I thought I would share some excerpts from this E-mail with everyone to show sometimes cation is to be applied when using none clay cat litters and medication.

I thought I would share some excerpts from this E-mail with everyone to show sometimes cation is to be applied when using none clay cat litters and medication. I have experimented with different chemicals and off-the-shelf medications that are available to the hobbyists and found that most do not compromise the constituents of the BCB’s bacteria. Because this hobbyist understands the chemical composition of Zeolite cat litter he/she is taking all precautions in administering medications to cure their Koi.

It all started when the hobbyist added a new Koi to an already established disease free pond, with forgoing any quarantine processes for new arrivals.   Soon afterwords the Typhoid Mary’s introduction to the pond it infected the rest of the Koi and they became sick. The hobbyist immediately started a regiment of Acriflavine in the morning and Potassium Permanganate in the evenings with the help of a friend giving their Koi shots of antibiotics.

Quote:

“Thank God, up to now there were no casualties, almost all the sick fish that were in quarantine have recovered and all of them have been returned to the main pond. But just one night after returning them to the pond I noticed some of them getting white spots disease; it confused me at first since I have bombarded my pond with several different medications already: Tetra pond Medifin and Potassium Permanganate. So I did further readings and found out that the parasite that causes white spot (Iichthyophyrius Multifilis) has to be treated several times because they are only vulnerable at a certain phase in their life cycle. With that known, I’m now treating my pond for 5 consecutive days to rid it of the parasite completely (I hope). I use Acriflavine in the morning and Potassium Permanganate in the evening, with lots of water changes. I plan to flush all chambers in the AFS before last treatment.

 Oh yes! Before I decided to do this (5 day treatment), I tested my usual water parameters and I was surprised that it was better than ever. I got 0 for all ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates with a TDS of 53. This could only mean that all the bacteria within the BCB’s survived my first Potassium Permanganate bomb/treatment. [Ed: The pretreatment of the pond itself was to make sure all disease and/or parasites were dead before the introduction of the Koi after being quarantined.]  I suppose this is because none of the Potassium Permanganate entered inside the BCB’s unlike normal filters. I never got this good of a reading even if I have fasted the fish for 10 days with frequent water changes and daily mechanical filter cleanings with a conventional filter. It would be interesting to see how it will go with 5 consecutive days of Acriflavine and Potassium Permanganate. One thing for sure is I can’t use Methylene Blue, [Ed: Malachite Green can also be use for Ich.] because Zeolite has a 100% capability of absorbing the dye thus becoming saturated with it making it useless [Ed: activated carbon will do the same thing as well.]. Well, that’s the story about my struggle against fish diseases.”

 E-mails like this are saddening to hear because it can happen to the best of us, especially when space does not permit a quarantine tank. However, I’ve seen Koi that were quarantined properly and still bring in an unwanted parasite or disease that the quarantined chemicals could not or did not eradicate. This hobby is a chancy one at best and all we can hope for is that the down moments do not supersede that of the up moments that make this hobby so enjoyable. There is nothing worse than having your filter die after any treatment with medication and having to start the Nitrogen Cycle all over again. Stressed-out Koi or Goldfish can come up with secondary infections when this happens.

With all the bad news and bad experiences this hobbyist has had to endure there is an upside to their Koi keeping. They managed to take second place in a Koi contest for best Koi [ See photo below.], once again the AFS helped them in growing a prize winning Koi. They also claim the Koi that was entered into the contest was not of the highest quality and the cheapest Koi in a buying bidding system. All Koi entered in the contest had to be bought from a bidding system from what was available for sale.

 

This was the “cheapest Koi in the contest” and it only got second place! It looks to me that the AFS really did its job on this one…absolutely beautiful! In Chicago this would not be a cheap Koi by any means. TDF!