NEWS＆TOPICS
- 2016.06.17
- What would be the optimum water for Koi ?
What would be the optimum water for Koi ?
There are various creatures in rivers and you can look into water condition upon refering to creatures live in river bed.
See following.
| Water condition | Creatures living in river bed |
| Clear water | Stonefly, Japanese freshwater crub, Dabson fly..etc. |
| Relatively dirty water | Japanese fire fly, Thiaridal snail, Clithon retropictus..etc. |
| Dirty water | Water scorpion, Pond snail, Water stick insect..etc. |
| Extremely dirty water | Red swamp crawfish, Non-biting midges, Moth fly..etc. |
As above, for example, Stonefly is living in around clear water.
But, they would either dye or move to other area where about the water condition is better if water condition gets bad.
Then, to apply it to the Koi and water condition, there must be various data such as pH, hardness, hardness of carbonate,dissolved oxygen, ammonia concentration, nitrite concentration, nitrate concentration to be taken into account.
Furthermore, all the values has to be at acceptable levels.
If only one of them deviates from acceptable level, that would cause stress on Koi and would even result in cause of death as mucosa might come off , thus incapable of preventing disease germs from getting in.
Under normal circumstances, it would be extremely rare that the fish dyes from disease since the water condition is stable in nature.
However, it is no wonder that water condition gets deteriorate in the river, lake, pond around demographically popolated area.
It is caused due to pesticide polution, fresh water red tide by sewage contamination, factory disposal..etc.
Following diagram describe it in details.
Pesticide polution・・・applying medication ⇒deterioration on water condition due to bacteria extinction⇒
disease outbreak⇒applying medication⇒Koi get killed.
Fresh water red tide, Blue-green algae・・・too much feed⇒wrong choise of filtering materials⇒Ammonia⇒
Nitrite concentration increase⇒Disease outbreak ⇒ applying edication⇒ deterioration on water condition⇒Koi get killed.
In order to respond to change in water environment, it should be monitored what is going on such as how the koi swims, its appitite, color of skin, complexion, gills movement, range of activity, color of water, turbidity.
Furthermore, as far as the value of ammonia, nitrite are concerned, even the specialists are unable to grasp without measuring the value in practice.
Uner relatively good environment, it is less likely that fish gets disease.
As opposed to that, there must be something wrong with water conditions in case of the pond where disease outbreak occurs.
Let me summarize the cause of fish disease as follows.
●being under the stress due to deterioration of water conditions.
●radical change of water condition by changing large amount of water, put new koi in the pond.
●Rapid change in water temperature.
●Carrying either newly purchased Koi which might have disease germ or water contained disease germ to the pond.
Disease germs do exist in every pond one way or another, there is no such things as the pond under aseptic condition.
●infection through surface wound caused by being pulled out with net, being collided with other koi.
●sludge would create hotbed of disease germ. And deterioration of water condition caused by decreased pH value which discourage bacteria to be in active.
Talking about the cause of disease outbreak, there is more to it than above.
Anyway, putting the koi under good environment can educe its natural healing capacity.
In that sence, it is extremely important to focus on breeding environment.
In another way of saying, under undesirable environment, fish would get stressed and would be susceptible to
disease by being immune-compromised.
Keeping water condition at optimum level and setting up filtering tank system can make big difference in that respect.
What I would like to emphasize again here is the importance of biological filtering.
Thus, 《Bacto Power》《Bio Sponge》would be highly recommended.
