Barely alive fish

[Dave 54]

Temperature now going up already: day time comes up to about 45F, at night goes down to around 30F. pond water temp on the top around 39F. pond was free of ice for a long time now, i already unplugged my 2 deicers, no need for them but 3 air stones are still going. My pond was never completely frozen even when it was very cold: 3 air stones kept 3 holes in the ice plus 2 deices had pretty big hole open too, so i always had at least 4 holes in the ice at all times when it was freezing as well as i kept constant eye on my fish, that's how i could catch in time to save them then they started to swim and then flipped over. I wish i could put my pump and filtration already, but unfortunately i'd have to wait to hopefully weekend, as i just bought new external pump and huge (3 times bigger then needed for my pond) bio filter. i always believed that you can never have filter "too big for your pond" so all this new stuff needs a day of working outside to set up, glue together new piping and connections. So i'm hoping this weekend the weather would cooperate with our need to work outside and it will warmer and no rain. meanwhile i'm going to vacuum pond bottom today. It's actually not bad, as i cleaned and vacuumed it really well before winter, so it's almost free of leaves and debris, but some string algae blooms did accumulate in the bottom, so i'll try to vacuum it out.
As for both fish, it's no change with them: they still lie on their size most of the time, but respond when i touch them and stay upright after it for a while. The orange koi respond better then kujaku, as soon as i touch him he immediately picks himself up and swims a little and then stays upright for awhile. then i find him on lying on the side again. however kujaku responds slow, but obviously he's not nearly as bad as in January when he was just i step from being dead. So in this point i don't want to take him out again, as trying and give him an injection would probably stress him more. i don't know what it is, but something is obviously prevents these 2 fish from keeping themselves upright. So hopefully weather will warm up soon and they start eating so maybe i can try and feed them some medicated food to boost their immune system. also maybe if i restart the filters and full circulation it will help, i hope. at this point i can only guess and hope. I don't know if something new is going on this winter, but obviously i;m not the only one with this problem: another victim on this forum is Ruben and also i was reading other forum on Practical Fish keeping site from UK and here's a quote of another pond keeper: "hi, [/size]Had the pond for 20 years and never had any big issues over winter. [/size]However a few of my koi of different sizes are upside down on the bottom of the pond, 2 huge ones and 2 med ones have died and i dont know whats happening. [/size]Could it be down to the sudden temp change with all the snow? [/size]Its so sad as had some of these guys since the pond was set up. [/size]I just dont know what to do!!" [/size]

There is a thing called sleeping sickness that can affect koi at very low temperatures.
However Sleeping sickness is the wrong word for it, as it isnt a sickness but a problem that is described as behavoural abnormality.
They lie about on the bottom of the pond looking to all intents and purposes to the world that they are dead, you'll find that even the gills will barely move.
What has happened is that the cold has dramtically reduced their metabolisms to such a degree that they appear dead.
But when stimulated into movement they will move but a short while after will go back to lying on the bottom again.......
Prolonged exposure to drastically reduces their chances of survival.
By adding salt to the water and raising the temperature rapidly at say 2-4 degrees every couple of days they come round and act normally
It is recomended that you add whilst raising the temperature a dose rate of 6kg per 1,000 litres.
Note after 10 days you must reduce the level of salt by doing water changes however it only normally effects young koi.
Any koi over two years may not show any symptoms of this at all and act normally.
I hope this has help you some.
Please remember if you remove them from the pond to put into an aquarium and they respond do not put them back into the pond until the spring as the shock may do for them and they will die

rgrds

Dave

 

[milocat2012]

Thanks, Dianne for a good word. I guess sometimes your best is not good enough. Unfortunately it's hard price to own pets, that eventually you have to bare with loosing them. That especially applies to fish that could have too many things to go wrong with them, and you feel helpless sometimes to try and save them.

 

[milocat2012]

Thanks very much, Dave for this advice. it really does help to know, as you're the first person that actually give me an explanation that made sense. I'll remember it in the future. However i hope that i wouldn't have to do anything over next winters coming, I always had a break over all the winters in the past from cleaning and taking care of the pond. This winter it was just opposite, as i had to deal with all this sick fish and Q-tanks in freezing weather. I'm not sure if you read my last update: that i unfortunately couldn't save one of the fish with those symptoms. it died last week. I had 3 fish that were having those exact symptoms: the first one that i treated back in the beginning of january and released back in the pond 2 weeks later. it was doing fine all this time. However just yesterday i saw it lying on it's side again, but then he straighten himself up as soon as i got close to the pond. The second one that put in the Q-tank last week in my garage along with the fish that died, and so far he was doing well for past 10 days in a Q-tank. I didn't let the water to warm up a lot: currently it's about 46F (9.4C) but today i saw him lying on it's side in the Q-tank again. He straighten up and swim a little when i came close, now he's keeping himself upright against the wall of the Q-tank. The temperature in the pond is close to Q-tank, a little less: 41F (4.7C) on the top, the bottom probably couple of degrees more. I was thinking of releasing this fish back to the pond sometime soon: if fact i'll have to do it sometime this week as we're leaving for a week vacation next Saturday and i don't want to leave this fish in the Q-tank while we're away, in the case of any electrical failure this fish is not likely will survive in small Q-tank if the air pump fails for any reason. So i'll have to slowly bring the temp. in the Q-tank down to pond temp. release fish to the pond and hope for the best for both fish. Good thing is the outside temp. predicted to go up this week low to mid. 50sF and i'm hoping that pond water will start to warm up now. Also today we're working on installing new powerful pump-filter system and maybe vigorous water circulation will help also.
Thanks again,
Kira