Elf's BooBoo

[Jackie Ramo]

Here's two pics of Elf's fin. He's 4 ft down so its not clear. Can't catch him till Smith gets home from the office.

[Jackie Ramo]

My fish are unhappy today!! Here's the bad news First Elf has a spot on his gills. The red you see is mostly handling stress as it got worse the longer he was out.

[Jackie Ramo]

Here is poor Bullet with sores on her tummy. May be a start of an ulcer, don't know never had a fish with one before. Her gills also look paler than I'd like.

Any thoughts or ideas appreciated. Both are back in the pond, I did a small vac and water change. neither was treated.

[carcha koi]

ELF LOOOKS BLOATED. I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT. LOOKS LIKE THE START OF ULCERS, BACTERIAL? :umno:
HOPE EVERYTHING WORKS OUT. NOT LIKE YOU TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM. THIS WINTER CRAP, HATE WHAT IT DOES TO OUR FISH. :flamer:

[Jackie Ramo]

Sorry to be confusing in my thread name, I now have 2 sick fish and probably a pond full of them. The fat tummy is Bullet and that is her normal shape. Fat and full of eggs she is.

Too cold to treat is the main problem.

[clm]

Hopefully you've just got 2 sick fish Jackie. Fingers crossed the rest of them are fine. Did you have a lot of debris in the pond over the winter? It's not like you to have so many problems....did you overwinter more fish, or larger fish this winter?

Cindy

[Jackie Ramo]

Cindy I doubt I have just two, after all I have one strong large healthy female dead.... no it is not good. Pond was clean when winter hit but the algae has grown and grown. Under the algae is dead water and stink.... nasty stuff so I'm vaccing more tomorrow and we will see.

BTW I am understocked for my size of pond.... the pond sure looks empty these days and I fear may be even emptier.

[clm]

I feel for you Jackie.
Fingers crosssed for you.

Cindy

[debbies577]

geeze!!! sorry to hear about your fish Jackie, hope they can be treated and their aren't any other fish sick.
Debbie

[Peg]

Hi Jackie, sorry to hear your having a bad start this year. I wish I could offer some advise, but my experience in this area is limited at best. You’re a good fish Mom, and we know you’ll do what ever it takes to pull these guys through.
Peg

[Koidaddy]

Jackie,
Keeping my fingers crossed that your situation is easily remedied!
KD

[Jackie Ramo]

Thanks for all the wishes. I wish I felt as confident. Let me assure you it is much easier to sit and type about some one else and their fish than to deal with your own. for some reason the brain doesn't encage fully while looking at sores on your own fish.

[Cinnamon]

Jackie Oh man I hate to hear that about your fish :( Good luck! If anyone can bring them out of it, It is you!

[carcha koi]

Jackie
Hang In There. I Am Confident Your Fish Will Be Ok. Warm Weather Is On It's Way And Their Immune System Will Kick In. Your Fish Are Strong Like You. :)

[Jackie Ramo]

Trying tothaw out, man that water is cold!!!

[Terri]

Jackie,... so are you going to PP? If you do, might be a good idea to follow up with Prazi.

[Jackie Ramo]

I vacuumed yesterday and again today so 2 water changes. I will PP later when Smith gets home to watch Gage who has arrived for 2 nights sleep over at Gran's house.

Randal isn't open and hasn't returned my call as yet.

[Jackie Ramo]

The good news and the bad news. Good is Elf swam up to greet me this morning, looked like he expected food... silly fish

Bad is GG is on the bottom and Bullet is resting on the second level.

No flashing, gasping or other signs just lethargic.

Will pull Bullet today and look at GG.

[Jackie Ramo]

Bullet is now pulled and in the stock tank in the Greenhouse. I checked GG and one of the babies. GG's gills look a bit off but not terrible, her belly is smooth and white. The baby Ochiba looked perfect.

Remind me never to dothis with a 3 year old helper. Kid nearly knocked me into the pond :HAHA:

The pond has had one low dose PP treatment. Bullet's belly also got a PP treatment with a paste. Warning!!! Watch you fish when they are in oil of cloves!!! do not be distracted by husbands, grandsons or doing other chores while handling fish. Bullet survived but it was a close call and it would have been my stupid fault. Smith helped me revive her while Gage cried dead fish over and over.... or killed fish which was just as bad.

[Jackie Ramo]

Any guesses or suggestions:

[NaturesCall]

I'm sorry I didn't see this sooner Jackie. Do you have a way to scrape and scope? Terri's suggestions we're good ones. The PP will clean up the excess crud still remaining in the pond, which God knows what kind of decay is hurting your koi. If you can ensure the circulation in your pond has no dead spots.

