From the President to the N. F.K C. Members:

Lets not forget our Young Fish show coming in April. We hope everyone can come to see the little guys show their stuff.

Dan & Barbara Wehby are preparing the show for us this year. Any help we can give them would be much appreciated. I’m looking forward to another great meeting with you, the members. Don’t forget your chair!! Till we meet again, Tim Gasson

 Secretary's   Report By Todo

The activity for this meeting was a Koi and Pond Quiz taken from What’s Up Doc, Winter ‘01. We had fun finding out how much we did not know about our hobby. Rod came in first.

Fish disease, diagnosis and treatments an overview

Prevention is better and cheaper than cure!    Fish disease can be both highly distressing, and in many cases, costly both in treatment and replacement costs. A key aim is encourage prevention via regular water testing and husbandry. This is particularly important with koi ponds and their often-high stocking levels and reliance on biological filtration for good water quality. In general diseases are often oversimplified, which in turn leads to misunderstandings about diagnosis and treatments.

Opportunistic parasites and bacteria   There are many health problems that are beyond our control. Like any animals, they are susceptible to a range of problems such as tumours, heart and other organ disease, as well as metabolic disorders such as diabetes. However, the overwhelming majority of common health problems involve external parasites, fungus, gill and bacterial infections. An important point is that any body of water, be it a tank or pond will be teeming with millions of opportunistic bacteria and nearly all fish carry small populations of parasites. All animals, ourselves included, are constantly surrounded by germs and bugs, but healthy animals can keep them at bay.

Stress and the immune system   These germs and bugs constantly probe and try to breach the fish’s immune system to gain a strong foothold. In general, for them to be successful there has to be an underlying predisposing factor such as poor environmental conditions, poor nutrition, overcrowding or poor water quality. In addition to causing stress, which will depress the fish’s immune system, such conditions will often encourage increased numbers of opportunistic pathogens. Any treatment plan should also tackle any underlying problems at the same time.

Diagnosis   The main diagnostic approaches are:

Observation of changes in behavior, such as flashing, not eating, clamped fins, heavy respiration, self-isolation, gasping at the surface or water return, loss of equilibrium, jumping – all which indicate the need for further investigation.

Water testing and inspection of system to determine water quality

Physical examination: This can be carried out in the pond or tank or the 'patient' can be placed in a shallow bowl and examined for fin erosion, cuts, lesions, reddening of the skin, raised scales, larger parasites such as lice or anchor-worm, swollen gills or damaged gills (indicated by trailing mucus or an operculum which does not fully close), swellings, lumps or growths.

Alternatively, for a fuller investigation, they can be removed from the water and lightly anaesthetized for easier handling. A closer examination can then be made, especially of the hard-to-see areas underneath and at the base of fins. Additionally the gills can be examined and skin, gill and fin biopsies can be taken for microscopic examination. Where there are body ulcers, bacterial samples can be taken and sent for investigation.

Surgical examination is also extremely rare and, at present, has a poor success rate. Blood sampling, which is an important diagnostic tool in veterinary and human medicine, is still poorly developed. Blood sampling techniques are relatively difficult and little research has been carried out as to what would be normal ‘baseline’ figures for various species and the relevance of variations in blood counts.

Complications   If detected early enough most simple problems can be easily and speedily resolved. However, there are complications that can arise which can greatly affect both the treatment method and the outcome.

If the condition is advanced this can lead to stress and a depressed immune system, possibly leading to secondary infections. Other body functions such as wound healing and digestion etc are also affected by stress. These added complications can mean that sick fish may be very slow in responding to treatment.

Some conditions, particularly severe parasite infestations, can cause severe secondary damage to skin, fins and gills. This in turn may result in secondary infections such as such as ulcers or fin-rot, or excess mucus production and cell hyperplasia. This secondary damage may influence the treatment regime to be used, or indeed, affect the treatment priority. For example, a parasite infestation affecting the gills may restrict the use of an anti-parasite treatment containing formalin because of the risk of further irritation of the gills.

Some pathogens, in particular Costia (Ichthyobodo); are very quick to take advantage of sick and stressed individuals. This can cause additional stress and complications.

A typical example of such complications would be a serious infestation of gill flukes, Dactylogyrus. The irritating presence of these parasites could lead to excess mucus production. The increased mucus layer would give the parasite some protection from treatments. Irritation may also cause gill hyperplasia (an increase in normal gill tissue) leading to swollen gills, resulting in a reduced respiratory surface, which in turn would create respiratory difficulties and more yet more stress. Many treatments, for example formalin, might make this situation worse. In the longer-term, unless the situation was resolved gill-rot or bacterial gill disease may occur.

Treatment methods:   Broadly speaking there are four treatment methods:

The advantages are less stress and no handling.

Disadvantages are that biological filtration may be affected,

Treatment dosages can be difficult to calculate unless the exact water volume is known

Variances in water composition; particularly pH, hardness, and organic load may interfere or affect the chemical activity of the treatment

Some treatments, for example antibiotics, cannot be applied via the pond.

Overdoses or situations where there is a bad reaction can be difficult to remedy, particularly in large ponds

Treatment costs can be high in large ponds

Bath treatments

They can be easily calculated.

