wrote in message
...
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.

Oh, do you know Mark Curtis well? Before you answer, I should tell you that
I think your name just may have come up in our discussion on salt the other
weekend...

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.

I never said it was the best, just one of the least stressful (higher
therapeutic toxic ratio).

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.

The fish in question are fresh water. They have survived quite nicely, in
natural non-crowded environments over the centuries with no help (salt) from
man. As you have pointed out there is often some salt in fresh water
environments. I am not arguing that. Just show me some proof that
supplemental salt is required to maintain healthy fish, as I said before,
and I'll switch over to using it. It's certainly cheap enough, and as we
speak I have 2 40# bags in case of need for future "pond calls".

If you truly believe the osmotic piece, the next time you have an intestinal
infection with electrolyte losing diarrhea, start drinking 0.9% salt water,
(isotonic with our tissues), and let us know what happens....

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.

Oh really, show me some evidence! I maintain, as do most aquatic authorities
I have ever talked to, corresponded with, or read works of, that good water
quality is what "leads to vast reduction in ever needing to treat fish", not
how much salt someone dumps into a pond.

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!!)

And they should, to help avoid the great lakes "goiter" problem that has
existed for years.

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.

So you're equating not adding salt to a pond as an equivalent practice of
not quarantining fish? Really now!

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.

Well I guess I, and countless others in the field are not "good
diagnosticans" then. Imagine the thought of looking into a pond, and seeing
clamped, red streaked fins on fish, who are rather listless, who may have
respiratory signs (who may BTW also have "nice" slime coats); and not
immediately knowing (based on our experience and training) whether the
problem is due to ammonia toxicity, low pH, chlorine toxicity, Hydrogen
sulfide toxicity, external parasites, bacterial infection, etc., etc., and
then actually having to test water parameters, first, followed by scrapings,
etc as indicated. Imagine that.. shame on us!

Actually this could be great. We could send digital photographs , along with
descriptions of our ponds, into the "experts" you recommend, who can
diagnose our pond problems over the internet. That would save many of us
trips to fellow fish owners' ponds with our scopes and test kits.

Boy, would things in the ER move faster! We could eliminate our blood
testing, CT scanning, etc., and go with our gut, (based our many years of
experience), just like it used to be done years ago (because available
testing was limited then folks.. don't get the wrong idea!). This would
certainly provide much more cost effective, and time efficient medicine, and
people would be happier.. at least initally anyway...

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


That's exactly what the instructors in the KHA program did. They went to
another pet outlet, (who I will not name), and purchased GF, who had ample
live parasites for the class to view.

This salt discussion has really gotten silly! You just won't let it end will
you?

Greg