Quarantine Protocals: New Arrivals

[Arthur]

Here are some basic facts:

* As Mike said it: all koi, even the healthiest, have parasites
(however, you could take scrapes several times and not see one
because the odds are against you finding them);
* THE biggest ennemy of koi is stress. The koi immune system can
be VERY disturbed and diminished under stress conditions; what
a healthy koi can handle in non-stress environments can become
deadly when stressed.
* ANY koi, even the healthiest, will be stressed by transport:
how would you feel after bubbling around in a dark coffin
for several hours ???
* the first objective of a quarantine is to offer the koi a de-stressing
environment to normalize its metabolism and hormone balance:
a non-stressed koi takes care of most problems by itself.

Therefore, a q-tank must have several characteristics based on
the above knowledge:
* be an established ecosystem (as much as can be accomplished
in a limited environment); at least the filter system must be matured.
* be as large as you can afford it to be: who would want to come
out of a coffin and go to another one just a bit larger and hope
to loose stress? Remember stress is your enemy here.
* be as quiet and free of exciting disturbances as possible,
avoid the surprises causing a flight reation: bad for the immune
system balance.
* a low level of salt, maybe 0.1%, to ease the osmotic energy required.

Initially do nothing else unless you have good evidence to do it:
any treatment without reason just adds to the stress level. Any
treatment's stress must be balanced with the reason for using it.
Unwarranted treatments can kill koi, even healthy ones.

This are just basic considerations but the most important ones.

Aside of that, hobbyists and dealers have very different issues do deal with, an entire other subject.

For what it's worth, my 2 cents.

Arthur

[bekko]

At our last club meeting in Hawaii, there was a presentation and long discussion on quarantine. Several people here bought in fish from a west coast dealer who had already quarantined them for three weeks. When shipped to Hawaii, they were placed directly in ponds. After a few days or weeks in our warm water, not only did most of the new fish die, they took many expensive established fish with them. The total value of the loss was staggering and will not soon be forgotten. So, yes, I think it would be wise to quarantine again even if they were quarantined at the dealer.

Personally, I am not a fan of using chemotherapeutics, and especially so when the diseases/pathogens may not exist or are already established in the main pond. Developing antibiotic-resistant strains is a concern, but so is the stress associated with having the gut flora wiped out. The calendar at the bottom of this page was suggested as a reasonable approach to dealing with parasites:
http://www.sacramentokoi.com/parasites.htm
Formalin and malachite scare me and I would not use them except as a last resort. But, to each his own.

The emphasis you guys have put on creating a stress-free quarantine environment seems to be the most important factor. Also, moving an expendable "canary" fish from the main pond to the quarantine pond seems like a wise move. Any new bugs on the quarantine fish, coupled with the canary's stress of being moved from the main pond, should be a pretty good indication of whether there is a problem.

Admittedly, I would not know what to do at this point if faced with the situation of having one main pond, a small quarantine tank and an expensive new fish. Luckily, I can dodge the decision because I do not buy expensive fish and can just stick new-comers into a puddle with live bearers or aquatic plants and forgetting about them for 3-4 months. It's a tricky dilemma and I wish you all the best of luck.

-steve hopkins

[Mark Cooper]

Dear Mark,
I was very sorry to read about your Shiro , and thanks for sharing that. It is always difficult to legislate I guess for such extreme and virulent bacterial outbreaks like this though, and thankfully that does seem to be a rare occurrence (at least in my experience). I had a similar thing happen to a new Koi of mine many years ago, but at least the Koi was in QT.

I can understand why you would want to mitigate the risk of this happening again, but I was wondering…do you think that if your dealer had used antibiotics prophylactically that they would have hit on the right antibiotic soon enough though to effect a cure ? I can understand why you chose your binary approach too for QT; a responsible approach which requires considerable knowledge and experience to design and implement.

Another thought occurs to me, and I’d be interested to hear your views on this please Mark. Take the hypothetical example of a Koi dealer who uses antibiotics prophylactically, and a hobbyist purchases a Koi from said dealer, probably being unaware that it has been treated with antibiotics. Then as part of that hobbyist’s QT protocol it goes through another prophylactic course of antibiotics. Is that good for the Koi ? Does it increase the risk of antibiotic resistance ?

