Eeek! What the heck is this?

This is the latest picture of a fish that I recently received with some serious problems. It's a catfish in a koi pond. The cat fish came out of a private pond and was added to the koi pond. Please,please don't do this without at least quarantining and treating the fish (ANY FISH)!! These are leeches and as you can see they are chewing the heck out of this poor catfsih. The pond owner says they are not on his koi, but just the catfish and he's treating with Prazi. Which may or may not work. Leeches are egg layers and are extremely hard to get rid of. Eggs lay in the bottom or in plant mud for up to months depending on the temperatures. They may not be showing up on the Koi because a scaled fish has a better defense against their blood sucking tendency's. Doitzu koi on the other hand are defenseless like the catfish. And if they attach to a gill, all are defenseless. Leeches are particularly vicious as they not only attach but they also suck out blood leaving their host anemic. Enough blood loss and fish can actually die. Not to mention the secondary infections just waiting to set in after a engorged leech finally releases to return to the bottom of the pond. The holes they leave behind are very susceptible to bacterial infections and saprolegnia a water fugus/mold. Not a pretty picture, so am hoping the Prazi does the trick for him. I'm hoping he'll leave me in the loop as to what happens, so I can learn too. If not it may require a total cleaning of the pond and we all know that's not good.

Never happy?????

Is it just me, or are you ever happy with your pond water condition? I know we've had a lot of rain, but my once great looking water is now (again) kind of muddy looking. I know the upper pond is probably to blame because it was not built with a berm. It was built before ponds "were cool" and I didn't know anything about it except dig a hole and throw in a liner. It leaves me frustrated never the less. We talk every Spring about re-doing it, but never seem to get it done. We've been doing weekly water changes but still the water remains somewhat murky. I don't have a good way to get out the micro particles in pond. I need a "fines" filter. I recently purchased a large swimming pool filter which I hope to retrofit into doing just that. I need something. What I got, I believe does pretty good with removing the big stuff and does the bio conversion I need for my large family of koi, but the fines elude me. I have 7 air stones total in the ponds that seem to constantly keep things stirred up, so they can't settle out and allow the bottom drains and settling chambers to work. Well at least not fast enough to make me happy. So I have to figure out what to put in the filter. I'm thinking either sand, small pebbles, or beads of some sort. I'm thinking some sort of floating beads would be the easiest to clean or back flush. But, as always, sand and rock are cheaper. Story of my life. I'm always trying to do things as inexpensively as possible and then down the road end up retrofitting things to make them better. Constantly experimenting with material and resources.

Another line of thinking is, it may not be dirt at all but dissolved fish poo.. We've been feeding heavy this past couple months and have changed foods too. So maybe, just maybe it's the food. Perhaps the fish aren't digesting as much and so their waste is up. Maybe its the food that is causing the water to cloud up. Suppose I should either change foods again to see if the water clears or reduce feeding. Either way, if its the food I should see a difference, right? I could turn off the air for a day or two to see if not stirring it all up will help it settle out, but the weather has been so warm, I hate to do that too. About the only think I don't have is algae. Knock on wood.

We're headed to the Upper Midwest Koi Club's Koi Show this weekend in Minneapolis. Always enjoy going into the city and the really really cool nursery that they hold this at. I'm already suggesting we take the truck and Harry is again giving me the eye. Along with nursery stock they also have a nice stone yard. Harry likes rock...so I suggested perhaps picking up a pretty piece of stone to use as a coffee(wink..wink...totty) table out beside the pond where we sit and feed and watch the fish. I could see him roll his eyes, but kind of agreeing too... I know after the trip to Nashville he's thinking I'll fill it up again if we take it. Bachman's nursery also has a restaurant and a home interior store, so it's a really cool place. This year's Koi Show will also feature a tour of the AKCA "Pond of the Year" which is nearby, I guess. So am also looking forward to seeing that also. I'll also be taking up the EIPS 2010 Friendship Award. It's an award the club gives to a koi or our choosing at the show. This year's award is a really cool black marble tile that has a koi engraved on it. Good thing I didn't know Michelle (the lady that made it) when I tiled my bathroom floor with this black marble. I'd of probably had to have koi all over it. Ohhh, wonder how easy it is to "pop" a tile up???

