Quarantine Regime & Fish Health

Quarantine Regime

Common viruses such as KHV (Koi Herpes Virus) and SVC (Spring Viraemia Carp) have been detected world-wide, and even though safeguards are in place to help prevent the movement of infected fish – nothing is guaranteed. For that reason, we put all of our Koi through a strict quarantine regime before they go on sale.

All our Koi come in directly from Japan and are quarantined in a separate building away from our shop. They go through multiple heat-ramps, which involves radical temperature changes - a common trigger for viruses such as KHV. Our heat ramping procedure involves bringing the temperature up to 24°C+, holding them for a period before dropping them down to 10-12°C, relatively quickly. The process is then repeated for multiple ramps.

The fish are then introduced to naïve fish, where reactions are closely monitored. Once satisfied, they are deemed “quarantined” and safe to move into our shop. Our quarantine regime takes 8 weeks. We take biosecurity very seriously. Each quarantine system is strictly separated, with separate equipment. We don’t allow visitors into our quarantine unit to view fish.

Health Guarantee

The fish in our shop are monitored daily. We will stop selling any fish that may have health concerns. With stress, comes potential outbreaks. Heavy traffic inside a shop could stress new fish who are not used to it. Water quality issues, spawning and fish movements can also stress fish. Just like with humans; elevated stress levels mean a compromised immune response and the inherent vulnerability. We regularly check for parasites and treat accordingly.

We push to ensure only the healthiest and happiest fish leave our shop. We will honour a 24-hour guarantee on new fish, but beyond that is out of our control. For biosecurity reasons, we can’t accept any fish back into our shop, even fish sold on the same day.

I urge anyone with any questions about our biosecurity and quarantine measures to get in touch for a chat. These are the kind of conversations that need to be normalised and we are more than happy to go in to detail about what we do and why.