wrote in message
...
I have already committed to ending our debate in this NG, and asked that we
go private, but it would seem you would rather not. That's ok.
I will limit the comments in my response to not antagonize general readers,
and will endeavor to keep things straightforward.

I dont see any literature that disputes the cultural techniques and
practices used
for thousands of years by the Chinese and Japanese. They developed these
strains of
fish. They developed the techniques that are sound, economical and have
stood the
test of time. They are still the major producers.

I fully agree.

These breeders of Koi and GF use
salt to prevent disease. The Chinese and Japanese have not traditionally
given away
their "trade" secrets. However, people like Brett have gone to Japan to
learn from
the masters and he has become an expert in koi breeding. Brett uses it
because the
Japanese use it and it works. Jo Ann uses salt because she has imported
thousands of
top quality Goldfish from the Chinese and they use it, her instructors in
aquaculture
at the U of Florida recommend it and it works.

Here we differ. I don't doubt the abilities/knowledge of either of the 2
individuals you mention, but neither can I attest to their
knowledge/abilities, as I know neither.

I do agree that the Japanese have used salt (BTW in higher levels, like .3%
or even more) in their farm ponds to raise Koi, but when interviewed by US
growers, they reported it was to keep down the algal growth, which deprives
their fish of needed oyxgen, esp. at night. I have directly heard that at
conventions, and it makes sense to me. I agree, I don't think they did any
studies on it.

One source for this statement (if you wish to check on its validity) comes
directly from Mr. Hisashi Hirasawa of the Marudo Koi Farm in Japan. His farm
produces about primarily Showas, Sanke, and Kohakus and he is very well
known in Koi circles, as most of the grand champion Showas comes from his
farm!

His farm is certainly not the only Koi producing farm in Japan, but
certainly one of the most respected.

Additionally, this fact can be corroborated by Mr. Mark Curtis, formerly of
Picovs in Ontario. He is one of the few "outsiders" invited yearly to go
inside the farms in Japan, and make his selections (for the following year).
I have hed Mark down here to judge our Koi show. (BTW our last show was this
past weekend. You'll never guess what one of topics of the discussions was..
salt)

I accept a couple thousand years of experience raising fish in ponds as
valid data.
I dont see any valid data showing that it is harmful. Plants are not
killed by salt
levels at or under 0.1%.

True, but waiting to see the death of anything is a late finding. I am not
aware of any studies on salt's impact on health of the plants as far as
blooming, (plant) disease resistance, etc.
I do remember seeing a plant study that I believe Rod referenced, that
showed water lettuce, and ? started to die at levels just about .1% OTOH,
lilies, lotuses, marginals, etc as I recall did not die off below .3%, but I
couldn't find the study tonight to give you any specifics...

Demonstrating salt resistance in a few parasites doesnt
prove anything except there are salt resistant parasites, hell, the ocean
is full of
them.

Yes, but that still doesn't address the relatively recent finding of salt
tolerant (resistant) Trich seen in west Coast Koi dealers (which they did
not see before mid 1990s), who import from Japan, where the levels of salt,
as you point out, are high (relatively).

The use of salt in ponds has less to do with treating parasites than with
supporting the electrolyte balance of fish and stimulating the slime coat
which is
the first line of defense against parasites. Using salt as part of good
general
cultural practices leads to vast reduction in ever needing to treat fish
for parasite
infestations in the first place.

The only problem I have with that staement is that I know many, many folks
who have quite successfully maintained ponds with ornamental fish as long,
or longer than I have, and they have never routinely salted either. They
have had no parasitic problems (nor have I, at least to date). I think the
issue, as you have stated in previous posts is primarily maintaining
excellent water quality, which I can certainly attest doesn't require
supplemental chemicals (salt included here).

This is why the Chinese and Japanese use it.
The idea of "saving" the use of salt for treatment supposes that the
parasites
infesting the fish are not already salt resistant. It supposes that
withdrawing salt
from the water is going to lead to a reversal to salt sensitive parasites.
It also
supposes that high salt levels are the best treatment for parasite
infestations. I
see no valid data to support any of these suppositions.

Salt has been shown to be an excellent, relatively benign (compared to other
means) treatment for several commonly found parasites. There are numerous
resources to refer to on that.

The demonstration that low levels of antibiotics fed to animals leads to
bacterial
resistance doesnt work as a model system for salt and parasites.

I did not mean to say it did. There is organism resistance to many chemicals
that can occur. ie the DDT resistant ants (while DDT was on the market for
you younger folks). Now I don't believe they "became" resistant, I simply
believe there is a natural rsistance to just about every substance that is
found in certain members of most species. Some tolerate higher level of a
chemical, etc. than others. This is different than antibiotic
resistance,which can be passed from bacterium to bacterium.

