeks, many parasites have life cycles that can be 3 weeks long. Its cheaper to treat them where they are than the big pond and lets face it catching them in there will be another challenge. Think of the Q time as getting to know them time.

[Tamianth]

The longer you QT, the better. I advocate 6 weeks, 4 minimum to deal with any nasty's, introduce pond water @ 4 weeks and a guinea pig fish. Two weeks and if alls fine, into the pond...... :grin:
As Jackie said, better to take care of things in the QT rather then trying to get them in the pond!

[Merlin]

The other thing to bear in mind , is that the QT is normaly smaller than the pond so less medication is needed, so a good money saver. :)

Edit : oops just noticed Jackie has allready mentioned that. :grin:

[Dave in Innisfil]

Day 7 and six of seven are eating well and flourishing. They're eating pellets agressively now, and some of the romaine lettuce. Fall is definitely in the air here, and I'm hearing forecasts of an early freeze up. The last thing I want is a fall pondmare, so we'll keep the fish in quarantine a while longer. I'm much rather medicate 350 gallons than 10,000, and trying to catch fish without draining the main pond is a lesson in futility. The water temp in the preform varies greatly each day, while the ponds temps have stayed pretty constant. which worries me a bit.

We initially filled the preform with pond water, plants from the pond, and a guinea pig goldie. I've been doing 25% water changes every two days with fresh well water, and re-administering more Desafin after each change. I was wondering whether I should be isolating the fish that's not doing so good, or leave it in the medicated pond with the others.

[Tamianth]

IMHO Dave, I'd keep in and continue the medications for the duration. Some take a bit longer to re-coup then others do. Merlin does make a good point, much easier to deal & treat the QT..... Might add I've been there and done that when my neighbors managed to poison my pond, by the time I got done treating a 8,177 gl pond.... :-? You don't wanna go there!

As long as the water temps are within 5*, you can still move the fish into the pond, so push it a bit and keep a eye on the weather also!! :)

[Dave in Innisfil]

I heard thru the local pond-vine that the previous owner of our ponds twice had his ponds contaminated/poisoned, but thought it an urban legend. Some sick minds out there, no doubt. We and our dogs get along very well with all our neighbors, and our house no longer reflects poorly on the neighborhood.

Day 8.....no floaters, and the sickie has started to mingle with the others.

[Jackie Ramo]

Well sounds like all is going great Dave. Some take longer to heal than others so patience. If he is mingling he's on his way to get better.

[Dave in Innisfil]

After reading a few other threads, I decided to remove most rocks with sharp edges from the QT, including the sick fish's hideout. Sometimes the fish go ballistic when I approach the preform and I'd rather they not incurr injury in what is suppose to be a safe haven. Three of the fish now have exited the preform, luckily while I was in the vicinity to return them promptly to the water. No visable damage, and the hardest part was keeping my dogs from mauling them, as they are allowed to do when we cull the bass pond.

[Jackie Ramo]

Perhaps a bit of syrofoam on the top would give them a place to hide without causing injury and its cheap!!

Skipper the little guy goes ballistic when I catch a bird in the greenhouse. He wants to kill them... he's agood mouser but I have no idea why he hates birds, doesn't bother the ones on the feeder, just if I net them to take them outside. Darn fish net has caught more birds than fish :grin:

[Dave in Innisfil]

I have different "tops" for my QT pond, and the fish can only jump out when I have them removed. My three escape attempts all have occurred with the covers off while I'm checking the filter, adding water, and removing rocks. Half is usually covered with two light-refracting plastic sheets from a large fluourescent fixture, some is double meshed with the plastic security fence, and the corners/ledges covered with EPDM scraps. This way I can feed without removing the covers, give beneficial light and air, and hopefully keep the damn predators out. I take the covers off, but leave the security fencing frame on when I'm working in the area, trying to accustom the new fish to having people and dogs around them. They won't eat from my hand yet, but they will eat from the surface while I watch now.

[Jackie Ramo]

Dave they are making good progress considering they are basically wild fish not used to humans at all. How's the sick one doing?

[Dave in Innisfil]

The sick/injured fish is still pretty lethargic most of the time, but moved like lightning when I tried to net it. It is the last to rise to food, but is eating. It's hard to distinguish it from three others that are very similar in size and colouring, but it's the only one that will let me work around it and only panics when I try and grab it. I upped the Desafin yesterday, but overnight rain probably brought the ratio back in line.