The ulcers and gill problems could be fluke, which the prazi would clear up pretty quick. However; if the koi arent flashing then I would re-consider. We won't truely know until you scope them.

as for the ulcers that are forming, I understand you set up a tank in the green house? I would swab each infected area with iodine, followed by salting the tank to .15 Slowley warm the water up to 75 to 78 degrees.

Walt

[Jackie Ramo]

I never see anything in my cheepie scope. Well actually I do but none of it is bad stuff. I'm leaning towards flukes but not sure, certainly something is in the gills. Even GG's are a bit tattered althugh the babie I examined today had no issues.

Bullet, the chagoi, is in a metal stock tank with a bubbler. She has had her tummy PP'd with paste rather than the iodine I may have used. She is salted at 0.2 right now and I will raise this to 0.3 tomorrow and put in a heater. I will also do a water change for her tomorrow. On Saturday if she is improving (which she currently is) I wll put her in with Tweet.

This means she will no longer be salted but will be warmer as I can heat the pond easily. She will also be in a mature filtered pond with company. If she hasn't improved enough I will keep her where she is.

Walt, do you think those sores look like ulcers forming? I ask because I have not had this experience. The marks are hard, not like the rest of the surround tissue. Looks like bite marks off centre of the marks. None of the other fish examined have these marks.

She seems a bit septic as well and me almost killing her with oil of clove today I'm sure didn't help. she has forgiven me enough to suck on my fingers so all is not bad. she is swimming and off the bottom a hopeful sign.

[NaturesCall]

how much clove oil did you use? we generally use between 8 to 10 drops per gallon.

My first thoughts are flukes. either scraping the skin in areas where there is less drag, like behind the fins.

next use a coverslip to scrape the gills gently to acquire the sample. some bleeding may occur from the scrape This is where we have had the most success finding nasties.

When doing this make sure that you place a drop of water on the slide from the same water the fish come from. Tap water may contain chlorine or other additives that can destroy the parasites.


If no parasitic activity is found, then I would suspect water quality. Dead spots in the pond, detrius build up...(yuckies) can stir up AEROMONAS PSEUDOMONAS. the cure for this is to get the water pristine. Regular water changes, using dechlor of course.

next re: ulcerations. post 20: pictures 1, 2 and 4 look like the beginning of ulcers. Are these the spots you treated with PP?

Here is a good link for future reference. Got this from a guy in Africa.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hypersytes/bacteria.htm

[Jackie Ramo]

I don't think my amount was off with the clove oil but the timing. She didn't roll so I kept checking her and she hadn't rolled over so I continued doing things... anyway when I finally decided to take her out and just hang on she wasn't breathing anymore... I pp'd the belly and carried her to the tank. I held her mouth open and Smith poured water through it until the gills started to twitch. I even had him pour the warm pond water from Tweet's home. I think that helped the most. Having the grandson crying during this only added to the drama. He keeps going out to check her, sure she was dead, as I was at one point.

Thank you for the link. I think it may be bacterial but if the fish start flashing once the water warms up I will reconsider.

Yes, I treated the entire belly region with PP. This picture is why I hold the fish in one hand and take thepics with the other. This was hubby getting a good shot of her gills....

[Jackie Ramo]

Bullet is swimming around this morning. I haven't turned her over yet to look at the belly but just the fact the she was up of the bottom made me feel a whole lot better.

Outside fish are all belly down this morning, which as we all know, is a very good thing :HAHA:

They will get another low dose PP treatment this morning. I was surprised that the dose lasted over a half hour yesterday, I was sure it would have burned off before that. Shows the pond vacuuming paid off.

[NaturesCall]

Last year we attended the wet lab in BUffalo. I remember Dr J. metioning that if you are trying to scope a slide in direct sunlight it will effect what you are seeing, so if he was doing it pondside he would place a towel over his head.

I'm glad to hear they are all belly down today. :)

My vet tells me if the fish is taking an unrealistic time to roll over she would add more more colve oil...in her case she uses ms222. We gave ms222 a try recently and I must say put down time was quicker, and revival time was much quicker. However, it's not cheap.$$

What do you use to vaccum your pond with? We found a pondvac 3 last year on ebay for $299. I must say it works great. One of our club members used it to clean out the koi pond in the buffalo botanical gardens.

Walt

[Jackie Ramo]

We arrived too late for Dr J's lab which I would have loved to have taken.

I need a crying towel for my head :banghead: Should have spent more dollars for a better scope. I have a covered patio beside the pond so direct sunlight isn't an issue.

Pond is now purple. Grandson is having a series of temper tantrums and I am stuck with him until 6 pm... He's 3 going on terrible 2's I think. He was to go home this morning but mom needs to get some stuff done so he's here. Yesterday was a much happier time. :-)

[NaturesCall]

Maybe you need to PP him? :phfft:

[marla]

Oh Jackie so sorry about the fish troubles this spring. Can't help you on diagnosis on this, but hope things look up soon for these guys.

