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[koifishgirl]

I have had good luck with the stress coat. When you net the koi you remove a lot of the slime coat that they need. As you no this time of year that the parasites are makeing babys like mad, and even with good conditons the koi can get parasites. I may not have had the problem with the koi flashing if I had used this product to put back the slime coat that I remove. I bowl my large koi and I dont have to handle them much but this time I sexed the koi and handled them alot before I returned them to the clean pond. I am sure this did not help them as would think that all the handleing of the koi hurts their skin, when you pick them up with your hands you get the slime on you so you no that it needs to be replaced. I dont plan to ever stop using this product as I believe the expert no what they are talking about.

[ranskye]

if it coats the fish and evreything else then couldnt it coat the gills just the same? i spose if it doesent kill them it might just lower the o2 uptake and slow them down a bit. maybe a co2 induced sedative..it may be best to use doctors surgical gloves when handling. as with most handling and putting them into some suspect waters some species will show up lesions from hand marks.
i know its not always seeming practical but i try keep the fish in some water as much as possible, they might struggle alittle in plastic bags but theres not as much damage as they thrash about as with a hard suface or netting. ive used a koi sock before but find that a black plastic bag is better. you can spend a little time and usher them in.
may seem padantic but if stress coat is needed the damge is already done, as much extra time spent might just remove the need for cure.
ive been very guilty before and lost a fair few fish from dodgy handling and thats what i practise now, especially when breeding. especially if im not just releasing them into a large happy volume. if theres parasites around theyre living off your fish, most wont take them out but will lead to secondary problems if waters not the best. id try find out what the parasite is and read about the lifecycle and find a treatment. once theyre in the home its harder.
i worked at a farm with crab louse and it wa near impossible to beat without wrecking the production cycles for the farm and sacrificing numbers produced.
we were using a treatment just prior to sale which would still leave some fish with a lesion. if let back into the pond theyd fix emselves up but if sold and then went through stress and into rough customer water theyd only get worse. i swore next time i started a farm that all new fish would be treated first for possible parasites. its very hard to check all areas of fish to call it guaranteed clean thats why i salt them anyway. it may be possible to remove all fish, lower water in your main holding, treat it at a high concentration, then drain and then raise it, therell bhe a low concentration then, treat fish in their tanks, then refill and release.

[koifishgirl]

I have not noticed a difference in the koi activity after putting the stress coat on the koi, so I could not say for sure. Although that is something that I will make sure the next time I put this on them that I watch the koi close and see if this does have an affect on them in this way. It could, I have just not noticed as most of the time after cleaning the pond they kind of hind anyway after you put them back in the main pond for a while.

My large koi are in water all the times as I bowl the koi from the pond to the holding tank and then bowl them back into main pond. The only thing that I done different was to put my hand in the water with the koi and turn and check vent and gill covers for sex. I know this is not good for them that is why I like to use the stress coat. All my small koi were netted out of the water into a tub and placed in the holding tank for me to clean the pond. I have some koi I dont know why get hung in the net. I have so far not had this happen with one of my big koi because the net never comes out of the water, I just ;use it to push in the koi into the bowl. The little guys I was looking at the patterns and colors on them so I handled them quite a bit. The water conditioner that I use has some of this stuff in their , so I am hoping that wil be all they need and be ok. You must have handle the koi very hard and for a long time in order for them to die on you like that, anyways what it a koi sock? And what did you do to the koi that you killled? Why were you handleing so much?

[ranskye]

koi sock is a net without netting. it has a hole in both ends and you grab the material to lock it off. its like a felty material so still not as good as plastic.
but better than netting which will catch fins and gill plates.

ive killed a fair few kois before, more at this new farm with transporting and holding broodfish. the last farm was good because they were there and happy. i cant really remember any big ones dying there from about 500 fish in over two years. i hit one huge koi on the back with a net once,left a big dent, an open wound and it still survived. didnt breed though.
but theyre hard to kill with big water.
and slight handling one or twice a year for breeding only..but i was talking about another species regarding the flared up fingermarks..a flighty fish that jump everywhere and go jig jig with their tale until they lose scales, excess handling on them and in combination with cold water outside their natural range left them with infections everywhere they were touched. so that lesson taught me two things.

i still confess im a fish killer/ ive killed more fish than most.
i killed a koi when it bashed its head into a tank wall when getting it out of the car not long ago. dead in one minute. i couldve sedated it.
another two died later, one got stuck on in uncovered inlet and pulled its eye near out..but i think it was crook from transport, suspect it went without oxygen before it came here. funny for it to be checkin out an outlet upside down..
another fish spiralled for a week or so, i didnt know what went wrong there, maybe stuck in some spawning netting or lack of air.. but someone had pulled him out after seeing this spiralling and bent its back till it cracked then let it go. a koi chiropractor or something..ha. oh yeah i thought..
i suspect its not alive anymore now.

one fish last week jumped from a tank that was getting lowered by an employee.that works pretty good a four foot drop to concrete.. no netting above that tank.

overall the best way to kill a koi is when handling and in combination with putting them somewhere less than ideal. a slight nudge or roll of theyre body isnt very damageing, only when they start a big struggle and smash fins and body.that coat stuff might be just fine.