Fuzzy Fish!

Ah! Spring is here at last! The ice finally melted off the water garden and I eagerly went out to check on the fish. What's this! They look a little odd. There are fluffy cottonball-like things attached to some and others have dots all over them a bit like grains of sugar. Oh no! I have fuzzy fish!! Now, I have had a water garden for close to ten years and gold fish living there. A lot of goldfish! They have always been so easy and undemanding . So, I was more than shocked when I discovered they had a problem.

O.K, so what is this fuzzy stuff and how do I get rid of it? Having somewhat of a scientific background, I figured I could diagnose it myself and looked in the fish disease section of The Pond Doctor by Helen Nash. After reading a couple of paragraphs, it was looking more and more like those goldfish had a fungus growing on them. Now, what do I do about it? There must be a box of something I could buy to treat it! The Pond Mart is a company I have used to buy fish food and other pond supplies from and they had a couple of choices for medications to treat fungus and they had a 'HELP' line (yeah!) which I promptly called.  The lovely young woman on the other end of the line tried very hard to be helpful but finally admitted that she was not familiar with how to treat fish in the cold temperatures in New England. She suggested I call the Pioneer Valley Pond and Koi Club based in western Mass.

If you have a water garden ,and even if you never have a 'fuzzy fish' problem, this is an absolutely amazing resource! I spoke with their koi health specialist who diagnosed the problem, as indeed, a fungus, but then went on to say that a fungus is generally a secondary infection and that the primary cause could be an injury but , in my case, was most likely a parasite infestation. Don't know where that might have come from -frogs, plants, (?) The treatment was for me to go to Home Depot and buy the blue bag of rock salt and then to my local garden shop and pick up a 'salt test kit' for water gardens. For an excellent explanation of the importance of salt in the water garden , go to MacArthur Water Gardens and look up 'salt'. Following the instructions in the kit , I figured out how much salt should be added to the pond – the total amount having to be added over three days, to prevent further stressing the fish.  I couldn't believe my eyes! By the third day, the fish were cured – no more fuzzies!!

Because I have goldfish, which are relatively undemanding, I have allowed myself to become lax in paying attention to the general health of the pond. I should have been, and now will be, checking not only for salt levels in the pond water but also pH and ammonia levels, all of which can be treated without resorting to expensive remedies. The cost of treating my 2500 gallon pond was under $15., including the test kit, which will probably last me the entire season!

To learn more about the 'Pioneer Valley Pond and Koi Club' and view some wonderful pictures of one of their past water garden tours go to the Pioneer Valley Pond Club website. Oh, and they're having a 'Koi and Water Garden Show' on June 14th & 15th in the Mallory Arena at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, MA! We should definitely add this to our field trip list.