Koi Health| Keeping your Koi Healthy

  

Koi are hardy fish if you are a little protective of them, don't let them freeze, don't let them starve and don't let them be a meal for a predator.  That seem like the same things we would do for any of our other pets. Koi can get sick many different ways, introducing new fish to  their water, excess stress, injuries and dirty water. That's just a few.

Most problems that koi get are not deadly to them in the beginning, but untreated it can lead to their death. a small abrasion on a koi can go either way, the best thing to do is keep on eye on the koi and make sure it's not changing, except geting better, and your koi are eating and swimming like normal. We always treat with salt, this is un-iodinized with no rust inhibitors. This is the first step it helps build up their stres coat and pretty much burns of any unwanted parasites and kind of cauterizes the sore or abrasion. We put rock salt in a nylon and hang it in or waterfall or stream, it just disinigrates into the pond.

Allowing too much fish waste, leave food or any other organic material to build up in the pond will make the Ammonia level rise to deadly levels. This can burn the koi's lungs and they will have a hard time recovering if they ever do.  A filter is great, but a filter can only handle some of the problem. Normally a filter helps keep ammonia levels in check but overload is a problem. The water may need to be changed, just about a fourth at first especially if you have city water with chlorine, Koi are sensitive to chlorine.

After you have koi for a while you will be able to tell if a koi is in some kind of distress, they will be listless, their color may lack luster and they will just look miserable. Other signs can be gasping at the surface, jumping out of the water and rubbing against any thing thy can find. Most problems will happen just after purchase, so keep a good eye on your new koi, its just the stress of shipping, netting, hankling, traveling and being over crowded that make their stress levels elevate, and when The koi's stress coat is thin eveyrthing attacks them, and they have little protection. When you put a new koi in your pond try touching it's skin and see if it is rough feeling, or if it's slimy. If it is rough or dry feeling watch that koi closely for a while.