[Merlin]

After reading a few other threads, I decided to remove most rocks with sharp edges from the QT, including the sick fish's hideout. Sometimes the fish go ballistic when I approach the preform and I'd rather they not incurr injury in what is suppose to be a safe haven. Three of the fish now have exited the preform, luckily while I was in the vicinity to return them promptly to the water. No visable damage, and the hardest part was keeping my dogs from mauling them, as they are allowed to do when we cull the bass pond.
I read this post and first thought was rocks with sharp edges in the QT !wow! , no no no , nothing it the Qt tank. then I read a bit further and I got angry !bonk . The dogs are allowed to maul the fish when we cull the bass pond !grrrr sorry mate cull the fish by all means , knock them on the head with a lump of 2 x 4 , if you do not want them, but to make a statement that the dogs are allowed to maul them :shock: . The day that I feel it is ok to subject a fish to that, is the day that I give up having a pond.

[Tamianth]

*ouch* Dave, bad idea to allow the dogs to even have the fish in mouth, salmonella poisoning isnt pretty and thats just what can happen. Big no no!

Not to mention the vet bill won't be pretty!

[Ian]

Never heard of salmonella(SP) from fish? Turtles big time but not fish,somone correct me if I'm wrong..... Can not see the dogs being harmed eating fish. A bad habbit to let your dogs do this Dave as you already know they will do the same to your keepers too! May even decide to try the ones swimming while you are not looking.

Keeping on topic.....
I am not a true advocator on QT for any great lengths of time. One is that I do not believe the nasties wait up to six weeks to work over the fish. They are stessed the moment they are handled and that is were the parasites get there trigger to go into action. Another trigger could be the QT system itself and declining water quality. It does only take a matter of days after moving koi to know if they got somthing if they are comfortable in the system. If they are not cozy in there new system but healthy it only takes a matter of days before you make your own problems. The idea is to protect your original fish in your pond and not risking them by introducing new fish with potential problems.

[Dave in Innisfil]

Six of the fish have now been transfered to the main pond. Too much risk of becoming coon food to leave them there longer, and they seemed to thriving.
The seventh is doing much better, its slime coat somewhat restored and the gill tear healing, but it was transfered to the bog pond where I can keep a closer eye on it, and have easier access should I decide it needs some additional TLC in the aquarium.

First Nations people have been feeding their dogs raw fish for centuries. Ours are fed exclusively a special holistic fish and potato diet, and get raw salmon as treats. Nothing wrong with fresh raw fish, as any sushi bar owner would attest to. Our dogs go nose to nose with our fish, daily, with neither dog trying to catch them. In fact, our little female has developed a liking for the garlic-flavoured pellets I accidentally spill pondside, as well as trying to eat the ones that float within her reach. It's not uncommon for us to find either dog pondside watching our fish. Our male finds them a nuisance because they pester him when he tries to drink from the pond.

Nobody gave me any criteria for building a quarantine tank, so how was I too know that these fish are so stupid they could potentially injure themselves on the rockery ? I put rocks in the quarantine tank to provide the shade and protection I thought was important. No injuries were incurred while the fish were in quarantine, only with our method of capture. Any longer in there and our raccoons may have figured out how to get at them. I did my best from what I had gleaned from this and other forumns, and with what materials I had on hand. I may not be able to advise on how to quarantine, but at least next time I won't be asking so many questions.

Sorry, Merlin, that you took offence to me letting my dogs play with deformed and stunted bass. Until recently, I thought koi were just carp with a good P/R firm, just slightly higher up on the food scale than minnows.

Thanks to all for your comments and advice.

[Jackie Ramo]

Good job Dave. Good idea also to keep the sicky one close to hand but in larger water volume. It sounds like he is on the mend anyway and they do heal faster in larger volumes of water. Did you get good pics of them before releasing?

[Dave in Innisfil]

Regrettably, we didn't get to photograph the fish before we released them. It all happened spur of the moment, to coincide with my son's visit. We know the fish are in there, but don't see them in the now murky depths. With fall approaching, I thought it best to move the floating and smaller marginal plants back to the bog, which stirred up the water and removed their filtration value from the base of the waterfalls. We caught glimpses of the new fish using our ice-vent/pond light, but they haven't caught on to surface feeding yet, even to the garlic-enhanced pellets. Regardless, none of them even comes close to the beauty of most of your fish. I left the better looking fish with Phishi, as they had the greater resale value. I took what I thought were the hardiest fish, with the best chance of survival considering my predation problems. We still consider ourselves in the learning stages, and hopefully, if all's well come spring, we'll be looking to the John's to add beauty to our beasts.

