Pond update

[preacher]

Well I was struck by the white spot curse again

For now I will stick with my shrimp and Koura and hold off getting any more native fish until I figure out what to do. The 2 goldfish in there don't seem to be affected at the moment. Ive tried everything I can think of from treating the water to water changes. The only thing I can figure is something is seriously stressing the fish out, though they seem happy enough (Im thinking maybe I'm not oxygenating the pond enough?)

My Koura are certainly happy, they are out and about all the time and I even see one or 2 out in the day. I noticed one the other day that has had a scrap with someone and lost a claw.

I wonder though, does anyone know how Shrimp mate? Last night I saw something unusual, 2 large shrimp with smaller shrimp riding their backs.

I know they start as males and then change to females as they grow up.

P.

[Stella]

I have been mulling over this for a while and really can't work out why your bullies keep getting whitespot.

What were you treating it with and how?

Whitespot takes much longer to be completely gone than just for every fish to be spot-free. You are aware of this?

Very cool that the crayfish are out and about during the day! The claw will grow back, but it takes a few moults for it to get full-size again.

I don't know how shrimp mate... I know crayfish do it face to face

[preacher]

I went to the local pet shop and they gave me a bottle of something called

BLUE CIRCLE WHITE SPOT CURE. Any good?

It conveniently comes in drops per gallon so I suspect I may well have seriously under/over medicated the fish trying to treat the pond. I was also using some anti-chlorine and anti algae (the ones you get at the supermarket) treatment.

I tried to keep the pond as clean as possible, plus change the water every few days but with all the rain we have been having here plus my shift work at the local hospital its hard to get outside.

[livingart]

how is the temperature of the pond

and some treatments will kill crustaceans

[Stella]

Do you know exactly how many fish you have in the pond and/or is it possible to catch them all?

If you were to remove all the fish into some kind of quarantine facility you will:

- be able to treat exactly without over or undermedicating, because you would know the exact literage.

- not risk killing crustaceans or have other adverse effects on the pond itself.

- you would be able to keep tabs on when the last spots fell of the last fish much more accurately, and then know when it is safe to stop medicating (I recommend two weeks later in this case)

- If you got every single fish the pond would be completely rid of whitespot in two weeks (extra time due to colder outside water just to be sure)

I wouldn't worry too much about chlorine, in a pond you wouldn't be doing enormous water changes, would you? Most of it would dissipate if you blast it in from the hose on the spray setting.

Algae. There are other ways than chemicals. Cheaper and better for the pond. What sort of algae is causing the problems?

Any chance of a photo of the pond? Partly curiosity partly for other ideas

[preacher]

I don't think temperature is much of a problem, at least at the moment.

When we get to mid summer it might be a bit different.

I do have a large storage bucket outside with lots of daphnia and duck weed in it. Not much else though, nothing for the fish to hide in. Thats all I have which I could isolate the fish in. At the moment theres only the 2 goldfish and 1, possibly 2 whitebait. Plus about 14 very active Koura and goodness knows how many shrimp and snails.

I try not to do enourmous water changes, plus the water runs through 2 mini pools before going into the main pond.

As for pictures, sure I can upload some to : http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/nzfreshwater/

Look under Peters Pond

Note the pond is essentially the August 08 makeup, with some slight alterations. There is more wood and rocks, including a wall of rocks cutting across the shallow end between the branch going across and the small pile in the centre.

[Stella]

Thanks for the photos. Looks like lots of good hiding places!

The pond itself looks great, I can't see any big problems stemming from your set-up. I would be worried about temperatures over summer. Even if that fence is on the northern side, the sun will peep over it and that pond would heat very fast. Shade sail?

(I forgot that I had photos on nzfreshwater! very very old.... that list has a lot to blame for my native fish obsession, just a shame that it isn't very active now)

So what happened to the bullies? Did they die or you released them?

That many koura could lead to a lot of risk for the bullies (someone on nzfreshwater likened a cray in an aquarium to sleeping with an axe-murderer under the bed). I lost three small male bullies one spring to a koura as I suspect they started nesting and were easier to corner.

(midwater fish are safer, but bullies live on the bottom)

Is whitespot still visibly present?

How long since the bullies... evaporated?

Whitespot can linger undetected for several cycles in the gills of fish. Do you think you should treat the fish just to be sure the system is clean?

