Goldfish ulcer disease

[misterking]

I posted a question a while ago about mystery ulcers on my pond goldfish and seemed to have no luck!

Basically the issue is, in my pond now and again I get flare-ups of "goldfish ulcer disease", an apparently highly infectious disease which causes huge ulcers on the side of goldfish/carp, and the two times I've had it it's more or less completely wiped out my entire fish population. It emerged it's ugly head again at the end of last summer, took my fish population down from 12 to 2, including some rather expensive koi which I adored. All treatments seemed to have absolutely no effect, and right now it's hard to tell if my two remaining fish, a comet goldfish and a koi, have the condition.

I've done some reading around, and apparently this mysterious disease has its worst effects during summer. People don't seem to have a straight answer on treating it - some say it's incurable, some reckon a vet injection of antibiotics clears it up, others reccommend bathing the fish in various treatments - the list goes on!

Obviously with the weather warming up now I want to combat this disease once and for all. And so my question is, has anyone ever come across this in outdoor ponds? Has anyone ever successfully treated it, and if so, how? All input appreciated

Before everyone asks - The pH of my pond is just under 7, it's about 2000 gallons, well aerated by a waterfall and well filtered. I'm honestly not sure on ammonia/nitrates/nitrites but it's fairly well planted and I've never experienced any poisoning!

 

[Chris_A]

Ok, I'm going off what little I remember here but hopefully this helps to some degree. Last time I delt with it was almost 9 years ago and at a LFS so it's been awhile .

We had an outbreak of it with some HQ imported Japanese Koi. The vet we delt with suggested 4 things.

1) ensuring Nitrate stays below 20 ppm to help reduce chronic low level stress.

2) disinfecting ALL equipment that comes in contact with the fish/water. (As in nets and such, not refering to pumps and filters that would just be "recontaminated" as soon as they are hooked back up)

3) Run a *proper* UV sterilizer. Not only does this reduce water borne algae and such but it will also kill off virus' and anything else that could get a foot hold as a secondary infection in the ulcer. Key word there is proper though... Most pond UV's have a recommended flow rate to damage the genetic material of free floating algea... some think it would still work for virus' but I haven't seen UV exposure numbers supporting that... The down side here is a good UV that allows for the proper flow as a sterilizer costs more than most individuals can afford (or want to pay anyway).

4)He perscribed some type of injection... like you said it was an antibiotic but I really don't remember which one.

Come the end of it all, I think we only lost a few thousand in fish (considering the type that wasn't too bad lol).
I'd truly recommend talking with a vet. It can be tough finding one that deals with fish though, we ended up dealing with one in Victoria (or maybe it was Vancouver???).

Anyway, best of luck! This one really is a killer... I hope you can get it delt with.

Chris

 

[misterking]

Thanks for the reply! My filter system actually has a built in UV clarifier.. went out to check it after you replied and low and behold the bulb's gone. Make's sense because it flared up in a year when the pond was ridiculously murky (brown, like constantly suspended silt) and I'd noticed the light on top of the filter wasn't on. Just ordered a replacement bulb so we'll see how things go, I know the disease is likely to multiply in murky water.

Should things clear up water quality wise, would you recommend buying a job lot of cheap feeder goldfish in a month or so to see if the condition returns? It's eerily empty right now and I want to get it stocked up ASAP.