Newbie question about quarantine.

[DNR]

Hello everyone,

It's been quite awhile since I've posted. Last spring actually. When we first joined the forum, we were in the process of building a 450 gal. pond. With having our hearts set on Koi, you'all said it would be too small.

Needless to say, what we had read articles on about building a pond in a weekend, turned out to be
a 7 month journey for us and now our pond on a little over 1000 gallons.

Anyway, that's our update. I had a list of questions and now I can't find it. Not unusal for me. The main question I have till I find my list is about the quarantine. We are expecting our 2nd of 4 Koi we to plan
aquire. It is coming from KTTW and will be hereTuesday. Although we have the tank set up, I was
wandering, if they quaratine them for 3-4 weeks, why do we need to?

Also, when introducing to the pond, I read here, that the temp needs to be relatively close. How do
you do that if the weather and pond water are alot cooler, as in the fall and winter time? We're in
Northern Alabama and it can get down to 20 degrees in winter.

Thanks for any advise you can provide me.

Robin

 

[Shdwdrgn]

I'm going to start with the last question first... You do NOT want to introduce new fish to the pond in the Winter, and I wouldn't even recommend it in early Spring or late Fall. My own feeling on this is that if the pond temperature has dropped below 60 degrees, you should not try to add new fish. Any other time of year, you would acclimate the new fish to the temperature of the pond - obviously the larger the difference in temp, the longer of period you want to wait. For instance, if the fish is coming out of 70-degree water and going into a 60-degree pond, you would want to do very slow water changes and let the temperature adjust over a few hours.

Now on to quarantines... This step is up to you, and depends completely on your comfort with the source of the fish, and your willingness to introduce something to your pond that can potentially wipe out all of your fish. Again my feelings on this... I believe that fish living in a pond are much more stress-free than fish living in an aquarium, therefore they are better able to fight off any disease introduced by new fish. However, there is always the chance that something nasty will be carried in by any new fish you get. For instance, in our aquariums we have had to fight a camalanus worm a few times when we didn't quarantine a basic fish like a neon tetra. This particular worm has an incubation period of 6-12 weeks, so it easily gets through most quarantine periods, and then can take a couple more months before your fish start to show any signs of health issues. I simply cannot imagine trying to medicate an entire pond!

With this in mind, you have to ask yourself what you consider an acceptable risk. If your pond is new and you have very few fish, then the risk is low if you introduce a disease - but as you get more fish, or further on as your fish are older and much larger, the risk becomes greater and you will probably be less willing to take chances.

 

[koiguy1969]

i agree with fishin' ..if you really dont want to go thru a long quarentine. atleast give the new fish a few days in a salted tank .2% - 3% and feed antibiotic food ....this will get rid of many parasites,and bacterial pathogens.

 

[DNR]

Thank you for the insight. It seems there is so much to learn. We have the tank ready. We only
plan to have 4 fish in total and this will be number 2. Guess we'll wait til next year for the other 2.

I really appreciate your reply!

Robin

 

[fishin4cars]

Don't take anyones word that they quarantined a fish for three - four weeks, if you didn't see it, take it that it wasn't. Shipping fish causes stress, this is the most likely time if something is going to show up it will, Treating a tank is far easier than treating a pond. For releasing fish I float the bag in the water for about 20-30 minutes, then add about 1/4 of what ever the capacity in the bag already to the bag while it's floatin, ( Example if there is a gallon of water in the bag I'll add a quart each time,) I then wait 10 minutes and add that again, keep doing this for four fills, after there is double the amount of water that you started with I then release them.
Never add pond fish when the water has or is expected to drop below 55 degrees for at least two or three weeks. It's far better to add fish to a pond in the spring after cycling and startup. But sometimes the best fish show up on line in the fall, having a well set-up tank to hold them through the winter can get you some nice fish at great prices if your using ebay to buy from. I do recommend staying with nextdaykoi, KTTW, or Kodama Koi. Most of the others I've heard or experienced by results or haven't heard anything about.

 

[DoDad]

Unless I know the dealer personally I would quarantine. Not all but some are like used car salesmen.