Hey Tom, good to hear from you. Aquaculture doing well??
I wish to add to what you have said, by commenting on other posts to this
thread. There is no advantage whatsoever to use salt to have "thicker slime
coats" as some have stated. The thickness of the slime layer is NOT
reflective of the health of the fish!
Why? Because the thickest of slime coats I, and others who have treated
fresh water fish, have ever seen, are often in the most ill of fish.
In fact the slime coat is secreted, not excreted, in response to irritants
(ie higher salt concentrations than the fish are accustomed to in the water
for one), stress, sudden temperature changes, bacterial,/viral/parasitic
infections, etc, etc.
The antibodies contained in the slime coat (IgA) have not been shown to
correlate with immunity to disease, nor with recovery from disease.
For some to say salt is not recommended to treat diseases reflects a lack of
understanding of the risk vs benefit ratios of the treatments we have
available at present.
Yes, you can certainly use formalin, PP, various antibiotics, etc, but each
of these treatments have definite risks, (some to the human provider as well
as their finned pets).
I will always start with a treatment that has been shown to work with a
higher therapeutic ratio (which is the ratio of the beneficial effects
compared to adverse effects) like salt, once I arrive at a diagnosis.
You don't need to be a "scientist" to treat your fish, but you should have
some understanding of disease and treatment options.
There are several excellent books available for those not trained in disease
identification. You can go to akca.org and check out their library
references.
BV, I will check for your email address, and start sending you all the posts
on salt , both pro and con as promised. Will do that on Sunday.
Happy ponding,
Greg
--
"Tom La Bron" wrote in message
...
jan JJsPond.us,
You know everyone who touts salt in the water posts the URLs from various
sources, but the thing that is interesting is that these degreed people
are
dealing with aquaculture facilities not ponds. I have said this over and
over again when Rod has posted them and again and again when Ingrid has
posted them. I have even questioned Ruth office in Georgia which is the
main researcher that Ingrid always quotes and she says that her findings
are
for aquaculture facilities not ponds. It is interesting the URL that Rod
always uses for telling you how to dose your water to the right percentage
is a sight that telling how much salt to put in your transport tanks for
trucking the fish over the open road. It has absolutely nothing to do
with
ponds and using salt in ponds.
I guess no one actually reads these references because if they did they
would realize that they are not about ponds, but aquaculture techniques
dealing in rearing ponds and recirc systems where you deal with one pound
of
fish in two gallons of water, which, by the way, is a lot denser than one
KOI per 100 gallons of water.
These "people" are leaders in their fields, but there are helping
aquaculture facilities not home ponders with keeping their KOI.
These URLs are from the university research facilities at Cornell,
Purdue,
Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, and etc. but are working to keep aquaculture
a
valid alternative agriculture for the U.S.
HTH
Tom L.L.
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 22:00:02 -0400 (EDT), (Denise)
wrote:
I was told by a few people (who should know!) NOT to use salt with koi
in pond or tank.
Denise
) Unless they're koi vets, our people out degree your people. ;o)
Who
ARE are these few people? ) ~ jan
See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/
~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website