[Jackie Ramo]

Walt, the Pee Pee part is the issue around the grand son :yup:

Marla, thank you, so far so good. although it was touch and go in the beginning. Often acting quickly makes then big difference.

[NaturesCall]

We arrived too late for Dr J's lab which I would have loved to have taken.
Jackie, you missed the best of the best..REC, Richard Carlson, Dr. Vickie Vaughn, Dr. Helen Roberts, and of course Dr. Eric Johnson, not to mention...we could have met in person. ;)

[Jackie Ramo]

Dr. J and you were all we missed. Although I did introduce myself to Doc. I took REC's course and needled him as I always do. :frisbee: I met Bonita, Roddy, Griff and many folks who are not on the internet. One of my tiles was one of the draw prizes. Oh and we missed the pond tour as it seems you had to do all or none. If we could have done a few we could have stayed but the dogs needed to be picked up.

The outside fish look good this morning although a couple are on the bottom but with the colder weather yet again its hard to tell why. No flashing or piping.

I'm debating moving Bullet today in with Tweet. That pond is filtered and it do think she would be happier. Grandson fed her yesterday and she ate it!! Only 4 pellets but.

[Jackie Ramo]

I've done two low level pp treatments on the pond and am trying to decide if I should do a 4 ppm treatment or leave well enough alone. Fish look better and I'm almost positive it was bacterial rather than parasites.

[NaturesCall]

I'm debating moving Bullet today in with Tweet.
I would. Koi are community fish and love company. :5: Not to mention, warmer water will aid in his healing.


As for another dose of PP in the pond, do you think it needs it right now?

[Jackie Ramo]

I moved her into the greenhouse pond and she and Tweet are very happy to be together. One hopes they don't get tooo friendly with all that chasing.

When I examined her I decided she had improved enough that new treatments were not necessary for now. She isn't easily caught in the greenhouse pond but it can be done. Care must be taken not to knock over the TT etc.

Pics from today. The gills are now nicely red and the belly isn't as spidered or red. The anal vent looks better in person than it does in the pic but she has lost a lot of redness from that area. Sorry for the bad pics but they are the best I have since both my hands were needed to hold the fish and the net, Smith once again was allowed the camera.... :banghead:

Also I've decided against PP the outside pond for now. Fish look good and there seems to be no reason to chance burning gills that may be healing.

[Terri]

Looks better... gills still have some erosion (white tips) so watch that.

[Jackie Ramo]

Actually the white is me over compensating from the pic. Smith got a good picture of my hand holding the gill open and the gill was just a darkhole until lightened. I over lightened it I guess. No white on live visual.

[NaturesCall]

Looks like someone may be breathing a little easier. :-) what a good way to start a weekend.

[Jackie Ramo]

Yes, I feel much better and I'm sure the fish do too! Hubby just came in talking about how it must be spring because the fish came to him, slowly but still memory is surfacing and the systems must be starting up inspite of the cold today.

Bullet continues to look good swimming around with Tweet. Temp there is 63F now and I may have to add another heater.

Can I heat her up for a couple of weeks and then cool her down to go outside? I'd like to move them out asap. This time of year I don't even like the greenhouse pond to be 63... oh well, as long as she is healthy I suppose it doesn't matter if they stay inside for extra weeks waiting for the pond to heat.

[The Other Lynda]

Things seem to be looking much better Jackie - big sigh of relief! :smile:

[Jackie Ramo]

Yes, all fish are better. A huge sigh of relief.

Shows how quickly things can happen though. When we had the thaw the fish were fine and the pond bottom was clean, well some algae but I could see liner. Then the deep freeze and the algae that was growing fell to the bottom and rotten, dead and sick fish... Lucky I didn't lose more of them. Also I tested the water and it tested fine... proves that even the tests don't cover everything.

[Koidaddy]

Them Glammy hands of yours must have that healing touch!

So glad things are looking up!!
KD
:yup:

[NaturesCall]

Can I heat her up for a couple of weeks and then cool her down to go outside? I'd like to move them out asap. This time of year I don't even like the greenhouse pond to be 63... oh well, as long as she is healthy I suppose it doesn't matter if they stay inside for extra weeks waiting for the pond to heat.
I think it's only natural to have your koi all be together. I wouldn't jump the gun unless you knew for sure they were over the trama of being sick. I would still get another heater in there, it will help in the healing process.

