Blue Ridge Koi Blog

Updated Quantities for Koi By Variety Items

Beginning Monday, March 25th, we will offer all of our Koi By Variety items in quantities as small as a quarter box.

 

The quarter-box quantities will be as follows:

• 3-4″ – 25 fish
• 4-5″ – 15 fish
• 5-6″ – 8 fish
• 6-8″ – 5 fish
• 8-10″ – 3 fish

 

This means you will have the option of combining up to four different Koi By Variety items into one shipping box. Take a peek at our Price List and Availability for more information.

There Are Many Ways To Kill A Fish

A cautionary tale by Co-Owner and President Randy LeFever.

They say the best fish keepers are the ones that have killed the most fish.  I must be a pretty good fish keeper because I've killed many fish in many different ways in the last 35 years.  Below is a story of one such incident.

After about a week the fish started acting funny, hanging around the top, or lying on the bottom of the the pond.  Well I am a "Koi Professional" so this shouldn't be too hard to figure out, after all I've been diagnosing and treating koi for over 35 years.  They obviously have parasites or some bacterial infection.  So I catch one out, do a scraping, put it under the scope expecting to find a massive infection of Costia or Flukes.  And I find nothing.  The gills are clean, there's no sign of any sort of bacterial infection. No sores, no bloating, no fin rot, no signs of KHV or SVC.  I'm stumped.  And embarrassed.  I take care of thousands of koi every day, and I can't keep five koi alive in my personal koi pond? Maybe I'm not the "Koi Professional" that I profess to be.

So I send a fish off to Vicky Vaughn at Koi Lab.  She calls back the next day and tells me that she has no idea what's killing the fish.  Says that it is the cleanest fish she's ever seen.  Not one parasite anywhere.  She will do a necropsy and get back to me.  I re-check the water quality in the pond.  Still perfect. 

Out of frustration, I double the amount of fresh well water going in.  The next day all the koi are dead.   By now I'm worried that my fish have some exotic viral disease never  before seen.  A couple of days later I'm fixing myself a glass of ice water.  We have to let the faucet run for a minute or so because the well water we have is acidic, and it leeches the copper from the plumbing in my house. So then it hits me!  The water going into the pond runs through the copper plumbing in my house, leaching copper the whole time.  I was poisoning my fish!  No wonder there were no parasites, the copper was burning them off the fish.  When I doubled the flow going in, it doubled the copper and killed the fish overnight.

So I learned at least three valuable lessons.  First, no matter what your level of experience or expertise, there's always something more to learn.  Second, don't always assume some sort of disease or parasite is killing your fish.  Third, Copper and koi DO NOT MIX.

-Randy LeFever

Co-Owner and President, Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery

Columnaris – Diagnosis and Treatment

So you've noticed that your koi are acting funny.  Just yesterday, they were healthy and active.  But now you notice a change.  Time to diagnose and treat the problem as quickly as possible.  While koi are vulnerable to a few different health issues, Columnaris is one of the most likely culprits.

What is it?

Columnaris is NOT some exotic new koi disease.  However, it can show up occasionally.  And when it does, it can cause a lot of damage to your fish in a short amount of time.  Unfortunately, it is quite often misdiagnosed.

Columnaris is a bacterial infection caused by the bacteria Flavobacterium Columnare.  It has been around since man started culturing fish, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.  It is present in practically all aquatic systems, and in the fish in those systems.  From a home aquarium to a 500 acre catfish farm.  No one is immune.

As with most pathogens, it causes no problems to fish in the absence of stress.  However, environmental stressors such as over-crowding, poor water quality or sudden environmental changes can compromise the fish's immune system, leading to a Columnaris outbreak.  Koi are especially vulnerable to Columnaris after the inherent stress involved in shipping.  So take care and be extra vigilant for a few days after receiving new fish into your facility.

Symptoms

Microscopically, these bacteria appear as long, thin rods, usually clumped together to form dome-shaped masses with a "hay stack" appearance.

Fish will develop a white film over their body, with disintegrating fins and tails.  Advanced infections will cause the fish to become emaciated, with sunken eyes and necrotic gills. 

Anytime you see these symptoms combined with rapid mortality, particularly in warmer water, you should suspect Columnaris.  Left untreated, it can kill 50% of a population in just 2 or 3 days.

Treatment

Despite the white film that grows on an infected fish, Columnaris is not a fungus.  The marketing of "fungus medications" for koi and goldfish is rampant.  However, true fungus infections that cause mortality in koi and goldfish are exceedingly rare.  Fungus medications will have no effect on Columnaris, and the condition will continue to worsen.  Additionally, medications used to treat anchor worms, ich and other parasites will be equally ineffective.  Melafix, formalin, malachite, praziquantel and salt won't work either.

So what can you use?  Look for medications with antibiotics in them.  Nitrofurazone, Furazolidone, Tetracycline and Oxolinic Acid have been known to be effective.  We have found that Nitrofurazone seems to work the best.  Whatever you choose, be sure to follow the recommended dosage and instructions carefully.  Overdosing a pond or aquarium can result in complete losses.

While Columnaris is not something you will see very often, particularly if your fish supplier properly acclimates and quarantines your fish before shipping, it can show up occasionally.  Due to the swift nature of the infection, all fish retailers should have medicine on hand in case of an outbreak.

Download this article to print and distribute to your customers.

Have You Tried Our Heavy Pack Program?

We already offer some of the lowest next-day service shipping rates in the industry. However, in an effort to save you even more money, we have rolled out our Heavy Pack Program for the 2012 Season.

How does it work? It's actually quite simple… We use jumbo-size boxes in place of our regular boxes, and increase the packing density by about 75%. So, instead of 100 three to four inch Koi or Butterfly Koi in one box, you can now receive 175 in one box. Where you could only receive 10 eight to ten inch Koi or Butterfly Koi before, now you can receive 15 in one box.

The program applies for goldfish also. Instead of only 150 three to four inch Comets or Sarasa Comets, you can now receive 250. The old maximum for 6 to 8 inch Shubunkin was 25, now you may receive up to 40 in one box.

So, in short, your shipping cost per fish goes down, allowing you to spend more on fish and offer more for your customers.

Please keep in mind, we suggest Heavy Pack quantities only for shipments to major airports with multiple backup flights, and to UPS destinations where 10:30 AM arrival is guaranteed. Also, we may suggest Standard Pack quantities only to some destinations once the temperatures heat up this summer.

For more information on Heavy Pack quantities, check out our current Price List & Availability, or Contact Us.