It's more than a pond

Which came first the pond or the gardens? Well for me it was the ponds. The gardens came as a way to naturalize the ponds to the yard. Now? Well the gardens are out of control. They consume nearly every inch of the yard. They've been in for several years now, so they are becoming overgrown and less formal. And because I like all flowers, they've kind of lost any theme I may have been trying to create. Over the years, I've kind of taken out more and more of the kichy things that I add for interest, statues and the like. My husband hates the storage they require in the all ready too small garage through the winter months, too. I do enjoy the flowers, but I'm out there every available evening trimming out the spent flowers and pulling weeds. The ponds are really the least work compared to the gardens. Water changes and filter flushing are about all it needs this time of the year.(And, Harry will help me with the ponds, not so with the gardens) My walnut tree has already begun to drop leaves and walnuts! The leaves produce tannin in my pond causing it to take on a brown color. I have a love/hate relationship with this tree. I hate what it does to my pond. It drops seedlings in the spring, it's the last to put on leaves too. In the fall its the first to drops leaves, walnuts, and then each leaf stick. So talk about messy! But, this walnut is one of the largest walnut trees in the whole state of Iowa! It shades nearly my whole yard and pond! In the past couple years its shown signs of dying. It is no where near as full as it used to be. I'd cry if we lost it. Would change my entire garden from shade to sun.

Last night I was out taking pictures again in the yard. Flowers, fish, and bugs. All are plentiful this time of the year. Mosquitoes too! I don't even venture out without first spraying down.

The fish are eating like crazy and we're feeding them like crazy too. I think I can actually see them growing. Funny how you think they are small and then one day you go out there and realize they grew a couple inches overnight! And then a panic sets in that you're really going to have to get rid of some! The pond is not big enough for 30 full grown fish! And winter is coming! Dang it, dang it, dang it.

Fish problems...not mine this time

Thought today I'd post about a few recent fish calls I've received. A few weeks back I went to look at a 6 inch koi that was displaying some fin rot and an ulcer on it's side. The WQ seemed to be ok as well as the remainder of the fish in the 300 gal. tank. We put the guy to sleep and did a scrape to look for parasites. I found a few tricodina, but not a big outbreak or anything. We cleaned and dressed the wound, woke the fish back up, and returned him to the tank. I had some parasitic with me that was donated to the club and asked the PO to dose his ponds. He was about to turn them loose to the larger pond, but I asked him to continue to hold them in the smaller tank till we were sure everything was ok. Also, had a phone call from a local nursery who had a customer (who I had worked with one of his fish before) but, he was wondering at what level of salt his pond should be at? I replied "none" and if he was one of those koi owners who like salt in their ponds, then my suggestion was .01% (very little). While I do use a LOW dose of salt in my ponds in both "late" spring and fall, I always take it back out through water changes during the summer and "especially" through the winter months. Unless you have a nitrite problem or your fish are showing winter stress problems (in the spring) , there really should be no need for salt in your ponds. .03% salt in the early spring, before the bacteria has kicked in to help with the nitrites and to knock back any parasites that also come alive before fish have a chance to recoup their immune systems after being under the ice can be beneficial. These are considered low dose therapeutic levels.
Also, had a phone call for a koi owner who notice a small pimple like thing on a koi's mouth. Now, this could be anchor worm or an injury of sorts. After discussing it for awhile, we decided to just watch. If it's an isolated injury, the fish may very well heal on it's own. If we see more spots on other fish or the affected fish's spot starts to get red or worsen, then we'll pull him out and take a closer look. We don't just want to start treating for something, without trying to verify it.
My fish at home seem to be doing ok again. I thought all my babies had died, but again last night we saw a dozen very small dark fish. Since they are small and dark, they are very hard to see against the black background of the pond. I thought my addition of ProForm C to the ponds had perhaps killed the babies. But there are a few in there, at least till the pumps grind them up and spit them out. Hide little guys, hide...

EIPS pond tour is over..

Wow, what a great weekend. The annual EIPS pond tour is over. Despite the half day of rain, I had a really good time as usual. I don't understand why the club has so much trouble finding volunteers to help work the tours. I think they are one of the funnest things we do and would truly hate to see them discontinued due to lack of interest. Harry and I sat at the home of Hugh and Kathi Albrecht. They had cookies, and doughnuts, and sandwiches for us to snack on which Harry thoroughly enjoyed.We love talking to the visitors as they come in. We ask them all sorts of questions to force them to talk to us a little. "Do you have a pond?" "Is this your first tour?"
"What do you think about this year's tour?" Everyone is so friendly. Our pond location was pretty dry till about 2:30. When the occasional sprinkle turned into a full blown rain. As we all sat in the protection of Kathi's living room, I was surprised to see people continue to come into the yard to view the pond, umbrellas in tow. Hugh stood in the garage doorway answering questions for the hardy visitors. The dinner afterwords is always fun too. This year we all met at the Olive Garden. I think everybody enjoyed a nice dinner and it gave everyone a chance to talk about the days events. All in all I had so much fun that I'm going to do it all again this weekend. We've volunteered to help at the Northern Iowa Koi and Water Garden Assoc. annual tour in the Waterloo area. They have 5 ponds on this year's tour. Being a member of that club also, we will also volunteer to help out there also. And, I thoroughly expect to have another great time.