I would love to have a pond neat that you can see them moving around

[phoenix44]

random white spot question - do fish get white spot in the wild - and if they do, how do they recover?

[Stella]

yes. It is pretty much everywhere.

In the wild many individuals have some level of 'parasite loading'. Usually this does not affect them dramatically. It is not particularly useful for a parasite to kill its host, unless said parasite no longer has a use for the host.

(Think 'Alien': the host has to live long enough to incubate the parasite, if the host dies too soon, so does the parasite)

In the wild (without man-made interference) the hosts should be suitably healthy and conditions are stable that they do not get really 'sick' from them.

(your body comes into contact with lots of pathogens each day, most do not take hold, some have colonies on you but do not make you sick, but if you get run down: WHAMMO!)

Back to fish with whitespot: if a fish does get run down and gets whitespot, when the spots mature and fall off (prior to making all the infectious free-swimmers) they will be carried off downstream. THere is also a MUCH larger volume of water and therefore a much lower chance of a fish coming into contact with some/many free-swimmers. In an aquarium they are sitting ducks if one fish has one spot, as one spot produces hundreds of free-swimemrs.

I have seen fish in the wild with whitespot.

1- a bully with 10-20. Surprising number. Something must have been up.

2- trapped mudfish for my aquarium came in with about five spots each. Despite the stress of captivity, all the spots fell off and nothing more came of it. I blame the peat substrate... maybe it killed them or buried them??

3- whitebait with whitespot. They had probably been swimming about in the estuary for a while, freshsaltfreshsalt etc, stressful.

There is another visible parasite i have seen on native fish. Is part of a lifecycle, just lives inside the muscles of the fish for a while, then passes out for the next stage, doesn't adversely affect or re-infect the fish.

More information that you needed to know?

[phoenix44]

no such thing as too much info, lol.. its was a great read thanks.. can't say ive ever caught a fish with white spot, lol

[preacher]

Yeah, ton's of hiing places. It was amazing to see how much dirt the Crays moved to make their tunnels!

The bullies died, I didn't think releasing them back into the wild was a very good idea.

Strangely enough I have never seen a cray go for the bullies, indeed the bullies seemed to delight in swimming around the crays, they certainly didn't seem bothered by the crays.

Mind you I havent had a Bullie nest, near as I can figure the last bullie perished about 2 weeks ago and I lost 2 whitebait about a week ago.

The 2 remaining whitebait are swimming too fast for me to see if they are infected, the 2 goldfish don't appear to have been affected at all.

I plan on moving the 4 fish to the daphnia tank tonight, what would be a good treatment to use on them just to be sure they are clean?

The pond is so much fun, seeing all the bugs and life. The whitebait were even swimming in and out of my fingers at one stage.

P.

[Stella]

You are right about releasing them back not being a good idea (and more illegal because they are not healthy).

Some people have this idea that releasing a sick fish back will get it healthy because conditions are right for them in the stream. Thoroughly irresponsible. (Someone I know of in native fish is like that, claims never to have had a fish die... no they just die in the stream out of sight and cause untold side effects.... :roll: :evil: )

Unfortunately chances are any meds would also kill the daphnia....

New Thought: you could leave the fish in the pond and use salt.... The shrimp will be completely fine. The whitebait have just come out of the sea and goldfish are fine with salt too. The crays I can't make any guarantees about, BUT I have put a serious amount of salt in a tank with a cray in a couple of times, and he was ok.

This is the bit you won't like:

1 teaspoon of salt per litre of water...... :lol:

I recommend sitting down with a calculator and a weights and measures converter...

The good thing is the salt doesn't dissipate or break down or anything like some meds can, so (for your situation) you just need to dump the salt in and leave it for three weeks then slowly remove it with your waterchanges.

Chances are the other fish were suitably robust and don't have it, but maybe one or two are lurking. I think it is most sensible for you to do something about it now and know that your system is clean. Make sure future additions are quarantined for two weeks before being added.

I have had a koaro in an aquarium once that had some weird thing wrong with it. He wound up covered in whitespots and *none* of the other fish got it because they were not stressed.

[preacher]

Ok, well at least salt is cheap (and fortunately I have a huge pile of it in the cupboard from my model tank making days). I will give it a go. Last time I worked out the litres it was about a 130.

Your the best Stella

Btw, If I manage to find some fresh water mussels later on, would the salt affect them? Do you think they would be Koura lunch?

