May 2011 Issue Fish House Chatter Editors: Carol Mathis & Lisa Freeman By Don Manus We had a great social at the home of Brannon and LeeAnn Raines in Harrisburg. Thanks to everyone that attended and brought food to share, as we had a great meal and some very good desserts. There were discussions about our koi food purchase for our club members. The food has been bought and delivered to Terry McClain, so everyone who ordered food needs to get in touch with Terry to arrange pickup and payment. Carol Mathis sent me an email from a fellow wanting to sell fish at our auction who was not a member. I contacted Larry O Brien and explained that the sale is for member s fish only, and in order for him to sell fish he would have to become a member. He said this would not be a problem, and that he had wanted to join our club for some time, but did not know who to contact. I sent Allen Lee his number and hopefully he has joined PKWS and you will all get to meet him. There was further discussion about the possibility of putting on another show. Unfortunately, there are not enough members attending the socials to put on a show. If we cannot get better turnout for our socials, I do not see any way we could put on a show as it takes at least 40 people working together to put on a show. We are averaging 10 to 12 people at each social, and a show is the responsibility of the entire club and not just a few members. So please do make a great effort to attend our meetings. I will soon be rid of my charges that I have been fish-sitting all winter for the owner I wrote about a recently. He sent me an email this week and said the pond was free of leaks and I could bring his fish home whenever I had time. I look forward to seeing everyone at the next social. Thanks, Don Manus, President PKWS 2011 OFFICERS: President: Don Manus VP: Terry McClain Secretary: Mary Ann Penix Treasurer: Allen Lee APPOINTED OFFICES: Show Chairs: Rebecca & Russell Trull Membership: Allen Lee Property Manager: Tracy McCorkle Newsletter: Carol Mathis & Lisa Freeman Webmaster: Mike Long
PKWS MAY 2011 ISSUE PAGE 2 MAY SOCIAL MEETING Saturday, May 14th at 5:00 pm Home of Larry & Phyllis Rosen Address: 4712 Linda Kay Drive, Waxhaw, NC. 28173 Telephone: 704-243-1722 Directions: Take 485 to Providence Rd and go south about 6 miles [following signs to Waxhaw/Weddington] until you see railroad tracks at the Waxhaw main street area. Cross over the tracks and make a left turn onto Route 75. At the fork in the road by the gas station stay to your right. Travel a few blocks until you come to Linda Kay Dr [on your right across from school] and turn right. Go slowly over 3 speed bumps, and we are the last house on the right. It is a long white ranch house with a 3-car garage in front. Upcoming Social Meeting Dates: Mark Your Calendars! May 14...Larry & Phyllis Rosen June 11...Don & MaryAnn Penix July 9...Terry & Mary Ellen McClain August 13...Lisa Freeman September 10...Allen & Regina Lee October 8...Mike & Heather Long November 12...Eleanor Ubry December 10..Tracy & Tanya McCorkle MINUTES OF MARCH 2011 MEETING Submitted by Secretary Mary Ann Penix The April 9 th meeting was held at the home of Brannon and Lee Ann Raines. There were eighteen (18) members present. President Manus opened the meeting at 6:20 PM. Door Prizes: Sippy cup Janet Reibsome Christmas glass Phyllis Rosen Jewelry case Brannon Raines One Brick (starter kit for 3 bedroom house) Wayne Pritchard Old Business: Food purchased by Club May be available at Terry McClain s next week. Treasurers Report: $8,075.00 Koi food purchase -- $1,870.00 Welcome back Jerry and Colletta St. Onge. Members continue to investigate venues for 2012 Koi Show. (Embassy Suite and Farmers market). Brannon Raines Helping to build a pond at Backstreet Christian Academy with Leo Bollinger consulting. Brannon s wife is a teacher there. The school would like to join our club. PKWS website is infected again. Don Manus will call Mike Long and Lisa Freeman regarding web site. Carol Mathis needs articles, pictures, etc from members for each month s newsletter. New Business: Club to send Danny Hutchinson flowers. (He had a heart attack) Terry and Mary Ellen McClain to host pond pull at their home at a date to be announced. Meeting adjourned at 7:00 PM.
