Perfectionists dream...Ultimate quarantine facilities.

Babying Koi When They Come From Japan
BY Dr Erik Johnson
Receiving Japanese Import Fish Successfully - by Doc Johnson

Okay so there was a day when I used to import Koi. Not like the big guys do, but every year we (six or seven of us) would get together and order some fish from Shimizu, my friend Haruhiko Satoh. And so we developed a method to ensure near-100% survival.

Importation of Koi from Japan
First, you need to know *exactly* when the plane will arrive and arrange to have a US Fish and Wildlife agent prepare to be there for their arrival. They will require some paperwork certifying the shipment came from facilities that have been SVC free for the last two years. Very few such facilities exist but these papers are easy to "doctor up". The shipper usually has all that worked out and this has not proven to be much of an impediment. Probably in two years all the facilities really WILL be certified free and won't have to dress up their paperwork.
USFWS will examine the bags for any contraband fish, and then you clear the fish through customs. Then you take the fish and place them RIGHT AWAY (At the airport!) into PHASE ONE of our very successful Koi importation technique:

PHASE ONE - HOW TO SAVE FISH:
Simply transfer all fish by hand, or dip net, to "receiving bags", about a third full of fresh water (virgin water in which no fish have yet lived) at 74-76 degrees which has been pH-buffered with SeaChem® Neutral Regulator [or comparable] and dechlorinated. There is considerable disagreement as to whether you want to raise the pH from shipping to receivng bags, that quickly and the answer to me is obvious. I recommend moving the fish to good water and a nice pH at neutral at once. Incoming and recipient water should be close in temperature.
Do not salt this first-phase water. Do not put any Ammonia binders in this first phase water. Do not put any medicants in this water.
All receiving bags are then re-sealed under PURE oxygen. [Ratio of three liters oxygen to one liter of water in the bag] The oxygen fill-tube can be allowed to bubble under the new water's surface for a moment or two, and then the bag is filled, but the bag is also allowed to overflow with pure oxygen and then is finally sealed.
You can get an oxygen tank and regulator from any welding supply house in your town. No prescription is required.
This "clean water oxygen therapy" is the first key! Fish which are casually transferred from the old stinky Japanese shipping-water to domestic holding tanks do not get the benefit of PURE OXYGEN THERAPY and the difference in terms of "eventual" mortality is great. You will be amazed to see that oxygen-deprived fish which arrive at the airport 'inverted' and near death can be salvaged by this initial "receiving bag" with pure oxygen triage.
Leave the fish alone under pure oxygen and clean water in cool environment for two to four hours. If fish are warm on receipt, please use ice packs or cold water sprayed on the bags to slowly cool them to the mid to high seventies F.
We let our fish set in their bags for a few hours and then carry them home to the receiving facilities. We take each fish out of the bags and inspect each one. We perform skin biopsies ON ARRIVAL of one fish from each bag in case they were batched at the transshipper. We inject all fish...

After the fish were under pure oxygen in cool, new water for two hours, open a bag and start removing one fish at a time, examine for infections, on fins, mouth or body. Surface-biopsy a few random specimens and examine the mucus under the scope. Inject EVERY single fish in the group (This is the second key!) intra-peritoneally with Ceftiofur, Baytril, or Amikacin. Make no plans to re-inject.

Inspect your previously prepared facilities. They should be equipped with Aquadyne filters or qualitatively similar de-nitrification system, but they must be AEROBIC and fully "cycled".
KEY: Absolutely NO Ammonia is tolerable in receiving systems.

For best results, each system should have a temperature of about 74-78 degrees F. This recommendation has to be conditioned against the prevailing temperatures. For example, if you know the fish were wrested from an iced-over pond in the mountains of Niigata, then you should not drop the newcomers into warm water. They have to be warmed slowly. If the fish came from very warm water, then they will do fine in water in the mid seventies.

Currently, because of the KHV virus endemic, it's wise to consider using heat (at 83-86o F) at some point in the quarantine in order to denature the KHV virus if present. Some folks prefer to "wait and see if it breaks" and I think it's silly. All you have to do is swing them over 83-86o F and hold the fish there for four to seven days and the virus is "gone". It's (KHV virus) capsule (covering) is labile, and denatures at high temperatures. The only way the virus survives from year to year, to haunt us in following years is via broodstock which are kept cool (for example, in Springs) and never achieve temperatures sufficient to activate the virus. The only problem with empirical heating is that some Gosanke might lose red.

FOR KHV prevention by retailers, in a perfect world, you would hold the incoming fish at 72-76 degrees F for two full weeks to allow the disease to make it's appearance. You would keep sentinel fish, (SPF fish from University of Georgia) WITH the new fish and at the end of the 2 week quarantine you would ship those SPF fish BACK to UGA and they would be examined for virus particles. This would be the most reliable method of determining the infection status of the new fish. In a perfect world.

Let's get back to the receiving facilities:
Each facility should have an UltraViolet Sterilizer to maintain lower-than-usual bacterial numbers. Each system should have vigorous aeration and circulation. Both UV and aeration are equally important! The fish will be correcting acidosis, and hypoxia and probably significant hypercarbia and aggressive gas exchange in the holding facilities will work wonders on fish survival rates.
The facility should feature styrofoam box-covers floating on the water's surface, occupying no more than twenty to thirty percent of the surface area. The foam is for "cover" like artificial lilypads, to keep fish feeling secure and reduce the desire to jump. This facility (completely unlike the initial receiving bags) should be salted to 0.3 - 0.6 % (three to six pounds of salt per hundred gallons).

Netting is a good idea as all new fish a prone to jumping to their deaths.
Feed Tetra Tropical Fish Flake food twice per day every day for up to two weeks then switch to the standard pelleted food. No corn in the top three ingredients.
Freeze dried Krill are also excellent - crumbled or whole for new fish settling in. Medicated food is good, later, to sustain the new fish against infections.
If you will use the oxygen therapy on the fish at the airport and you will heed my advice on housing, feeding and warming the fish, you will have better luck on Japanese fish receiving.

Thanks
Doc Johnson