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 Quarantine when receiving your Koi |
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What is quarantine? / Why do I need to quarantine? |
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Separate quarantine tank is a Must-tool for Koi hobbyists.
Newly purchased Koi could possibly still carry parasites, bacteria, fungus etc., even though your Koi dealer including us did their very best to eliminate these. Besides, if they are shipped to you in a box, they are usually extremely stressed and exhausted. It is important to provide them a nice surrounding so that they can recover quickly.
Keeping and treating new Koi in the separate quarantine tank for 21 days is the best way to decrease the risk of disease before introducing them to your main pond. In addition this will give your new Koi a chance to rest.
We strongly request the quarantine of new Koi to every customer who purchase Koi from us.
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How do I quarantine? |
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Prepare:
Tank
Net to cover the tank
Small filter and pump
Air pump
Test kit: ammonia, nitrite, pH and salt
Salt
Melafix
Supaverm
Water thermometer
Ultimate
Heater
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Before you receive your Koi: |
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- Prepare a separate tub or tank for your Koi to rest. Although it depends on the size of Koi, 100-300 gallon tank will do. You can use blue show tanks as well.
- Fill in with fresh dechlorinated water, well water or better yet water from your exiting pond, providing your existing pond stock is in good condition.
- Filtration system for the tank is ideal. If you do not have a filtration system, provide sound aeration by air pump.
- Keep the water temperature at 72 F or more. If the tank was small enough, one or two aquarium heaters will do the job.
- Please add salt to make 0.3% concentration. (3 lb salt per 100 gallon water)
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When you receive your Koi: |
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- Prepare a separate tub or tank for your Koi to rest. Although it depends on the size of Koi, 100-300 gallon tank will do. You can use blue show tanks as well.
- Fill in with fresh dechlorinated water, well water or better yet water from your exiting pond, providing your existing pond stock is in good condition.
- Filtration system for the tank is ideal. If you do not have a filtration system, provide sound aeration by air pump.
- Keep the water temperature at 72 F or more. If the tank was small enough, one or two aquarium heaters will do the job.
- Please add salt to make 0.3% concentration. (3 lb salt per 100 gallon water)
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While you keep your Koi in quarantine tank: |
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- Please observe them carefully to see if the Koi develops any problems for 14-21 days.
- If you do not have the filtration system, please make partial water change every 2-3 days (about 25%). Add salt and Melafix accordingly.
- After about three days, Supaverm is recommended.
- Feed digestible food to your Koi every day such as Manda Fu.
- Check Ammonia and nitrite every day. If you find Ammonia, use Ultimate.
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I have not purchased Koi for more than a year; do I need to do anything else? |
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If you have not introduced Koi to your pond for a long time, you need to be extra careful. Simply putting our Koi into your pond MAY cause some trouble to either the existing Koi or the new Koi. It is NOT because the new Koi is sick or because the old Koi is sick. It is simply due to different immunity levels. Without having any new introduction of Koi for a long time, your pond has established its own eco system. When new Koi that have been raised under completely different surroundings is introduced to your pond, it affects the balance of your eco system. The New Koi may not have immunity to what lives in your pond; whereas, your existing Koi may have developed immunities over a period of time?and Vice Versa.
So, when you have completed the normal procedure of quarantine, then you can introduce one of your old stock to the quarantine system. Raising the salt level to 0.5% is a good idea at this time. After making sure nothing unusual has happened in the quarantine system, then you are ready to introduce your new Koi to your main pond.
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How does Kodama Koi Farm quarantine? |
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Kodama Koi Farm will not release any new shipments of Koi until after an intensive 3-week-quarantine has been completed and the State Agricultural Board has tested the koi.
Not only do we treat the Koi with adequate and proper medications, use caring hands to scrape and microscope for any possible health conditions, we have also instituted the following additional quarantine procedures:
- Every new shipment is quarantined at an isolated, access-restricted greenhouse on the farm for a minimum of three weeks.
- The pond is heated to at least 72o F. We purposely create the surroundings where bacteria, parasites, fungus and even virus can break out.
- During this period, they will also be kept with KHV free Koi. These Koi will be used much in the same way as canaries did in the old coal mines. If there is any problem in the shipment, the Koi will catch it right away.
- After the 3 weeks of quarantine, regardless if the Koi becomes sick or not, we will send them to the laboratory to make sure they do not have any hidden or invisible diseases.
- No Koi will be sold from this shipment until we have a clean bill of health confirmed by the laboratory.
In Addition:
- When we imports Koi directly from breeders, Mamoru Kodama carefully examines Koi before we purchase them.
- When we import Koi that we stock at Miyoshiike, there will be another 3 weeks quarantine performed under the careful health management of Kazuya Takayama, manager of Koi Health of Miyoshiike. He will even select several Koi from each breeder randomly and tests them at 72 F. It is a long and stressful journey from Japan to the US. So Miyoshiike ships only healthy Koi. We will not have Koi shipped if the Koi are not healthy to travel. Combined with 3 weeks of quarantine in California, and an additional prior 3 weeks quarantine in Japan will assure the health of Koi thoroughly.
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How does Kodama Koi Farm conduct Health Control of Koi? |
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Every piece of equipment we use… such as tubs and nets… are disinfected after each use.
We do not accept any returned Koi. Because we have no control on Koi's condition as well as customer's pond, once Koi leaves our facility, we do not allow them to return back to us.
We open to the public only on the weekends. Nobody but our staff members are allowed to touch the nets, water and Koi. Every staff member is trained to bleach their hands and arms every time they go into the pond area and handle the water before they move to another pond.
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Is your quarantine done before or after auctions close? |
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We quarantine Koi prior to the auction. So as soon as auction ends, they are ready to be shipped.
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*If you have further questions, please contact us by filling out the contact
form.
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