[Jackie Ramo]

Well many a time I have missed the photo op and regretted it... that's why I'm photoing the babies as I pull them from the pond.

The new fish will soon settle down as they watch the other fish and become accustomed to their new home. Do remember these fish have probably never surface fed before, koi are by nature bottom feeders

[Dave in Innisfil]

With temps over 30 yesterday, and a volunteer with green thumbs, it gave me the opportunity (gulp) to remove, re-pot and replace some of the plants.
As anticipated, this screwed up the water visability big time, but overall the ponds got a 30% changeout of fresh well water. It also was in prep for liner repairs between the ponds I would like to attempt before the PVC gets too cold and brittle. We lost 6 inches of water overnight, probably somewhere over a 1000 gallons, thru the patches previously held in place with planters now removed. Surprisingly, Tina was open to my suggestion to amalgamate the preform into our pond system. Now I just have to figure out how and where to set it up so that we can have it as part or separate from the main water flow so I can still use it as an independant pond for quarantine purposes in the future. Something for me to ponder over over the winter months.

Phishi's fish are surface fed sporadically, and were learning in the QT to find food in the feeding ring. As long as I don't wake up to koi "floaters" I'm considering my re-stocking temporarily a success. It was also nice to find in yesterday's clean up that the pond is continuing to restocking itself, as lower water levels revealled more baby fish, most under an inch, and undoubtedly shubs. I can't wait until I too can brag about koi babies, but that will have to wait until next year I guess.

[Dave in Innisfil]

The one fish I transfered to our upper bog pond has in days learned to surface feed. Except for some discolouration on its sides, it looks and acts in excellant health. Seems the ol' black moor has taken a fancy to it, and the pair can frequently be seen swimming together. Wonder what sort of cross I'm gonna get from them.

Following Terri's suggestion in another thread, I'm going to try and rig up some kind of external batten filter this weekend to try and remove some of the suspended particles that are clouding the water. I know the new fish are down there somewhere, but only get rare glimpses of them.

[Jackie Ramo]

If you can find the batting that is stitched together like a quilt it stays together better for rinsing out. Although any quilt batting will do.

[Dave in Innisfil]

I was figuring on using a couple of packages of the white fibreglass matting/ wool the aquarium store sells in 16' X 2' pieces. Unless advised otherwise.

[Jackie Ramo]

I think you will find the quilt batting at the fabric department much cheaper and it does a good job. $8-10 for a big bag of it.

[Dave in Innisfil]

My visability is improving gradually, without the added filtration, but still no where near the clarity pre-plant-rearranging. Using your suggestion, I would probably dispose of the dirty quilting and replace it with new. My string algae has all but died off, and the majority of floating plants are now in the upper bog pond ready for removal at the first frost. The good news is that now all the new fish are surface feeding, and becoming accustomed to my presence pond side. Quite the pirahna-like feeding frenzy these days.....LOL

[Jackie Ramo]

Make sure the dead string algae isn't rotting in the bottom of the pond. Nasty stuff that. The floaters being in the upper pond will grab many of the fines and clear the water. Glad the new fish have settled in now so you can enjoy them

[Dave in Innisfil]

Between wind and coon damage, into the pond I went again yesterday. The racoons toppled my skimmer, thus giving yesterday's high winds the chance to blow over the tall rushes in pots at the base. Out came the skimmer, and a new rock lair was built around the pots both to anchor and provide shelter.
Much of the gunk that accumulated in the lava within the skimmer unfortunately got dumped back into the pond, so I'm back to limited visability. Being the skimmer is a fibreglass laundry tub, I knew it would have to come out before ice up anyways, but was hoping it would be later rather than sooner with lots of leaf and needle debris lying on the surface of the ponds. The majority of the remaining rotting string algae is in no-man's-land at the base of the waterfalls wrapped around the parrotfeather. Is it best to trim back the parrot feather now to remove the algae, or wait until our late fall trimming of the lilies ? Our pond temp is 68F, and my water lily leaves are going yellow quickly.

[Jackie Ramo]

I'd take the time to set up the skimmer again. Fallis just beginning and now is when it is most needed.

Lilies need the light as well as the water temps so the lessening of sunshine is sending them into dormancy even though water temps are still good.