Diagnosing Your Fish

Is your Fish showing symptoms of an illness? Please check here for symptoms, information and various treatments for problems that fish may face.

For many pond keepers their fish have become part of their family, growing up alongside their children and developing personality characteristics. However when fish develop health problems, they can’t be taken to a vet like other family pets. It becomes the Pond keeper’s responsibility to diagnose and treat their aquatic friends.  We’ve put together this list of symptoms to assist you with diagnosis and treatment suggestions to help you decide on the best course of action.

New pond keepers may find it useful to know that the health of your fish relies greatly on the quality of your pond water. It is advisable to test your water regularly and treat it accordingly. The water can be routinely treated with PondXpert Pond Tonic Salt and Blagdon Stress Away (formerly General Tonic) which will also help to combat any diseases. The salt helps to boost the fishes immune system which allows them to be able to cope with diseases themselves.  The level of salt which should be added changes according to the reason for usage.  It is important not to put too much salt in the pond in as this can do harm to the fish.  A good example would be cold water fish being placed in sea water and the effect it would take. A rough guide can be seen below.  Once the salt has been added it will remain in the water indefinitely unless removed via some method of water change.

We would always recommend testing your water with either the Blagdon Pond Health Test Kit or the Tetra Pond Test 6-in-1. These testing kits will be able to identify any chemical problems in the water; particularly pH, Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates. Further to this, the Blagdon All-in-One Fish Treatment will help to treat problems with parasites, fungal and bacterial infections, white spot and fin rot. We would also recommend that you look at how much Oxygen your pond is getting; our blog post on this can go into the aeration in greater detail, but an aerated pond will help to reduce the levels of infections.

 You may also find the image below helpful for being able to identify various symptoms.

Unexplained Death of a Fish

If you have tested the quality of your water and examined the dead fish for any potential symptoms for the cause of death, but are still searching for answers, there are a number of possibilities that could have caused a sudden death.

1. Old age
2. Unexpected water pollutants can affect ponds quickly such as pesticides and gardening chemicals.
3. De-oxygenation can affect larger fish as they have larger oxygen requirements. Hot weather can affect this
4. An Acute systemic bacterial infection can affect a fish so rapidly that symptoms don’t have time to show.

In addition to the above table, we have provided various images of the diseases below.

Disease	Symptom	Image	Treatment
Mouth Fungus	Cotton wool-like growths on the Mouth		Anti-Fungus & Bacteria Anti-Parasite All-in-One Fish Treatment.
Pop Eye	Cloudy eyes / Bulging eyes		Anti-Parasite Anti-Fungus & Bacteria All-in-One Fish Treatment
Carp Pox	Shiny cotton wool growth		Ensure good water quality. Test the pond water with the Tetra Pond Test 6-in-1 or Blagdon Pond Health Test Kit.
Anchor Worm	Sharp spines sticking out of the Fish		Anti-Parasite
Costia	Grey sheen on body - Cotton wool-like strands		Anti-Fungus & Bacteria. Difficult to Treat Effectively
White-Spot	Tiny white spots all over the fish.  Caused by poor water quality; fish are also suceptible to this when stressed		Anti-Parasite All-in-One Fish Treatment
Fish Lice	Small disk shaped creatures crawling all over the Fish's body.		Anti-Parasite
Flukes	Skin/Gill irritability Fish scratching, scraping or flicking against things Red sore patches on body		Anti-Ulcer and Parasite
Dropsy	Bloated body Scales sticking out		Anti-Fungus & Bacteria Anti-Ulcer
Leeches	Elongated brown/black worm protruding from the Fish		Anti–Parasite Clean out pond to eliminate leech
Intestinal Worms	White skin lesions (rot)		Anti–Fungus & Bacteria Stop feeding until cured Add Oxygen to the pond
Velvet	Gold/grey spots Increased respiratory rate		Anti-Parasite
Fish Ulcer	Ulcers / open wounds		Anti-Ulcer

As always if you require any further assistance then please contact us.