Hello .. i know what your saying ..but putting PP in will not kill the whitespot..you will just be hammering the koi with chemicals for no reason ..You only need to heat for 21 days at 13c/14c to treat with MG&F ..you can go up 2c a day.
Max

the problem i have though is by the time my water reaches 13/14c i,ll probably not have any koi left.

whitespot needs to be treated with Malachite and formalin ..PP won't do it ..not even a dip !
You can only catch it when it's in the free swimming stage ..you need heat 13/14c MG&F.. 7 days apart water change in between each treatment day 6 and re-treat day 7 ..three treatments in total .. re-scrape at the end of the treatment ..go again if you have to ..
Max

cheers dave.
ive been advised on pp today also but as all the koi seem ok i,m going to hold off until any show signs of stress or the water warms up a bit, which ever comes first.

If you don't want to wait untill it warms up you could use patassium, works at any temp.
Regards
Dave...

got rid of my fluke problem but while re-checking i checked my un-heated pond and found these buggers wandering and spinning around on the slide. this pic was taken at 100x and looks like white spot to me but how can i treat this as its only at 3 degreeC at the moment although the koi seem ok?

great link maxine, cheers.
never thought to look on youtube, they,re all there.
its one thing looking at pics but much better watching a vid.

forgot i have one of costia on there here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wac7K8gcY

Hello ..
OK size relationships ..hmm trying to give you an idea in size is quite hard ..costia is the smallest and fastest ..blink and you'll miss it ..it also has a larger genus called costium which you will clearly see a black dot inside it ..bot both are very small ..only in huge numbers will you see it at x100 ..but use x400 ...check areas at the side of air bubbles where there is some free movement of the mucus ..but keep your eyes peeled LOL
If you look again at my pictures you will see the needle pointer that should give you some idea of size ..
White spot can be very small especially when it is in it's free swimming tomite stage ..but when you actually see the whitespot it can be all sizes ..you will know it straight away ..the white spot inside will be getting moved round as it moves .. i do have some video clips of it somewhere .. i wll find them and pop them on youtube ..i'll let you have the link as soon as i have them on ok
Max

very nice work.

thanks for that max its a big help. yesterday i hit the body fluke with a double dose of flukeM, just scraped a very pink looking shiro and about 70% are now dead. had a better look today as i,m getting better with the scope and cant see anything else on there but in relation to the fluke hooks how big are chilodonella, costia or white spot??? just uploaded some more pics from my PC screen. these were took at 100x. cheers.

Hello
Malachite Green is very carsonagenic and at lower tempretures it becomes more toxic to fish ..also Formalin will become paraformaldahide and is poisonous to fish too ..this is why there is the 13c on the bottles.
plus it wont work effectively on the parasites below 13c
it is important to treat the fish with chemicals correctly ..most fish when treated are given the wrong dose or at the wrong temp ..the the owner put the fish death down to ..it must have been on it's last legs ..
salt is another problem when treating ..as you shouldnt use salt with formalin or potassium permanganate.
but you can use salt and Malachite Green ..
If you only have gill flukes on your slide then leave the fish alone for a few more weeks until you get the temps up ..you will be more successfull treating at 13/14c than at these lower temps ..and the plus is that if you get a costia outbreak afterwards then you can treat for that too.
why a costia outbreak ??if your fish have been exposed at sometime to costia ..it is a very clever parasite and can get up the fish' bum LOL ..when you do a fluke treatment you are effectively worming the fish ..so out comes the costia and lands on the fish ...it can live quite happlily doing no damage inside the fish ..but when it's out it will reap havock .
it usually presents itself about 10 to 14 days after the final fluke treatment..
hope this helps ..if you need to ask anything you can always give me a call 01296484685
regards
Max

max on all your parasite pics you say not to use MG+F below 13dc.
why is this?

Yep, trully gutted as i was getting a good collection and starting to enjoy the showing side of the hobby, but these things happen in life and you never know may get to set up again in the future.
Cheers mate

dave, not got any money to spend but i just want to say what a stunning collection and i hope the sale goes well. bet your gutted having to part with all these beauties mate. cheers.

Thank mate

Yes it's a really pretty fish shame it wasn't female as guaranteed..that's koi keeping for you
regards
Dave