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Contrary to popular belief, there is a cure. The fish
will be healed and back to normal if you read the steps below.
You need to change your thoughts and rather treat the fish like they
have a cold, or pneumonia. If you can think about it that way,
you can see that there would be a way to fix the problem.
Forget about salt treatments, random antibiotics, tea tree oil,
injections, potassium permanganate and everything else. It will not work on this
virus!
Diagnosis Of K.H.V.
The fish will display some or all of these signs: Open sores, fin rot, either caused by Aeromonas, or Pseudomonas bacteria,
a clear to whitish or yellow film over the eyes, and a beige to yellowish green or
brown mucoid substance on the wounds, skin, or gill area. Most
people think that this substance is a fungus, but it is a mucous
that comes out of the skin from the virus.
Heat Therapy For K.H.V., The Only Effective Treatment Known
The only effective way to treat Koi that are infected with K.H.V.
is with heat therapy. You must have a way to isolate these
fish to treat them. You can use aquariums, or smaller
isolation ponds to do this. You could set up a temporary
isolation pond by using some bricks, back-filling them with dirt,
and installing a liner. Make sure you use some bird netting
over the top so the Koi will not jump out. Make sure the
isolation pond is at least 12 inches deep.
Step 1.) Remove the Koi from the main pond, into the
isolation pond or aquariums making sure that the water you are using
in the isolation quarters is the same temperature as the pond water.
Step 2.) Slowly heat the water up to 86°F
(no more than 2°F per hour). If your water is very cool, due
this over a two day period.
Step 3.) Leave the fish in the heated
water for a 7 day period. Do not feed the fish during this
time as they will be stressed out, and the last thing you want is to
have an ammonia or nitrite problem in the water.
Step 4.) After the 7 day heat
treatment is finished, slowly cool the water down to 80°F.
Once you reach this temperature, start an antibiotic treatment with
Koi Fix For Food , and
Forma-Green in the water...if the fish are still eating. If
the fish will not eat, use Koi Fix For Water.
The Koi will need to be kept on these antibiotics for a two
week minimum treatment. You may continue these treatments for
an extra week if the fish are not quite healed up yet.
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K.H.V. Pic 1 This beautiful Koi has a very bad
secondary infection caused by Pseudomonas bacteria.
This fish had been sick since December 2005. It was
treated with Tea tree
oil, 9 injections of Baytril, salt and was in very poor condition by the
time we received the call by the customer.
We had started the fish on some antibiotic food, and
Forma-Green in the water. The fish started to heal up
pretty well. See K.H.V. Pic 2 below |
| K.H.V. Pic 2 See how the skin started to clear up from
the antibiotic treatment? But then, the virus reared
it's head and the fish started excreting mucous out of the
skin. This is a definite sign that you have Koi Herpes
Virus.
We stopped all antibiotic therapy and water treatments at
this point. We started heat therapy and took the fish
up to 86°F for seven days and then
slowly cooled the fish down to 80°F and resumed treatment
with
Koi Fix. |
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K.H.V. Pic 3 5 weeks later, some Koi Fix
and some very good care by the hobbyist. See how much
better this fish looks? This fish's name is Paisley.
She is 11 years old. Boy has she been through a rough
time.
If, we had of known this fish had KHV in the beginning,
we could have cleared it up in 3 weeks. Heat therapy
is the only thing that worked on the virus. Once the
mucous went from yellow/green to beige, we knew that the
virus was dying.
Koi Fix cleared up
all of the secondary infections. This fish had 3
secondary infections: Aeromonas bacteria, Pseudomonas
bacteria and Corynebacterium. |
Signs Of Improvement, The Healing Process
The way to know that your fish are healing and recovering is:
The sores will go from bright or bloody red, to a whitish color.
Then they will start to turn a mottled brown color, and then finally
to black. You may stop all antibiotic and water treatments at
this point, and the fish is ready to be returned to the main pond.
If the fish had massive damage to the skin and fins, this will take
some time to heal, maybe several months. Some of the fish may
end up with scars if the damage was severe.
Will The Koi Be Carriers Of This Virus After Healing?
No. There is too much mis-information circulating around on
the internet about Koi being carriers of KHV for life after they
have had it. This is not like human herpes. If it was,
we would send you to the vet to get a prescription for Valtrex when
the fish has flare-ups. Do not believe everything you read out
there. From what we have seen, the virus that the Koi get is
similar to a human cold. When you get sick with pneumonia for
example, your mucous turns green and you become very ill.
Sometimes you can get a secondary bacterial infection which makes
you run a fever. This secondary bacterial infection is treated
with antibiotics by your doctor. The same goes for the fish
folks. |
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