Higher doses can be used (for shorter periods)

Filtration is not affected

Less interference with treatment reaction

If there is a bad reaction, it is easy to remove the 'patient'

Disadvantage is the need for handling and except in the case of short treatment periods, a relatively large treatment tank may be needed if several fish are treated at the same time.

Food top dressing – usually antibiotics

Advantage: no stress or handling

Disadvantages include: it can be very difficult to calculate doses or target specific individuals

Treatment may wash off the food

Very sick fish may not eat

Individual treatments. e.g. wound dressing or injections.

The obvious disadvantage is the need to handle and possible anaesthetize individuals. Can be time-consuming when several are to be caught and treated.

Advantages are that treatment is directed and targeted at a specific individual and is usually far more effective, particularly in bacterial infections.

Treatment limitations  The presence of water limits the range and type of treatments can be used, which goes part of the way to explain why so little research is carried out into metabolic and physiological disorders that are routinely treated and managed in other animals. Even if these disorders could be diagnosed it would be impossible to give a life-time of treatment that may consist of pills, lotions, medicines or injections.

Hopefully, this overview has made aquarists look at fish disease from a slightly different, perhaps less simplistic, perspective. Disease in any animal is a complex matter. However, over 90% of all health problems can be resolved with a combination of good husbandry, early diagnosis and accurate treatments. It is important to realize the limitations of our own capabilities and recognize that fish are living animals and not innate objects to be the subject of amateurish experimentation. http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/diseaseover.htm

Always wanted to have your koi eat out of your hand? By Shirley Stone

To read articles in most fish magazines and chapters in “how-to” koi books, it is a long, painstaking process of sitting quietly by the pond, with your hand in the water, for hours on end, waiting for the fish to trust you. But there might be a quicker, better way. Get yourself a cha-goi, a brown koi.

Let me back up and tell you my own experience in this area. I had tried, off and on, for several years to get my fish to take food from my hand. Although my fish have never been “spooky” and, in fact, actually follow me around the pond and congregate near to wherever I happen to be standing, they would have no part of actually taking food from my hand, no matter how long or how quietly I sat by the water. That all changed in the Fall of 2000, when I bought three little ochiba-shigures, along with three shiro utsuris, from Rod Lawton.

These fish, especially the ochibas, which are one of the named varieties of cha-goi, were different than any others I had ever had in quarantine. While I was doing the necessary daily maintenance for the quarantine tank, they weren’t cowering in the far corner of the 150 gallon Rubbermaid tub, as is usual with new fish. Instead, they would approach my hands and swim very near to what ever I happened to be doing, so much so that I had to take special care not to suck them up when siphoning waste from the bottom of the tank. So, thinking “Why not?,” I bought a jar of freeze-dried tubifex worms and held a cube in the water. Wonder of wonders! The three ochibas were right there, jostling each other to get the treat out of my hand. The other three little fish in the tank followed them, shortly thereafter.

After quarantine, the three cha-goi continued to accept any food I offered by hand, but, after a short while, the three utsuris quit coming near me. All I had to do was sit by the water and get a cube of the tubifex worms wet and falling apart in the water. Within 30 to 40 seconds, all three ochibas were there, eating what I offered. Other fish in the pond began to lurk closer and closer, watching what the ochibas were doing. Finally, one of the larger fish got brave enough to try for a treat. Then more and more, until nearly all of the fish have taken food from my hand at least one time.

All of the fish, that is, except for the big ones that I have taken to the fish shows. With the lone exception of the kumonryu , (a black doitsu [scaleless] koi with white edges – looks like a killer whale), none of the show fish have ever accepted a hand-held treat, not even after I added freeze-dried krill (EXPENSIVE) to the offering. Krill is supposed to be an extra-special treat for fish. I guess those fish must think they have already had enough adventure in their lives!

At the end of this past summer, one of the two largest fish in the pond, a big doitsu long-fin, decided to try accepting food from my hand. She is over three feet in length from her nose to the end of her tail and has no trouble pushing the others aside. So, she usually gets the “lion’s share.” My friend, Tim Gasson, took a photo of this fish with the top of her head out of the water, asking for more food. Even though she is not, and will never be, a show fish, she is queen of the pond and one of my favorites. I felt that having her eat out of my hand was a real accomplishment!

I began to place a connection here when I read, somewhere on the Internet, of the “friendly” reputation of the cha-goi. And last month, I read a post at another Internet site where someone else made a quick reference to cha-gois and hand feeding. I guess others have had the same or similar experiences. So, if you want your fish eating out of your hand, you might consider the short cut of getting a cha-goi.

In praise of smaller fishies or What’s so big about big fish?

This is America and here everything is bigger, better and faster. Of course this extends to our attitudes towards our fish and the desire for big koi.

Of course some of these changes are not only the result of size but of age. Also, you cannot tell what the growth rate of a young fish will be. Nor can we put a rock on its head to keep it small. Unfortunately, a koi keeper may have to relocate his favorite fish because it just got too big for the pond. There will be several of these aquatic refugees looking for a new home at any club fish auction. So in the end, let’s not be disappointed if a koi doesn’t out grow the pond in a year. Bigger is not necessarily better. Todo