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Message: [QUOTE="Meyer Jordan, post: 257154, member: 7131"] Let me first say that I agree with Peter on his evaluation of 'off-the-shelf' treatments. All due respect to Peter but he appears to contradict himself, "Be under no misapprehension, if parasite/parasites are detected in your pond, they will not disappear as if by magic. [U][I][B]Instead they will just continue to multiply rapidly."[/B][/I][/U] "[U][I][B]Parasites hatching in a natural pond have less than 24 hours in order to find a host (fish) to attach themselves to and thus feed[/B][/I][/U], this is why nature produces thousands upon thousands simply because 99.99999% will fail to find a host and thus die of starvation." Overlooked by Peter and others is control through natural predation which is more likely to occur in an eco-system pond with its varying substrates and richer diversity of flora and fauna than in a dedicated Koi pond. It should be emphasized that temperature greatly affects the life cycle of parasites. It is considerably longer in cold water than in warm water. Cold water (Northern latitude) ponds will likely experience a higher incidence of parasitic events because of this. The pond owner is ultimately responsible for the environmental conditions extant in their pond. "Uncontrollable or recurrent infestation with ciliate protozoans are indicative of husbandry problems," the University of Florida Extension Service. An excellent info source on freshwater parasites. [URL]http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa041[/URL] Seems that we have strayed considerably from the original subject of this thread...from what do Koi eat to what is eating on your Koi. For this I apologize to Silverseeds. [/QUOTE]

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