Urgent help needed

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Skliwharas
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Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2018 3:26 pm

Urgent help needed

Post by Skliwharas »

Hi, I have been recommended to this forum and I am indesperate need to help. My husband died earlier this year of a very aggressive cancer and he looked after and cared for the pond and fish. Over the last 8 weeks I have started losing fish. I have cleaned the filters each month, done water changes (adding wAter through chlorine remover). I live in Sutton Coldfield so have soft water. The fish have been lying on side at bottom and dying after about 3 days. I have tried removing fish into a small container, I’ve added a bomb to the water in main pool, added some aquatic salt to the container. I have pictures of the two latest who are now dying. I just don’t know what to do and it is extremely stressful alongside all the other chaos that is now my life. It has crossed my mind if my neighbour (whom I don’t speak with - horrible man) May be he is throwing something in but it’s more likely something I’m doing wrong. I have now lost 6 fish and they are still dying ! Can anyone help me. I am struggling financially so I can’t afford specialist fees but want to do my best for them. Thank you.
Manky Sanke
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Re: Urgent help needed

Post by Manky Sanke »

Whenever I'm asked to diagnose a problem or explain unusual behaviour I invariably give this advice:

Water parameters are the first thing to check because bad parameters can cause health problems directly or weaken the immune system so that a fish succumbs to a parasite or pathogen it could otherwise have resisted. Even if poor water quality doesn't play a part in initiating a health issue, koi have a much better chance of recovering in good water than in bad.

The minimum parameters you should check are pH, ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate and KH can also give valuable information to help interpret other parameters.

If any water parameter is incorrect then it should be brought to an acceptable value as quickly as possible so as not to unnecessarily delay any medical treatment that may subsequently be needed.

Once suboptimal water has been ruled out as the cause then the correct procedure is to scrape in order to identify if any parasites are present and choose the appropriate treatment. You may need some help with this from someone more experienced or your local koi dealer. This is the best approach for the health of the fish rather than the hit and miss approach of trying a selection different cures without knowing what you're treating for and possibly making the situation worse.

If you could give those values, along with the pond temperature, it would be helpful to determine whether the problem has been caused by incorrect or varying water parameters, or some other cause.
Manky Sanke
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Re: Urgent help needed

Post by Manky Sanke »

As an afterthought, while I don't normally recommend adding anything until you've first verified that the water parameters are within acceptable limits, since it may take time while you take these or get help in taking them, with very soft water, you may have had a pH crash so it would do no harm to do a 20% water change which would add some alkalinity from the supply. If there is any improvement at all, get straight back and I'll tell you what you could do next.

But the water parameters are still important, get them tested and post the results asap.
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