PKWS MAY 2011 ISSUE PAGE 3 Antibiotics and the Injection Alternative By Jeff Reiter, KHA The antibiotic injection method of administration is a powerful tool the hobbyist can use to heal fish, but it is not the only antibiotic method available. For all its immediate benefit, injection is very traumatic for the sick animal and opens another route for opportunistic bacteria and fungi to enter the bloodstream. Injection is, in addition, a bit traumatic for some fish owners who simply don t have training in this area. Injection in fish can be difficult to execute because the scales of a koi overlap up to 80 percent like a suit of armor making it tricky to get the needle inserted. Probably the biggest barrier to injectible antibiotic use is availability; the average hobbyist cannot get these drugs conveniently and inexpensively without the assistance of a veterinarian and a high office visit charge. Finally there is the issue of puncturing the fish too deeply and entering the body cavity and causing damage there. There are alternatives to injection, and this discussion gets into a pharmacist s area of expertise and the concept of routes of administration. For me personally, I never inject as there are other ways to get medication into fish with ingestion being the most commonly known. For fish there are several antibiotics that can be eaten and can pass across the digestive barrier and still retain their efficacy. Some however will be broken down by digestion and be lost, so it s especially important to know which antibiotics are ingestible by koi. There is also respiration or introducing medication in fish through their gills. This method is much like aerosols used by people to introduce medications. We are fortunate in that the gill is a very fine gateway into the fish bloodstream in that the medication is not modified as it passes through the gill, and there are powerful antibiotics that can be used in this way. Although the fish s response to injection is faster, we have seen very quick, positive responses through gill administration. The beauty of the respiratory route of administration is that is creates no trauma or secondary damage in the fish. Gill administration is also great when working with a fish that won t eat. We have used this method successfully with severely ulcerated fish and those with dropsy, also known as pineconing. One last route of administration we use is transdermal the medication passes through the skin or into wounded tissue. This method requires the use of a wet bandage, and dental adhesive is commonly used along with other sealants to close the site while the medication is absorbed. Sometimes I feel the hobbyist waits too long to employ antibiotics mainly because there are so many knowledge, availability, and training barriers to injecting. With the information in this article, I believe you will not hesitate in the future to employ antibiotics until the fish is really beyond hope. There are your choices, but before choosing antibiotic administration we need to do first things first. It is important prior to antibiotic administration to identify the parasite involved so that the proper drug is used. Scope and scrape or enlist the aid of your local Koi Health Advisor prior to beginning an antibiotic treatment. Next we must provide an effective environment for antibiotic administration. Gill administered and ingestible antibiotics require the use of a hospital tank. We use a dream pond show tank for our hospital and quarantine procedures, but anything larger than 100 gallons will do. I like to keep the water volume down to 150 gallons because the antibiotic is dosed based on water volume.
PKWS MAY 2011 ISSUE PAGE 4 Dosing the entire pond would just cost too much and is a misuse of antibiotics. When needed we use medicated food, transdermal and gill administration simultaneously. As a side issue, the standards of practice for most states including North Carolina s Title 10 law consider injection the purview of a licensed veterinarian. A pet owner can inject his own animal, so the law doesn t prohibit injection outright, but injecting another person s pet, especially if a fee in involved, is a violation. That said, antibiotics are not a perfect answer, and several issues must be considered. Before using antibiotics keep in mind that the medication does not cure the fish. The fish cures the fish. Antibiotics only strengthen the fish immune system so that the animal can fight the disease more effectively. Another important issue is the problem of creating diseases that are resistant to antibiotics. The first rule is to use them sparingly and precisely. Second, use the antibiotic for as long as the instructions say. In other words, if the medication must be used for eight days, it is important to complete the eight day regimen. Stopping the regimen halfway leaves more resistant microbes unaffected and leads to the creation of a population of bugs that are resistant to antibiotics. There is also the argument that we shouldn t overuse antibiotics in general, but I find this discussion just a little silly. The food industry grossly overuses antibiotics, and for example, every single chicken in this country is fed ciprofloxacin to increase food yield. The rest of the world sells antibiotics over the counter to the general population, so I don t feel picking on the average koi hobbyist will solve the problem. Interestingly enough, recent medical studies have shown that even in overuse environments like India where superbugs have appeared, hospitals that properly use these medications are still getting effective results from antibiotics. If