But it stands to reason that is you continuously use a substance
(antibiotics included) in an environment that would be toxic to many of the
species in question, only the naturally occuring resistant members of that
species can continue to survive and reproduce, hence a "natural" selection
for resistant organisms. I am certainly not talking plasmid, etc transfers,
I am talking nonsusceptible (or at least less susceptible) hosts.


Antibiotics are
generally used to treat internal bacterial infections, not external
parasite
infestations.

I agree, I never said otherwise.

Salt is present in every living thing to about the same concentration
(0.9%) unlike antibiotics that are only found in some species of bacteria
and fungi.
No one has taken the time to invalidate the use of salt in ornamental fish
either.
Medicine has a long history of using "what works" for centuries before a
scientific
explanation is found. Physicians did not eschew use of aspirin until its
mechanism
of action was found.

Agree to that as well.

My definition of an expert includes learning and experience, but more
important is
that it has been their source of lively hood and that they been successful
at it for
a number of years. Live long, prosper, then publish. Publishing a book
doesnt
qualify a person as an expert. There are many books out there full of
misinformation
of the most egregious sort. A book written by an expert as defined above
carries a
great deal of weight with me. A book written by a practicing scientist in
the field
and used as a textbook in a university would be a close second. But as a
scientist I
have a predilection for experts who are scientists and use proper
scientific
methodology. Being and keeping current in the field is of course
essential.
I dont consider myself an expert in this field either. When others say
they really
know very little about the areas in which they are judged an expert I
believe they
are truthfully assessing their abilities. When I tell people I am not an
expert and
they dont believe me I assume they dont even have a good enough grasp of
the field to
make a valid judgement.


Sounds like we completely agree here too.

I am rather surprised that you feel "that man often fails to improve on
what nature
provides" since nature definitely provides a method of selection of the
fittest for
all living things, something that medicine is committed to thwarting.

In medicine we are committed to preserving life, which in my opinion is not
always the right thing to do. Some of the horrors I have seen, are
iatrogenically induced, by some of my colleagues going full steam ahead
without considering the quality of life. Go, go, go, using the latest
science to "save lives" without considering quality of life.

For example (and this may really get me in trouble.. I can see it coming,
but here goes), pneumonia used to be called God's gift to the stroke
patient, because it ended their suffering quickly in many cases.

Now we have much more to offer a stroke patient, but there are still those
whose life we can never restore to any functional level, those whose life we
make miserable by prolonging their suffering, those who's strokes are
completely nonrecoverable (which BTW with today's scans I can deduce even
early in the illness, often while they are still in the ED). One example
that comes to mind is the locked in stroke, the patient who is alert, but
can't move any of their extremities, can't speak, can't swallow, and often
can't breath on their own. So we put tubes in their trachea, their stomach,
their bladder, their veins, just to keep them going, but for what??

We have beat off the pneumonia, in many, like the above patient, only to
have them linger, sometimes for years, on ventillators and chronic care in
nursing facilities, prolonging their suffering, and depleting all their
family's financial resources....

The same can be said for those who are critically head injured, and I could
go on and on. The point is maybe we need to sit back and let nature end the
suffering.

Our bodies are amazing machines. We ofetn try to improve on nature, but in
the end, how often do we succeed? We often create unexpected new problems,
while trying to make these improvements. That is what I meant.

It is often more difficult to do nothing at all, than to jump in with the
latest remedy, whose outcome may not be what we desire..


We dont want
"nature" selecting against our beautiful but definitely unfit koi.

I would not agree that Koi coloration ties in at all with their fitness.
However, some of the GF morpholgical breeding certainly does (ie celestial
eyes, etc)

There is very
little that is natural about a pond that is a closed system and
overstocked with fish
bred for bright flashy coloring rather than a robust immune system,
protective
coloration and reproductive success.

I agree again!

I really cannot assess the level of expertise of those running/teaching
seminars. It
takes a little technical ability to teach people how to do a scrape and
identify
common parasites. It takes some diagnostic ability to point out that a
couple gyros
dont mean much and is not a reason to treat an entire pond. OTOH, it does
take a
great deal of expertise to look at fish in a pond, know what the problem
is and how
to fix it before checking the water parameters, catching the fish, doing
the scrape
and identifying it in a microscope to confirm the diagnosis.

I don't know how anyone could look at a pond, and diagnose the problem
without knowing the water quality parameters, at the very least, as so many
"infections" are actually ammonia/nitrite/pH/dissolved oxygen, etc. related.
Many of the symptoms (ie red streaked fins, flared gills, clamped fins,
listless fish, fish gasping for air, etc), are indicative of a number of
different problems.

I would think you at least should start with water quality parameters,
before "diagnosing" a problem.

How many sick fish and
sick ponds have the people been treating per month and for how many years?
OK. blew a few hours on this response that are really needed elsewhere.
Ingrid

You're right, we both have spent too much time on this.. sometimes I wonder
why.......

Later,
Greg