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Ponds in the UK

Problems

18 years ago

Today my one Golden Orfe started to lose his balance. He would swim for a bit then his head would go down and he started to flip upside down. Now he's lying upside down at the surface unable to keep upright but still alive. He looks healthy otherwise and I've posted a pic in the gallery.

It has been very hot here but I've cleaned the filters out so water is flowing fine and parameters are normal. I don't really know how swim bladder problems happen but this came on very quickly and kind of expect a dead fish in the morning.

Any ideas anyone?

Comments (7)

AJC_1
18 years ago
In this hot weather large orf are the first to suffer, they dont like warm water and low oxygen, that may be the cause here, swim bladder problems can result from low oxygen if a fish has some form of gill problem, flukes or high nitirte etc. can you blast water in to make a fast flow? that helps with orf, they get in the flow.
mark22
Original Author
18 years ago
Sorry a bit late getting back here. I have the two outlets circulating the water so it can still breathe and yep he's still alive and looks fine apart from being upside down. Unfortunately the spare pump is now the main pump (must sort that) so I can't add more flow. I'm pretty sure there's no parasite problem and on close inspection the gills look healthy. Guess it just got too hot in there. It's hot again today, maybe that stormy weather everywhere else is getting will eventually reach us and help cool it down a bit but then I'll probably have more problems from a heavy downpour. I've had a parasol over part of the pond to help stop it getting sunburnt.
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AJC_1
18 years ago
I lost my big orf form a heat wave followed by a big storm, but i have had them tip over like that before, some recover from it some dont, one lived upside down for weeks, its one of those things, but orf seem to lose heart when bigger, they dont do well in hot weather and loses are common, yet smaller ones seem to take in thier stride, I lost mine during the mid period between ponds, had them in a make shift pool, but we had a heatwave that same week followed by a mega thunderstorm, so the water heated quickly even tho it was in full shade and as a result of lightening we lost power for 5 hours, which was enough to kill the orf and four of the koi from lack of oxygen., thunder storms suck oxygen from our ponds, even lakes are effected, so....
Scotty24
18 years ago
Mark
How's the Orfe?
mark22
Original Author
18 years ago
He's still the same, not sure what to do really as it seems cruel to leave him upside down like that.
dampflippers
18 years ago
I found this info

Here is a link that might be useful: try reading this
mark22
Original Author
18 years ago
Ok thanks for the link but I had to take matters into hand. Where his belly had been exposed the scales had raised up and was going red and flys were landing on it. He can't have been having a fun time and I was worried about disease setting in and spreading to the koi so I had to put him to sleep and then take care of him (don't ask).

I did a 2ppm PP dose of the pond to clean things up a bit and hopefully stop any nasties. The rest of the fish seem happy still and hungry as ever. I don't think I'll get any more orfe as they dont seem to fair too well here. The warm water is making the koi eat fast and grow nicely though.

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