you are treating your fish in a separate isolated container away from the rest of your school for the entire recommended period, then you will not contribute to the creation of antibiotic resistant bugs. A final issue involves the use of medicated food. It is highly recommended that the koi hobbyist makes his own medicated food and does not buy these off the shelf. The reasons are several: first homemade medicated food costs less; second, manufactured medicated foods sit on store shelves in the heat or in highly moist environments, so the antibiotic quickly breaks down. Also the manufacture of medicated food involves mixing in the medication and then pushing the food through a heated extruder to form the pellets. The heating and drying process damages the antibiotic. Third, if you are manufacturing your own medicated food, then it will be available on demand at the beginning of the medication s breakdown period in its strongest state. The medication in a store bought medicated food that has been sitting in the closet for a year lost its medication value long ago. Finally some store-bought, medicated foods really have no antibiotics in them. The product has minerals and vitamins that contribute to a stronger immune system, but there are no antibiotics. Antibiotics intended to be used to make medicated food are available on line through sites like the Fish Pharmacy. If you are ready to use antibiotics first remember that they must be stored in a cool, dry, dark place. We keep ours in double sealed jars in a totally dark location away from moisture. The shelf life for an antibiotic in powder form properly stored is up to a year in some cases. Our antibiotic of choice for gill administration is Gentamycin Sulfate which is readily absorbed across the gill barrier, and it can be obtained from the Fish Pharmacy in Arizona. Gentamycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that inhibits protein synthesis in bacteria and is one of the most powerful antibiotics available. Administration is simple. Add about a teaspoon of gentamycin to the 150 gallons of water and make sure the hospital tank is heated to raise the water temperature above 70 degrees Fahrenheit at a minimum, and preferably above 75 degrees. Heating to an appropriate temperature is crucial in antibiotic administration in that the fish immune system is most effective at these temperatures. If gentamycin sulfate is administered at 62 degrees or less, the fish immune system is not active and nothing beneficial will occur. The regimen is ten days, so be prepared to monitor ammonia levels if you are feeding the fish during treatment. We permit ammonia levels to rise to no more than 2.0, and then we complete a large water
PKWS MAY 2011 ISSUE PAGE 5 change and remedicate. We usually have to change water (75 to 90 percent) every other day for the ten days after the fish starts eating. During this treatment we use our home prepared medicated food that takes a day to manufacture, and we only make enough for immediate use since the medication begins to break down in the presence of heat, light and moisture. The antibiotic is dissolved in enough water to dampen all the food, and the mixture is added to a plastic sealable bag. We shake the bag until all the liquid is absorbed, and then we spread the pellets on a tray to air dry at room temperature. When dry, we package in a sealed jar and feed at a specific rate. Each time we feed we remove the old food so that we can measure the fish s appetite. With this powerful medication methodology at our disposal, we have not lost a fish to disease. In fact, we brought one fish back to health that had an ulcer hole the size of an egg and its ribs could be seen sticking out of the wound. That said, the most powerful tool will always be disease prevention in the first place through effective husbandry. A good fish environment will create no sick fish to treat. Also there are several treatment methods more appropriate than antibiotics when the fish has a minor problem, but it is comforting to know we have a backup plan and a way to use antibiotics that is simple to administer. WANT to Advertise? Do you have something to sell or advertise? It doesn t have to be pond related! Reach PKWS members by posting an inexpensive advert for only $5 per 20 words. Submit your ad by the 15 th of the month and be sure to include your address and phone number. Checks should be made payable to PKWS. Contact Carol Mathis, 704-455-8587 or email caomah@aol.com. Disclaimer: PKWS assumes no responsibility to claims of advertising or quality of goods/services offered.
PKWS M E M B E R S H I P F O R M The Piedmont Koi and Watergarden Society (PKWS) is a not for profit organization. The membership year runs from January 1st through December 31st. Annual Membership Dues for a family for the first year are $55.00 AND INCLUDES UP TO TWO (2) NAME BADGES. Additional nametags may be purchased at a cost of $15.00 each. For renewing members the dues are $24.00 Please complete the following form and return it with your membership dues to: ALLEN LEE 900 Club Drive Monroe, NC 28112 Please print clearly (this information will only be used for club records). Please print your names) as you would like them to appear on your name tag(s). You can also find an electronic copy of this form on our website. Last Name: First Name(s): Address: City: State: Zip: Signature: Date: Email Address: Telephone # Membership Dues: (New member) $55.00 or (Renewal) $24.00 (Circle One) Additional Name tags ($15.00) TOTAL ENCLOSED: Visit us on the web at www.pkwsonline.com Newsletter Layout & Design: Lisa Freeman