Much as I would love some freshwarer crabs too I suspect they would very quickly become Koura bait!

[preacher]

Not sure where I got 130L from...

If my numbers are right, then its over a 1000L (which seems much closer to reality)

L*W*H / 1000 yes?

Shallow end : 190cm*110cm*20cm = 418000/1000 = 418L

Deep end : 150cm*140cm*34cm = 714000/1000 = 714L

Remaining : 70cm*50cm*5cm = 17500/1000 = 17.5L

Which I make out to be 1150L

Bearing in mind the pond is rather full at the moment I would guess its closer to a 1000L normally.

P.

[Stella]

:oops: Just always happy to help out

Freshwater mussels are pretty safe from everything and towards everything. They just close the shell if anyone bothers them.

They are however a big risk if they die, as they quickly pollute the water without looking overly dead. A dead mussel is non-responsive (seriously, there is a big difference!) and the lips come apart and don't close up if poked.

Just something to be aware of, not something to put you off having them.

Freshwater crabs: actual freshwater crabs are about 1cm across and found from Waikato northwards. People often think larger crabs found in streams near the sea are freshwater ones, but really they are brackish ones come for a wander inland. Not sure how they would go living in just freshwater permanently.

The real freshwater crabs do make cute pets. I have some in a tiny (20x20cm) bare aquarium with a couple of pebbles to hide under. Anything bigger and they would get lost.

Overmedicating on salt is not too much of a worry. 1/2tsp per litre kills whitespot, but double that is the rate to kill a few other things.

[preacher]

Dear Lord when you work it out thats one hell of a lot of salt!

1/2tsp = 1oz therefore 1000tsp = 1000oz salt!

16oz per lb is... 60lb of salt! Yikes! THUD......... uhhh someone get the license of that elephant...

now the Daphnia tub is 52*42*25... near 50L which is 25tsp... now that sounds far more reasonable! Does salt kill daphnia? Im not terribly bothered if it does.

P.

[Stella]

I think you are seriously overestimating how much salt weighs!!

1tsp salt = 6g

1000 x 1/2tsp = 500tsp

500 x 6g = 3kg....

maybe closer?

[preacher]

1tsp = 1oz doh! 5tsp = 1oz (changes things just a little huh hehe)

so in fact 1000tsp = 200oz salt

which at 16oz per lb is 12.5lb's of salt for the pond. Now that is more like it.

Mind you I now have my 2 goldfish swimming in 5 times the salt they need

Good thing it's going to rain tonight, though I think I will go change the water a bit too

[preacher]

I had a good look at the 2 whitebait (after trying to catch the little buggers for 3 days!) and they appear to be free of whitespot. But I put them into the tank with the goldfish.

Sadly I lost one of my large Koura who moulted and got its claws stuck

I also went down the river looking for some new bullies now that I have the salt tank ready. I caught 3 tiny evil troutlets (the 4th escaped me) plus a few bullies.

Thanks again for your help Stella, hopefully this time round I will have some success

P.

[Stella]

Glad the plan is coming together now, and that you aren't put off natives!

Koura are quite vulnerable when shedding. Quite a tricky maneuver and vulnerable to predation.

Booo for evil troutlets Fun to catch though. How big were yours? Mine were about 5cm.

At least this way you know the pond will be clean of whitespot, and just make sure any new additions are quarantined (possibly in that level of salt) for at least two weeks before going in. You don't always get diseases cropping up over adjustment time, but quarantining is a hell of a lot easier than sorting out the problems.

(I learned the hard way twice)

[preacher]

2 were about 3-4cm and ones about 5 at a guess. The 4th I think was 3-4cm.

I had a nice discovery in the pond tonight, 2 new frogs! and one looks suspiciously like a girl. 3 are very definately green and just sit there while you pick them up. The 4th is much lighter in colour and hides at the first sign of trouble. I hope they mate, my 3 yr old daughter would love it!

How do you cut up your frozen ox heart? Or do you just grate it while frozen?

P.

[anthony law]

HAVE YOU GOT ANY PICS OF POND.

[preacher]

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/nzfreshwater/

Goto the pictures and look up Peters Pond

Note you have to join the group of course.

I have put a couple of new bis of wood in the pond, it was cool moving some of the rocks around and finding the Koura. 2 were tucked up beside each other in a large hole and another was tucked away with a bunch of shrimp around it!