Transporting koi and how to go about it

[Dave 54]

Dave 54 submitted a new article:

Transporting koi and how to go about it - what you need to know.

Val and I have been showing koi for many years now travelling in some cases 175 miles on a round trip .
Weve done this safely and have never lost one of our koi , though we have had bleeds [see article].
So here is what you need to know and how to do it as safely as possible avioding stress to your koi .
1) You'll need to purchase industrial strength plastic bags.
2) You'll need heavy duty elastic bands
3) You'll need a 22" Circular catch net
4) You'll need a sock net
5) You'll need a...

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[DoDad]

This is a friend of mine bagging his fish for a koi show.

 

[MitchM]

Dave, what is the cause of bleeding from the gills?
Ammonia poisoning?

 

[Dave 54]

Dave, what is the cause of bleeding from the gills?
Ammonia poisoning?

I was told by a fellow koi club member who ran a fish farm as well as a koi dealership that it is stress response [this was after our oldest koi beld during trasportation for the first of three times and we arrived in a panic at the show ground and was not ammonia poisoning ].
We retired this koi it still bleeds during handling which makes it hard to treat outside of the pond enviroment .
On top of that the health officer at all our koi shows would not have allowed a fish suffering from ammni poisoning to be shown, he being the head of the BKKS Heal Standards committee****.
As such It would have had to have been rebagged and taken home.
It is a fact that the largsest koi suffer greatly at shows I say this because all the shows weve been to our own and other koi shows by the end of the day they show a huge stress resonse in pinking up [blood vessels coming to the surface of the skin for those who dont know what pinking is through stress..
This happns even with a member of our club tasked soley to monitor ammonia levels and other water perameters throughout the show.
The BKKS banned these larger koi from doing anymore than anymore than three shows a year with at least a four week rest period because of fatalities amongst the larger koi that did show after show.
There are vats of water ready for emergency water changes should these larger koi produce ammonia whilst at the shows.
They are hard to handle get stressed easily but these larger koi are what draws the crowds at all shows especially the Kohaku's.
The smaller koi do not stress out as much if at all , our bleeder is a large koi .
Brian due to BKKS rules after these Jumbo koi fatalities had all his health officials report from each show that they had gone to in the Health official capasity , strangely after a change in the rules and rules being rules per say had to have a guest health official report back to him at his own shows .
Were as before he used to do the show in health officer mode and report back to himself.
He and half the BKKS health officials retired en mass after a change was made to the ammount of ammoina allowed in show Vats by the BKKS General Committee and as such superceeded them causing the resignations the HSC felt these levels too high

Dave

 

[Dave 54]

This is a friend of mine bagging his fish for a koi show.

@DoDad the fact remains that these Jumbo koi first have to be caught from a very large pond.
Then are either put into a Vat as you see here ready for bagging up..or put into thhe bag via a very large sock net.
They are then manhandled into the bag [as seen in the video], handled into the bag as you see here, transported man handled, benched, by the benching team and at the end of the very long day manhandled into the nets sometimes by the method shown sometimes by a large sock net net.
By the end of what is a very long day for them its no wonder they are stressed to the nines the day it makes for a very unhappy Jumbo koi .
The only time smaller fish see human hands is when they are debagged are put in the hands of benching staff and then at the end of the show rebagged and taken home .


Dave

 

[MitchM]

I was told by a fellow koi club member who ran a fish farm as well as a koi dealership that it is stress response [this was after our oldest koi beld during trasportation for the first of three times and we arrived in a panic at the show ground and was not ammonia poisoning ].
We retired this koi it still bleeds during handling which makes it hard to treat outside of the pond enviroment .
On top of that the health officer at all our koi shows would not have allowed a fish suffering from ammni poisoning to be shown, he being the head of the BKKS Heal Standards committee****.
As such It would have had to have been rebagged and taken home.
It is a fact that the largsest koi suffer greatly at shows I say this because all the shows weve been to our own and other koi shows by the end of the day they show a huge stress resonse in pinking up [blood vessels coming to the surface of the skin for those who dont know what pinking is through stress..
This happns even with a member of our club tasked soley to monitor ammonia levels and other water perameters throughout the show.
The BKKS banned these larger koi from doing anymore than anymore than three shows a year with at least a four week rest period because of fatalities amongst the larger koi that did show after show.
There are vats of water ready for emergency water changes should these larger koi produce ammonia whilst at the shows.
They are hard to handle get stressed easily but these larger koi are what draws the crowds at all shows especially the Kohaku's.
The smaller koi do not stress out as much if at all , our bleeder is a large koi .
Brian due to BKKS rules after these Jumbo koi fatalities had all his health officials report from each show that they had gone to in the Health official capasity , strangely after a change in the rules and rules being rules per say had to have a guest health official report back to him at his own shows .
Were as before he used to do the show in health officer mode and report back to himself.
He and half the BKKS health officials retired en mass after a change was made to the ammount of ammoina allowed in show Vats by the BKKS General Committee and as such superceeded them causing the resignations the HSC felt these levels too high

Dave

I should say that I am against any pet shows, fish, dogs, cats, whichever.
The health and well-being of the pet is typically the last consideration.
Pet shows are mainly about human status which involves politics and modifying the pets to improve one's perceived status amongst one's peers.

.

 

[Dave 54]

Yes in part Mitch I have to agree but koi shows go a very long way into bring people into the hobby , they do so by first coming to a show admireing these stunning fish and asking questions about them .
They are also a chance to catch up with other fish keeping friends some who have left the club others from as far afield as Wales in one direction and th home countries in the other direction even our FBAS affiliated friends come to visit..
There is a koi health official walking round all day , and should he see a fish that he deems shouldnt be at the show or falls ill part way through then he can order them home.
They are also a valuable source of revenue for the club and help pay for equipment for the club etc, Politics are not allowed in the BKKS plus we have our richer members and like ourselves and others the not so rich members , they can afford those large Jumbo's everyone comes to see not I
Our club has only ever lost one koi at our show's, owned by a millionaire it was reported to be between £5,000 UKPand £10.000 UKP , after an autopsy was found to have suffered a heart attack [which nobody saw coming].

Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Yes in part Mitch I have to agree but koi shows go a very long way into bring people into the hobby , they do so by first coming to a show admireing these stunning fish and asking questions about them .
They are also a chance to catch up with other fish keeping friends some who have left the club others from as far afield as Wales in one direction and th home countries in the other direction even our FBAS affiliated friends come to visit..
There is a koi health official walking round all day , and should he see a fish that he deems shouldnt be at the show or falls ill part way through then he can order them home.
They are also a valuable source of revenue for the club and help pay for equipment for the club etc, Politics are not allowed in the BKKS plus we have our richer members and like ourselves and others the not so rich members , they can afford those large Jumbo's everyone comes to see not I
Our club has only ever lost one koi at our show's, owned by a millionaire it was reported to be between £5,000 UKPand £10.000 UKP , after an autopsy was found to have suffered a heart attack [which nobody saw coming].

Dave

All of this is true, but, as Mitch points out, it is all at the expense of the fish who are in a state of constant low level stress.

 

[MitchM]

... Politics are not allowed in the BKKS plus we have our richer members and like ourselves and others the not so rich members , they can afford those large Jumbo's everyone comes to see not I
Our club has only ever lost one koi at our show's, owned by a millionaire it was reported to be between £5,000 UKPand £10.000 UKP , after an autopsy was found to have suffered a heart attack [which nobody saw coming]....

Beauty contests, by their nature are nothing BUT political.
The appearance of a fish is completely subjective. It's all about favortism and appealing to the judges so they pick your fish.
I tried the dog show route and quickly realized how little the best interests of the dog were taken into consideration. I didn't even make it as far as the first show.
Any "standards" in place are only there to lend a sense of credibility to the beauty contest and breeders will stop at nothing to modify the fish to meet the "standards".

If people really want to show off their fish, there should be a single permanent facility where people can view and select healthy fish for keeping or further breeding..
This nonsense of rotating fish shows is no better than a travelling circus. (sorry, I don't mean to offend)

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Beauty contests, by their nature are nothing BUT political.
The appearance of a fish is completely subjective. It's all about favortism and appealing to the judges so they pick your fish.
I tried the dog show route and quickly realized how little the best interests of the dog were taken into consideration. I didn't even make it as far as the first show.
Any "standards" in place are only there to lend a sense of credibility to the beauty contest and breeders will stop at nothing to modify the fish to meet the "standards".

If people really want to show off their fish, there should be a single permanent facility where people can view and select healthy fish for keeping or further breeding..
This nonsense of rotating fish shows is no better than a travelling circus. (sorry, I don't mean to offend)

Well said!

 

[Dave 54]

Beauty contests, by their nature are nothing BUT political.
The appearance of a fish is completely subjective. It's all about favortism and appealing to the judges so they pick your fish.
I tried the dog show route and quickly realized how little the best interests of the dog were taken into consideration. I didn't even make it as far as the first show.
Any "standards" in place are only there to lend a sense of credibility to the beauty contest and breeders will stop at nothing to modify the fish to meet the "standards".

If people really want to show off their fish, there should be a single permanent facility where people can view and select healthy fish for keeping or further breeding..
This nonsense of rotating fish shows is no better than a travelling circus. (sorry, I don't mean to offend)

Each to their own opinions Mitch and in part I do agree with you fully, as to people who rotate fish shows personally it should be banned but like everything nowadays the big fish are big money especially for a grand champion [not that this excuses anything]
Believe me when I say to you that BKKS Judges you do not curry favour with in any way shape or form they are there to judge koi they show no favour, to do so means they would loose their job simple as that
However we do one show a year our own and as I said previously having the former head of the BKKS HSC as a member every koi that appears at the show is vetted and if found wanting sent home.
Shows are how the little club like our own survive, raise much needed funds, get the message of koi keeping out to our public and lastly show other fish keepers the high standards that these fish are kept at.
The show is in the same location year on year and has a dedicate benching team and water quality team with its own and guest health official .
Without these shows many people would not enjoy some of the fish you and I have in our ponds. if you must complain my friend complain about the lack of education people get when they first start out in our hobby , it is there that the greatest fish losses occure not at a small clubs only other source of club funds its show.
So your gripe about shows isnt with me Mitch it should be taken up with the Associations that run them, but think of the crap fish you would soon be keeping because there has been no set standard of fish out there for you to buy and enjoy in the first place.
What a loss to ponds that would be as there are standards for all the fish you keep Goldfish, Comets, London and Bristol Shubunkins, Watonis, etc
Ive heard tale of some horrific things that go on at dog shows personally I wouldnt go to one if you paid me nor cat shows and I keep cats.
But please dont attack me for it !!!!..............

Dave

 

[Dave 54]

This thread was originally written to help Marshall transport fish from A to B lets try and remember that please

Dave

 

[MitchM]

Yes, my apologies to Marshall for taking this off topic somewhat.

Transporting a fish is not something to be taken lightly, especially when it's done for an unnecessary reason.
The reason for transport should be scrutinized though. I didn't mean for it to be an attack on you, Dave.

 

[Dave 54]

Yes, my apologies to Marshall for taking this off topic somewhat.

Transporting a fish is not something to be taken lightly, especially when it's done for an unnecessary reason.
The reason for transport should be scrutinized though. I didn't mean for it to be an attack on you, Dave.

totally in agreement with you on all points

Dave