I received this mail today. What would your answer be?


Good day


I'm in jhb and just finished building my first koi pond here.


I've heard many stories about KHV and was told that it's difficult to know if the place where I'm buying the fish from is KHV free or not.


A friend told me that if going to a koi farm, one of the way to determine if it's safe to buy from or not, is simply looking at the numbers of fish available for sale, because if the place has KHV on fish, there should be limited number of fish only. (mostly died already)


I know one can't rely on this information entirely but can I use it as one of the indication?


Thanks.


regards

My answer would be to simply advise them to get involved in the forums and thru the forum to ask the question there.

Very difficult to make it public via posts, but I do know it would at least generate a lot of personal messages of which the person would be able to make an accurate assessment from.

Also ask/assess which dealers are associated with the forums etc and take it from there?

I would not ask some random person where I should by from, but rather from a forum where there are many hobbyists and they could at least advise via personal messages of dealers etc that they have had good experiences with, and from that assessment based on popularity be able to make a decision on who to buy from.

The person that gave him that stupid advice must be on something He obviously does not know how KHV work... never mind the koi market... Think Cliff nailed the answer. That should be the way to go.

Thanks for the replies, I am referring him to the forum.

I have seen many places with loads of fish which appeared quite healthy, only to discover that there were in fact KHV and an outbreak followed.

At the end of the day, one should only buy from reputable dealers who quarantine properly and who can provide details of where the fish comes from, and what tests has been done to ensure that the stock has no KHV. Insist on a KHV free certificate, especially if the fish were imported and enquire about the quarantine procedures followed. If fish just arrived and already for sale, stay away.

Be informed by browsing forums as Cliff said, and if there are ANY indication of health problems at the facility, stay away.

Stay away from the fly by nights and stay away from dealers who keep KHV survivors, there are quite a few.

The latest research on KHV latency would indicate that there is no such thing as a 'save' dealer. Dealers could have gone through the whole QT process and not have stressed the fish enough to activate the latent KHV. It's best for us to QT every fish and to expose them to fish we know has no KHV to see if they might be KHV survivers. As far as i know the PCR test can not detect KHV latency - only a blood test. In SA we only do a PCR test. So bottom line - quarentine and get a good protocol going.