I've just started raising fishes, I have a pond. I bought fishes last week, but many of them died while I tried to quarantine them. What should I do? Anybody can give me information about how to quarantine new fishes? Is it true we should use water from the place we first buy the fish? Should we buy fish when they are still youngsters? Some people says it will be hard for them to adapt when they're already mature. Thanks!!

Ok first to keep koi you need a pond atleast 1000 gallon for 1 koi, because they can grow very big as big as 4 feet long and the oldest koi to be recorded is around 200 years old. But average is about 30 years old. About QT fish, I alway use my hospital tank, and sometime rubbermaid, works very well. Usually I look at the fish first to determine what kind of disease it has and then treat it with it but most of the time i just use Aquarium salt. Before getting a fish home, be sure that you have a tank or rubbermaid of water that is already cycled and good/safe for fish first! Most of the water from the store carries diseases and bacterias so i would NEVER use it. Since goldfish can get temp. shock easily people float the bag in the water and then pour out some water replace it with the tank water and they did that for 15 - 30 minutes or maybe even longer (becareful not to get the dirty water into the QT tank) and then when the 2 temp of the water in the bag and water of the tank match. Use a net to net out the fish, do not pour the water back in. In mY QT tank, there is abit of plants and usually some hiding place to my fish doesn't freak out.

Good Luck

Oh and welcoem to koko'sgoldfish! you will findthis site very helpful, hope it goes well for you

oh btw, i forgot to mention, 1 comet require ATLEAST 20 gallons

They say 1000 gallon for koi will give it plenty of room to move around. To be healthy. Koi is not like goldfish that grow to its space, koi growth is determien by its genetic, so if you have a small pond, it either goign to die sooner or outgrow the pond. Even though people keep koi in aquarium like 100 gallon but then the koi most likely to end up dieing young and wont grow as big as it would.

Welcome to kokos

How big is your pond? Small ponds need to be maintained just like aquariums. You will also need a good filter for your pond and quarantine tank. My quarantine tanks are set up just like my permanate tanks. You don't need to treat your new fish unless they show signs of illness. The best thing to do is examine the fish you want to buy and all the other fish in the tank for illness. If you see any ill fish don't buy any fish out of that tank. By doing this you will avoid a lot of problems. I haven't bought a sick fish in over ten years by not buying fish that showed signs of illness which saved my a lot of problems. I have bought sick fish on pupose to rescue but rescueing fish should be done only after you become experiance with fish keeping.

I've bought both young fish and adult fish. They both adapt just fine. It is best not to use water from the place you got your fish.

Koi and comets can get big and will out grow their aquariums and small ponds. Koi can reach almost 4 feet long and I have comets in my pond that are over 16 inches. So keep the adult size of the fish in mind when stocking your pond.

Thanks to chubbygold and nick. (Your fishes are beautiful, chubbygold!) I've followed your suggestion about not using the water from the place I bought the fish. I've already found out why they keep dying, my tank is attacked by a rat. It messed my tank and I found it's dead today, floating in the tank. I think I had to buy meshes to cover-up the tank. Some of the comets are still survive, but they had whitespots on their body... I'm still trying to cure their disease. My pond is about 3mx2m, 3 ft in depth (it's small).

Thank you

Tank attack by a rat? Um yeah maybe a hood would help. If they have whitespot then most likely they have ich. I am not allowed to give you the treatment, because i'm not 100% sure and second I'm not a mod. But most fish from LFS will carry parasites. They can easily get ich from poor water, damage and stress. Which is pretty normal. that is why they need QT. My fish just went through ich also. Extremely easy to treat. You should get help in the diseases and treatment forum

Your pond is probably about 150 gallon, 3 feet in dept is a pretty good number. You will enjoy keeping goldfish in there!

oh btw, I said it's extremely easy to treat, but it's extremely dangerous also, Ich will spread very fast, it will slow eating off its host which is the fish. Digging into the gills and can easily kill the fish if not taken care of quick!

Actually, your pond holds roughly 134 US gallon, Judylin. That is important to know when treating for any illness, since you need to dose according to volume.

You don't have any plants in the pond, right? So, all you need is salt. But not just any salt, and most of the cooking salts are off limits due to additives in there that are toxic to fish. I use pickling salt, mostly used for ice cream making, and it should say on the packaging "pure salt, no additives" or something like that (about 1$ or so). Other cheap options is solar salt, which is used as water softener. I believe the most popular is the Morton brand, in a blue package, and it comes in 15? lb packages. Again, look for pure salt, no additives.

Now, all you need is a food scale that measures one pound. You need one pound per 100 gl of water, so in your case its roughly 1 lb, 6 oz. Dissolve it in a bucket with pond water, and the bucket needs to be new, or at least never been used for cleaning, since it will contain soap residue. Stir the salt until its pretty much dissolved, and then pour it into your pond.

That gives you your first dosage of 0.1%. Wait 12 hours, and repeat that same dosage. Again, after yet another 12 hours, do you 3. and final dosage - now your pond contains 0.3% salt. That should pretty much do it, and leave the salt in there about a week after you see the last ich spots on any of the fish. Reason being - those Ich parasites, like most others, have an egg stage where the salt can not touch them. You can't see the eggs, but they are there and incubate happily, laughing at us. If you take the salt out too soon via water changes, and the eggs hatch, there is nothing in the pond that will kill them. But if you leave the salt in there longer, hatching eggs have nothing to laugh about.

Lets get those little buggers!

Btw, is there any kind of filtration on your pond now, and what kind is it?