The point is they DO use salt, actually much higher than is necessary for
prophylactic treatment of koi in our ponds.
Mark Curtis has never bred and raised koi.
Even IF the finding is correct, there werent resistant varieties before, there are
now, not using salt isnt going to correct that problem. It also ASSUMES that
treatment with salt is the best treatment available for trich, which I dont agree
with. The point is, 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.
I accept that there are many people have not added salt and been successful. There
are many people who have naturally high levels of salt in their water too. Jo Ann
tells me she checked the water in Portland and Seattle which showed 0.04% salt. I
suspect that cities near the coasts like California, Texas, Florida have water with a
significant salt concentration. I know there is no salt in the water in Milwaukee
and our water comes from Lake Michigan. (nor iodine so they add it to our salt!!)
There are many other practices like dumping new fish directly into established ponds
with no quarantine that people have done for yeeeeears with NO PROBLEMO. People have
had plecos in with their GF for yeeeeeears with no problems. That doesnt mean it is
a good cultural practice.
All GOOD diagnosticians have a very good idea what the problem is before they order
tests, it comes from years of experience. Jo Ann can look at a pond, look at the
fish and know what the problem is cause she has years of experience. Of course the
majority of the time the problems the fish have are due to crappy water. Of course
most of the time the water leaves them open to parasites first, bacteria second. We
went to Walmart to pick up a fish to "work on". She looked at em in the tanks,
picked one and said "this one is going to have x,y,z" ... and when we got back to the
lab, that is what we found on that fish... in significant numbers!
Ingrid

"Gregory Young" wrote:
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,
Mr. Mark Curtis, formerly ofPicovs in Ontario.
Yes, but that still doesn't address the relatively recent finding of salt
tolerant (resistant) Trich
, many folkswho have quite successfully maintained ponds... never routinely salted either.

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,


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