Help - Koi with skin tear on his forehead

[bekko]

I caught one by accident not long ago. He was inside a net enclosure over some ponds. I took him as far away as I could, but there are limits when you live on an island. Fearing the inevitable, I put a rooster band on his leg before releasing him. He was back in a week - saw the one with the red band again this morning.

Sangreaal, 20kva sounds like a lot of juice. Is that safe to have around the house?

I finally built net enclosures over everything using a post-and-cable sort of construction. The enclosures have doors on them, but once inside you can walk around, net fish, etc., without a lot of hassle. We also use the net enclosures as aviaries to keep pet birds in.

-stevehopk

[rockman]

I am not sure exactly what is going on, but now I have *third* fish with a forehead scar (this time my favored longfin that is my icon!). I can't help noticing the scar is in alomst the same exact spot on all three fish.

If ths were an issue of rocks or other sharp edge within my pond, it seems like a heck of a coincidence that everyone was fine for many months and now within several weeks three fish are showing a similar issue. Also, it would have to be that all three fish ran into the edge at the same fashion, perhaps unlikely?

Anyway, sorry to vent here about this, but obviously I am disturbed, and I still do not have a root cause. Perhaps I need to stake out my pond for an extened time and try to observe what is happening?

I do have a net, but it doesn't quite reach the very edge of my pond, maybe the heron is smart enough to wait over that part of the pond, who knows?

[Tamianth]

Get up before daylight then and stake out duty is on its way. They will fly over or try to observe from a perch someplace to make sure the path is clear then come in from a different direction.... Late afternoon and before dark also.

The one thing I found is that they do not like to be harrassed... but the odds are kinda overwhelming here as none of my cats or dogs are scared of the darn things and they sure don't like a crazy lady carrying a skimmer net threatening to play baseball. They don't get off the ground well either very fast.

They will land right in the middle of a net to and weigh it down, had a youngster try it last year and allmost got his tail feathers come up missing since he didn't have enough clearance to make it over the tree's and the Akita is a allstar when it comes to jumping. He barely made a branch.. somehow the whole turn the table thing discouraged this one from a repeat preformance. The older one and I went round 3 for 3 weeks... but the evil radiating from that bird sent my hair on end. I knew when it was around and learned to pick him out of his tree perch even! Positively pure evil intent there!

I do keep a net on my pond, but its now raised up over the pond with shepards hooks and I run smaller nets around the side like a tent and fastene together. Next year with a rebuild, its getting a pergola and I'm seriously contemplating some kind of snap on screens..

All game is protected both state and Federal, and they don't care if its in your pond or not. Only folks like Ranchers and big buisness are going to get anything done and even at that, the game dept generally provide the hunters or trappers to remove the problem.

[dizzyfish]

Quote: Originally Posted by bekko I caught one by accident not long ago. He was inside a net enclosure over some ponds. I took him as far away as I could, but there are limits when you live on an island. -stevehopk

Take it to the other side.

[Sangreaal]

Quote: Originally Posted by bekko Sangreaal, 20kva sounds like a lot of juice. Is that safe to have around the house? -stevehopk

Yessiree, Steve. Quite safe, but very alarming to those that get up close and personal with it. Though it is a lot of volts, there is only milliamps pushing it. That, and there's two different kinds of delivery--a constant current where the wire is hot all the time and a pulsating current, so the offender has about half a second of zapping at a time.


I have the pulsating type, good for 20 miles of fencing. That little 16 gauge aluminum wire my 10 year old stepdaughter can break if she ran through it keeps in 2500lb warhorses--even the stud colt. My neighbor raises brahma bucking bulls for rodeo (those monsters are mean and they'll run you out of their pasture as soon as you step off the tractor), and keeps them all in with hot-tape--thin wires woven through white or yellow polyethylene for visibility and added tensile strength.

You'd think that if such large and fearless animals can respect those boudaries, a scrawny stilt-legged bird would.

Marie

[rockman]

Been staking out the pond for most of the day, including first thing this morning...

No sign of a heron today, which I guess is a good thing.

I haven't seen my smallest two fish (both little sankes about 5") in the last two days, so I am wondering if the heron got them?

One thing I noticed today since I was watching my fish a lot was that my showa is showing signs of some "fashing", especially after I feed him. No other fish is doing this as far as I saw. I checked the water, and the ammonium and nitrite are slightly up, about 0.25 ppm each, and the pH is slightly low, about 6.8. I added some baking soda, and now the pH is 7.2 (I could pind any pH up at the pet store). Perhaps my showa is sentitive to the water quality, I have read that parasites can also uuase this kind of behavior as well. I will continue to monitor him.