Finally, someone besides Windsong with a little common sense that is
not shooting in the dark and shotgun treating a problem.

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:02:39 +0000 (UTC), Cichlidiot
wrote:

===Carl Beyer wrote:
=== I have a small pond in front of my house that is overstocked. Just
=== going to admit that up front. I live in SoCal, the valley. Nights are
=== 45 to 50 normally. We have had a lot of rain this week.
===
=== So, with all of that in mind, I looked into my pond this evening,
=== checking everyone out cause I had been on holiday and I saw something
=== that disturbed me.
===
=== I have a bunch (ton) of mosquito fish (bad purchase) and a number of
=== them have white spots all over. None seem to be hurting, no reaction,
=== but I am worried something is about to go south in the pond. the big
=== Gold Fish and Koi are looking very, very healthy but I am worried
=== something is going down.
===
=== Anyone have any advice, and if needed a cure?
===
===First off, have you taken any measurements of the water parameters? With
===the volume of rain received all over CA (and man it's been a bear hasn't
===it?) this could have wildly changed the pH, KH, GH, etc in your pond. This
===would stress the fish which would leave them vulnerable to disease. As for
===those theorizing ich, ich does not come out of nowhere, so if it really is
===ich, you've probably had the parasites present in the pond (ich can
===survive at low levels in the gills of otherwise healthy appearing fish
===according to what I've read) unless these mosquito fish were added
===recently. The potentially wild changes in water parameters from all the
===rain could have stressed the fish causing such a latent infection to
===explode into fishy epidemic proportions.
===
===Which brings us to the "what to do" point. Well, first off one needs to
===positively identify what is going on. Pictures would certainly help in
===that regards as written word is by nature somewhat nebulous and
===subjective. For example, your concept of "spot" might be completely
===different than mine. Let's focus on ich since others have suggested in. In
===ich, the spots are about the size of a grain of salt and randomly
===distributed over the body of the fish. The fish might also show other
===signs such as flashing and rubbing or clamped fins. Fungal issues will
===have much larger spots, usually with a cottony appearance. Velvet
===infection will be much finer spots (sugar sized or smaller) and tend to be
===most noticed on the head, as well as clustered together in groups/patches.
===Velvet can also have a bit of a yellowish look to it under certain light.
===Bacterial and/or slime coat problems can also present as large spots of
===white/opaque color randomly over the body. These will often have a more
===slimey appearance when compared to the cottony look of fungal infections.
===
===Once the problem is identified, then you need to determine whether
===medication is necessary or if it will just be sufficient to remedy any
===water problems caused by the rain. This is often a personal call. I
===personally tend to go for clean water and/or medicated food along with a
===wait and see approach, but others prefer putting the affected fish in a
===holding tank and medicating the water there.


REMEMBER: "This is worth repeating for benefit of al newbies!
Jo Ann asked Dr. Sooooooooooooooooolow to remind people that while she has retired from selling GF (and sold
the business to Ken Fischer http://dandyorandas.com/) she has NOT retired from
helping people with sick GF and koi FOR FREE. 251-649-4790 phoning is best for
diagnosis. but, can try email put "help sick fish" in subject. Get your fish at Dandy Orandas
Dandy Orandas Dandy Orandas........you guys got that DANDY ORANDAS