I am a certified Koi Health Advisor, but it's sort of hard not actually seeing the fish or pond. Wish I was there in person, but I'm not so maybe you can help me by providing some more information.

First....have you tested your water? Please test ammonia, nitrites, kH and pH and let me know what the numbers are (not just that the reading are "good"...I'd like the actual readings). Also, have you added any new fish or plants lately? If so....when?

Examine the fish. Peek under the gill covers and tell me what the gills look like. They should be evenly red all over, the color of raw steak. There should be no white patches or goopy brownisn green patches. Look at the fins...there should be no red streaking. Look at the body overall...there should be no evidence of a heavy slime coat, which will give the fish a milky apparence.

Describe your pond...how big, how many fish, what kind of filtration. How clean....is there any gunk in the bottom of the filter or in the bottom of the pond?

Cindy

there may not be much you can do for that one at this point, but putting him in QT with good aeration and lightly salted may help. The fact that new fish were added within the last two months is worrying though. Those new fish may have brought parasites, or even koi herpes virus (if they are koi). The gills will tell a lot though. If they look healthy, it was not KHV as that usually affects the gills pretty dramatically. If he's dead, check the gills anyway. They won't be bright red anymore, probably more washed out and pale looking...but the color should still be even and not display the necrotic tissue you usually associate with KHV. Let me know what you find with the gills and water readings and we'll go from there.

So he was indeed dead when i got home last night... but i checked the gills...they were kind of fading but i dont know if they looked strange...if it was KHV what sort of sign would i look for? i should of taken a picture for you to see.... but outside the koi looked perfectly fine..

Cindy,
I need your help. A second fish now has the same symptoms as the first. I ran out over the weekend, got a test kit and everything is good in my pond except the PH was a low...im assuming becuase we had a huge rainstorm a day before, but other than that everything else was good.

I took the fish inside in a holding tank and added some extra salt, have an airstone running to keep the water good.... but i really dont want this guy to die.

Again physically he looks fine, i checked the gills, looks perfect... but hes swimming on his side and keeps opening his mouth like he's in shock/gasping for air... but i know there is plenty of oxygen in the water... again i dont want this guy do die...can you help?

When you say your pH is low....how low is it? Sometimes if your water does not contain enough alkalinity (in the test kit it is known as kH), the pH can change quite rapidly, especially after a heavy rain. It's known as a pH crash and can kill a whole pond full of fish in just hours. Baking soda can raise the pH and kH of a pond to safe levels. But sometimes following a pH crash, the ammonia gets very high because the pH crash has also killed off the beneficial bacteria in the filter. So before adding anything to the pond, check the pH of the pond and the holding tank and let me know what the numbers are. Also check kH and ammonia of both.

What are the chances of 2 different fish developing the same symptoms within 2 weeks of each other. If it was Ph crash, would it not affect more fish at the same time? How would they react to parasites? My daughter has a large Ryukin. About 3 weeks ago she found it laying on the bottom of the pond in the manner described above. She took it inside to an aquarium and then noticed parasites. She treated the fish and aquarium as well as her pond for parasites. The fish continued to eat although it still stayed laying on the bottom, and it only swims when fed or disturbed. She also treated the fish with antibiotics. She returned the fish to the pond yesterday as it was difficult to control the ammonia in the aquarium. Now we are going to just watch it to see what happens as we really don't know what else to do. Glenda

Quite possible for two fish to show the same symptoms two weeks apart, and it is also possible that parasites are behind both problems. Fish have different levels of hardiness. Some fish can handle a lot of stress, some can't. Most fish also have low levels of parasites all the time, but their immune system keep them in check. When a fish is subjected to stress, it puts all of it's systems resources into recovering from the stress. Resources are pulled away from the immune system, leaving the fish open to parasite attack. For example...this is why you can have a tank of goldfish for a couple of years and they suddenly develop ich. The ich was there all along, but not causeing problems. when water quality goes bad (or other stress), the fish react to the stress and the ich multiplies to the point where it becomes a problem.

So in the case of the OP...it may have been a pH crash and it may be parasites. The fact that the slime coat and gills look good sort of point more towards pH crash though. Lets look at some numbers and see. We are getting into fall and cooler water temps too, making it hard to use some parasite treatments. What is the water temperature?

the Alkaline was low too.. both the Ph and alk was the at the lightest color of the test strip. I put some pond salt in the main pond and the holding tank and my fish is still alive 3 days later, but still in the same condition.

Pond water temp is around 60 degrees now cause of the cooler temps here as of late. but the holding tank I brought inside to help him.

Are there any meds that I can put in the main pond or the holding tank if it is a parasite?

At this point, that koi is so weakened that any parasite preparation may put him over the edge. Plus, you don't know what parasites he has (if any) and there is no one chemical that gets them all. For now, you need to work on getting the pH up and stabilized with baking soda. There is a baking soda calculator link at the bottom of the page. that link also has a tab at the top for a salinity calculator. Get that sick koi salted to 0.3% over a couple of days and get his water heated and aerated. Koi cannot heal when the water is cool...he really needs to be warm or he may not recover. PH shock is pretty hard on them. Salt the rest of the pond too, to help any remaining fish. Since the pH crash probably killed off your beneficial bio bacteria, you may see some ammonia spikes and a raise in nitrites. In addition to helping the fish overcome the affects of the crash, salt will prevent damage from the nitrites.

Also, what state are you in? The akca.org has koi health advisors located all over the country and if you contact a koi club in your area they may have a KHA who lives close enough to you to come over and help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Baking Soda Calculator

One more thing. Raising the pH is necessary, but if you already have ammonia going up then remember that ammonia is MUCH more toxic at higher pH. So get some ammonia binders and have them on hand when you raise the pH. Test the water often and be prepared to correct the ammonia problems ASAP.