I'll play devil's advocate here -as I am a retired veterinarian. Parasites are tough nuts to crack, they plague every species of domestic animal and at best we manage to keep the problem at bay but never to eradicate it. Just think of horsekeeping, intestinal parasites can cause a colic that can kill a horse that may be worth a lot more thak a koi but we are at the stage of often implementing the concept of REFUGIA, in a nutshell realizing that we can't manage to wipe out completely the parasites and we are just selecting more and more treatment resistent little blighters (and they are getting resistant, you give a dose that used to work but now barely makes a dent) so we leave untreated the horses that are naturally more resistent (on the basis of a lower fecal egg count) and medicate the rest so that in the envirinment there is likely to be a vast majority of parasites that have not aquired much resistence to antihelminthics. And as far as koi are concernrd there is the issue of veterinarians having very little specific knowledge of fish health in general and even less about koi specifically - and you have to know not only about fish diseases but also about how the fish are acquired, fed and how the pond is managed. There are no real good textbooks to learn from and very few vets have the time to dedicate themselves to koi keeping as a hobby and things are only going to get worse with the way the profession is going. Over half the practices in the UK are now not owned by the vets who work there, they have been taken over by investment groups who see it just as a profit making business. Put yourself in the shoes of a newly qualified vet with tens of thousand of £ in student debt having to accept to work in a place where you have to follow protocols designed to make the company the greatest ammount of money and expose it to the least liability. Also Chris you mentioned gill flukes but neither you nor Ricky mentioned the fact that contrary to skin flukes (Gyrodactylus) that arw viviparous, Dactylogyrus on the other hand produce eggs and these are inherently much more resistent to treatment, you kill the adults but you need to treat again once the eggs have hatched but in a heated pond this may take 3 days but in an unheated one it may take weeks or months. These are just some of the issues to consider
You said it, PROFIT pharmaceutical companies are only interested in profit, if they made something that cured the problem they would be out of business that’s why they produce products that help in knocking it back but you have to keep going back for more. Great discussion fellas👍🏼
Excellent commentary - appreciate the honesty and boldness. Took a year of constantly treating a 4300 gallon pond to get rid of the gill flukes. The cost was ridiculous! Followed manufacturer's instructions - didn't work. MANIUFACTURERS are making $$$$ by not solving this problem. NOT GOOD FOR KOI KEEPING. If they are selling product, they need to take responsibility. Thanks Ricky - one of the best koi pros today.
Great conversation guys! I’ve been having issues with reaccurance of fluke. I’ve been treating over and over and still have fluke in the pond. I have a couple koi that seem to always be infected when the rest of the fish have clean scrapes. I thought about isolating those koi, but it seems like every time I isolate a fish they just get worse and die anyway. I’ve lost 7 fish over the last 2 months and just lost one today making it 8. For me this shit really takes the joy out of koi keeping. I’ve been considering just giving up the hobby all together because of the stress and the financial strain all these different expensive treatments cost. Keep the Koi Talks coming. Bringing these issues to light are just what this hobby needs. Maybe it will draw more attention to the manufacturers and force them to do better.
I’ve also found that a quick dipping of all new shipments in heavy PP for a few minutes before putting them in the quarantine tank prevents a TON of future problems.
Love these talks. So nice to hear from professionals as opposed to self-proclaimed professionals. Dr. Eric Johnson has a great PP protocol although it can take days depending on how clean/dirty the pond is. I've always used his protocol since it made so much sense to me. Also agree that: what benefit is it to the fish medication companies to cure anything? Just like big pharma.
I use salt, a malachite green/acriflavin based treatment for Trich, costia, chillo and white spot and prazi for flukes all at the same time. Kept getting secondary parasites when either treating for flukes and the others. Seeing I’m putting the fish under some stress by treating in the first place, I just treat for all now to cover all bases. Seems to work a charm so far 🤞. Nice not having to treat the pond every other week bouncing from one parasite and treatment to the other
I always have this thought...for example trichodina that pops up in the pond. Where does it suddenly comfrom and how is it manage to come alive in a pond? If you read about it, its said that it is because of not regularly cleaning of filters. I can understand because I've a chamber filtration with brushes. But now with the guys with the drum filters and supper clean ponds, basicly zero fish waist, it still gets into the ponds. How?
A lot of airborne stuff can still get into the pond. Birds can pop into it, pollen, leaves can snag stuff and get into it. The earth is filled with micro bacteria that finds way. PP does work i kill so much bad stuff with it.
😂😂 They can’t prove it as NASA have lost all evidence “Funny That” and recently openly admit they can’t even get threw the so called Van Allan Belt (FIRMAMENT) 😂
Great talk guys but have heard all of this before in your videos Would be great if you would divulge your regimes You won’t be liable your not writing out a prescription dispensing or delivering a medication by doing this
Can I ask , when you use pp and the water starts to turn brown do you add the same amount again to keep it purple or do you add multiple small doses to try and keep it purple ?
You could do a PP at the packet dose on day one and just let it go brown. Then repeat on day 2 and it will stay purple for a lot longer which eliminates some of the guessing when trying to keep it purple. Personally I've never exceeded the packet dose, and it's never fully cleared the parasites. Would be interested to know the kind of dosing Ricky uses.
