Site Links
Symptoms Finder
You'll get a picture of the koi / goldfish, you click on the koi fish where it's sick, or choose from several other behavioral options that your koi may be exhibiting.
Sample Submission
Koi and pond fish samples may be run directly at KoiLab or move to UGA for testing at basic cost price. When you send a koi or pond fish to Koilab, the diagnosis, sample collection from whole koi and goldfish, and consultation included.
What KoiCrisis Is For
OutBound Links
KoiVet.com
Probably the first and largest all-Koi health site on the web. Searchable, with chat and message board areas. Content by a veterinarian for fish and author, Dr. Erik Johnson.
KoiLab.com
If you're curious about the latest in Koi health, Koi Lab is where it's being learned. There are no "committees" and no "motions" to determine if we should learn something. Just clinical experience. It's a koi hospital.
Koi Beginner
Once you've leapfrogged through this tutorial you will have a solid, working concept of the Koi hobby and what it's all about. This is done just about exclusively with video and very little written material.
DrJohnson.com
More than koi health, this site spans all things animal, by a real veterinarian who shoots you straight.
Additional Resources
KoiFiltration.com
Non retail: All filtration, all the time. Site was designed for someone who wanted a balanced overview with illustrations and pictures. All types of filtration considered including Nexus, Vortex, bead, sponge, canister, etc.
KoiNutrition.com
Non retail: Just feeding, feed, and food. It's not a retail web site, it's all about different foods, feeding and nutrition.
Koi and Pond Hard Goods
So many places these days, are pure ripoffs. Finding a reputable dealer of koi and pond hard goods isn't as easy as you would think but there's ways to tell. The product line should be to-the-point and not contain shams. Who's doing it right? Visit this site!
Finding Reputable Dealers
The fish are only as good as the dealer holding them. Quarantines, guarantees and fish quality all factor in. What to ask, what to see and how to handle your new fish.
Books on Koi Diseases
You will be introduced to Dr Johnson's Koi Health book but also to other books he's reviewed.
Help With Koi Problems
Koi Community rates a variety of forums and message boards on ease of use, friendliness and quality of help. Not all boards are created equal. Not mincing words here.
Ammonia
Ammonia is the primary waste product of fish, excreted primarily through the gill tissue, but to a lesser extent via the kidney. Ammonia can also accumulate from the decay of fish tissues, food and other organic debris derived from protein. Ammonia accumulations cause reddening of the skin and disability of the gills by its direct caustic effect on these surfaces. Fish suffering in water with high ammonia accumulations will isolate themselves, lie on the bottom, clamp their fins, secrete excess slime, and are much more susceptible to parasitic and bacterial infection.
Ammonia is a big problem in new systems because the bacteria that would naturally dissolve ammonia are not established, see discussion of cycle. As well, even in established systems, ammonia may accumulate in springtime when the water is cold but fish are eating, because filter bacteria have not emerged usefully from hibernation.
Ammonia is capable of ionization below pH 7.4 and so in its ionized state is less toxic to fish.
Above pH 8.0 most ammonia is ionized, and so becomes more toxic. Care should be taken not to increase the pH of a system if ammonia is present but the need to drop the pH or restrict oxygenation to tanks of fish to keep pH down is an overrated aberration in the literature.
Treatment: Water changes (with Dechlor) and management of the pH near neutral will go a long way to cutting losses from Ammonias, ancillary, less useful modes of Ammonia management include the use of the various water conditioners that bind ammonia, and the application of rechargeable Zeolites to the system filter. I am still going to tell you that time and water changes are the two mainstays, however.
Water that is warm, high in pH (There's a test) or deprived of oxygen will have an enhanced toxicity when ammonias are accumulating. These are all important considerations as we try to interpret the varying symptomatology of fish at the same ammonia level, for example, but are affected very differently.
Koi Beginner
Once you've leapfrogged through this tutorial you will have a solid, working concept of the Koi hobby and what it's all about. This is done just about exclusively with video and very little written material.
DrJohnson.com
More than koi health, this site spans all things animal, by a real veterinarian who shoots you straight.
Fishdoc.co.uk
By Frank Prince-Iles. A UK authority who put this site together some time ago and which is still relied upon as a major source of good Koi and pond fish information
Fish Medicines
Learn about fish medicines, what they do, and where to get them.
PondCrisis.com
If you have a koi, pond or fish problem, this site takes you through twenty easy questions and at the end you know what you need to fix in your pond to create restored Koi health.
KoiCrisis.com
Koi Crisis has a symptoms chart by system you can choose the symptom by fish part, and resolve a lot of Koi pond fish problems or at least, learn about them understand how to remedy them.
Buying Domestic Koi
What does "Domestic" koi mean? Why would you buy that kind? How do you pick good and healthy ones? Who sells them and where do you find the best ones?
Buying Imported Koi
A Japanese or Israeli imported Koi is a beautiful thing. Why would you buy one of those? How do you identify a "good one"? And what kinds are there? Who would you buy one from?
Koi Filtration - Bead
With a little bit of management every week or so, you can have gin clear water in your koi or fish pond. Bead filtration is more than ten years old and defines the state of the art in Koi and pond fish ponds.
Koi Filtration - Natural
Requiring no weekly management but one big yearly overhaul, natural filtration is the easiest there is. Relying on live plants and organic processes, water quality is usually superb. Described and common mistakes illustrated, visit this site!
Koi Food & Feeding
What should you feed your koi? How many times per day? Is Corn really that bad in a Koi diet? What are the most common feeding mistakes people make? What's the best food?
© 2004 All Rights Reserved - Koi Venture