Posted on behalf of Mark

Hi ,

My name is Mark Shepherd. One of my koi +/- 45cm seems to spend 98% of the time on the bottom of the pond ( 15000 litres) all of the other koi are extremely active and are eating well. I think the problem may be to do with parasites and minimum gill movement. Have treated the pond with 15kg of salt.What recommmended procedure would you suggest in order to assist this koi. I would appreciate any suggestions.

Many Thanks ,

Mark

Hi Mark

I think you have a parasite. To confirm this and to diagnose the correct type of parasite, you have to do a scraping of the fish and analyse the scraping with a microscope.

It is important to identify the type of parasite because you have to know what treatment to give. Based on the given facts, it is probably costia, but it is not a good idea to assume. If you treat for costia and it is fluke, you will not resolve your problem because they require different treatments, and you will subject the fish to the wrong medication.

The first thing you should do is to seperate the fish from the other healthy.

You should not subject your healthy fish to medication if only one fish has a problem.

It is much cheaper to treat only one fish in a hospital tank.

If this fish has an bacterial infection, it might infect the other healthy fish, or if it is a parasite, it might also infect the healthy fish.

I agree with Kohaku, you should always do a scaping when in doubt. Bacterial infections also cause the symptoms that you have mentioned.

You have now already treated with salt. When in doubt and you can not do a scraping, a salt treatment is always the best as an initial treatment. You could have increased the dosage to 0.5% (5 kg / 1000 liters) It will at least eradicate costia and most parasites.

However, you are precluding yourself from using certain medication like formalin because you have already treated with salt.

Do yourself a favor, get a hospital tank(at least 700 liters) and get yourself a microscope. (a small portapool will do) I believe that no koi-keeper should go without it. When you have done your diagnosis in your hospital tank, we can advise you on what medication to use.