So, just to share with you “where I coming from” here Mark…. when I was trained, the prophylactic use of antibiotics was considered unprofessional without first having cultured antibiograms and then selecting the anti-biotic which had a positive effect. I do realise that this takes time and skill though, and few hobbyists can avail themselves of such services. Even in those days there were grave concerns about the increasing numbers of antibiotic resistant organisms. Hence I am concerned about how less knowledgeable Koi keepers may interpret and implement the prophylactic use of antibiotics, because like you I have noticed during my two and a bit decades of keeping Koi that some of the antibiotics we used to use (at least here in the UK) are largely ineffective now, probably because of misuse. How do we as a Koi-keeping community avoid this ?

My sincere concern is for the long term health of our Koi and our hobby and ensuring that in the future that we still have antibiotics that are effective.
I am sure that you understand my point of view…..but nonetheless please “educate me”, as we are all here to share and learn for one another. Thanks, and Happy Koi-keeping

[MikeM]

My local koi club had an experience similar to Bekko's a few years ago. We took a large portion of our treasury and bought a mixed bunch of tosai, which were delivered in December as the highlight of our holiday party ....i.e., they were freshly harvested from the mudponds in Japan. A couple seemed to have a touch of filminess in some fins. Those were put to the side. All were held for about two weeks and I believe a formalin/mg treatment was applied. At the holiday party everyone drew a number and got to select a koi in order. There were enough differences in taste that nobody got a fish they considered poor. I thought a Sanke with a whitish film in a pec was the best and took it, although warned there were health concerns. Over the next 6 weeks the reports of calamity came in. Most of those who did not quarantine (the bulk of the members) suffered terrible losses. Never too sure what parasites, etc were involved. The few who quarantined came through fine. As to mine, I did not believe the discoloration was bacterial, but I was not going to take unnecessary risk. The only quarantine available was my lily pond, so that is where it went. That pond works well for tosai. I did treat with fluke tabs (before I knew about supaverm/praxi) because flukes in Florida is the bane of my koikeeping. After 2 weeks, the fellow seemed healthy, so he went into my pond. All went well. I gave him away a year later to a club member who was pleased to have such a nice koi and blabbered on and on about the poor quality of the fish gotten at that holiday party, the untrustworthy dealer involved and how the member who worked so hard to make it happen messed up.

Our club will likely never do such a thing again ... at least not so long as any members remember that event. It seemed a great idea, the koi received were very good for the price and it was the most enjoyable club meeting I can recall. But, the negativity that followed was worse. All because folks won't quarantine and then blame others for the consequences of their oversight.

[koifishgirl]

Guy, can a small mud pond be used as a Qt?

[Mark]

Mark Cooper,



Q. Take the hypothetical example of a Koi dealer who uses antibiotics prophylactically, and a hobbyist purchases a Koi from said dealer, probably being unaware that it has been treated with antibiotics. Then as part of that hobbyist’s QT protocol it goes through another prophylactic course of antibiotics. Is that good for the Koi ? Does it increase the risk of antibiotic resistance ?

A. When koi are given drugs, the quantity of residual drugs remaining in the body varies depending on the rate the drugs are absorbed and excreted. In general, the larger the quantity of drugs given, the more residual drugs will remain in the body. However, when comparing different drugs, the residual amount is determined by the amount absorbed and the amount excreted, which depend on the physical characteristics of the drug. A drug to drug reaction will occur if sufficient quantities of both drugs are present in the body. Some combinations could be synergistic in nature, others toxic and some with no effect.


Imagine all the stratas of the koi industry… from breeder, jobber, dealer, hobbyist/collector. A pathogen could originate at any strata but requires wide distribution to make an impact. Imagine a how a mutated bacterium could geometrically spread through a jobber’s facility and finally end up in your pond. An upward migration is not going to take place, or unlikely at the very least. I think there is very little risk at the hobbyist level to create the next super pathogen. If it does occur, the isolated bacterium has a reasonable chance to revert to normal over time. I’m hearing many accounts of parasites that are developing resistances to conventional treatments. This has got to be occurring at the breeders level, because of ineffective applications of treatments. One has to weigh all the risks, perceived and unperceived, and take on the personal responsibility to protect ones investment and safe guard the long term health and well being of your koi.

Regards,
Mark

[bekko]

At one time, there was mention of salt-resistant Costia, or a salt-tolerant strain/species of Costia, coming out of Japan. Is there any truth in that?

-steve hopkins