We have a koi who last year we treated for ulcer. In the fall when the temps dropped we found him sensitive to cold weather. isolateing himself, not eating, larthargic. we ran the all the common test, scraping scoping, etc. so we brought it in early and watched it do a full turn around. We recognized this koi will not do well in cold...

so....patience grasshopper. :yup:

[carcha koi]

:thumbsup: :5:

[Jackie Ramo]

I think it's only natural to have your koi all be together. I wouldn't jump the gun unless you knew for sure they were over the trama of being sick. I would still get another heater in there, it will help in the healing process.

We have a koi who last year we treated for ulcer. In the fall when the temps dropped we found him sensitive to cold weather. isolateing himself, not eating, larthargic. we ran the all the common test, scraping scoping, etc. so we brought it in early and watched it do a full turn around. We recognized this koi will not do well in cold...

so....patience grasshopper. :yup:


Walt, the reason Tweet has his own winter home is because he doesn't do well in the cold. Less than 50F and he goes head down tail up so we built him his own pond in the greenhouse for wintering. Tweet is 16 years or maybe 17 now, losing track :grin: but he is the last of my original koi.

KD, Chris, I am sure it is more luck than skill. Lucky things thawed when they did, another week I would have lost more. Although I stress observing ones fish is the most important part of fish keeping. I know each of my fish and their personalities, when they act different I investigate why.

[NaturesCall]

Jackie, I think that is the key to successful koi keeping....observation. It's funny how you get to learn their little habits and hangups. :)

[Jackie Ramo]

How true Walt and people don't think they are different. Just fish... :lol:

[Jackie Ramo]

Well, being me I was unhappy with Elf lying more on the bottom than the others so right now he is in a 0.6% salt bath. I did a scrape and scope but only found slime coat and algae bits. I examine the gills and they are much better red than before. Couldn't hold him to see if the white spot was gone and didn't bother asking hubby to try to get a picture. he has a couple of red spots near gills and head but the belly is clear. Still white on the fins but i couldn't get a scrape of it as it is between the rays but it doesn't look worse than before. I will try again now as I go out and release him back into the pond. If this continues I will have to bring him in with Tweet and Bullet!!!

All other fish look great even GG who I was worried about before has been spotted munching on algae and swimming around. Itzi looks very good and Alice is his old self.

[Jackie Ramo]

Actually having reviewed the pics I am not happy about the belly, seems to have some red viening that did not show on visual. Too bad I already returned him to the pond......poop!!

[Terri]

Boy he's handsome :)

How long was the bath?

Hopefully the redness on his belly is just 'stress' .... appears to be just on the surface of the skin. I don't want to say what I am thinking out loud...

Jackie you NEED a better scope!

[Jackie Ramo]

Well I'm not worried about parasites. This is bacterial, I am confident, if not exactly positive :4eyes: As long as it is surface and not internal I'm good. He had been handled a bit before the pic. Decided i could take better pics by myself than having Smith involved at all... Bath was 45 minutes

He is handsome and do you know I noticed for the first time he has green eyeshadow :yup:

[NaturesCall]

I was going to say the same thing Terri, what a nice looking koi. So Jackie...Time for bottom drains? :4eyes:

[Jackie Ramo]

Walt, since I would not have been running a bottom drain during winter, it would not have solved this problem... but yes, I bought the retro one last year and delayed and denied and whatever didn't hook it up. I should have paid the local guy th 700.00 he wanted to do the work. I'd still have sick fish but hey, at least it I wouldn't have to vac the pond all summer.

Do you htink the chagoi looks bad enough to have to come in? I think he will make it but he is a treasure. Bought to replace the heart of the pond, which so far he has failed to do but I have hopes for him.

lalala lalala lalala

[Jackie Ramo]

Elf is up off the bottom this morning, not up as far as the rest who are cruising the shoreline looking for roots and bugs but up a level at least.

[NaturesCall]

Jackie, here is my concern. This week starting tonight we have a cold front coming thru and you know what that means for out water temps. They won't be rising anytime soon. Right now he just looks stressed, but you know what that will do to a koi. Lower it's immune system and God know's what's next. If it's not a big hassle I would consider it. A little warmth sooths the soul.

As for lalala ...a good spanking will take care of that. :phfft:

$700. to install a retro drain? That's rape. However if it was there there would be less gunk down there all winter .

[Jackie Ramo]

Well I will keep an eye on him. The pond is big enough the temps won't swing much but if I have to I can bring him in. he was flipping around in the cooler quite a bit before the pics.

Well it was $700.00 to install the drain and filter. Randall isn't cheap.

[NaturesCall]

I don't know randall, but out of curiosuty...what kind of filter?

[Jackie Ramo]

Oh just dig in my veggie filter and put the retro drain through the liner. I have the tub already for the filter. Randall is my local pond supplier.
So expensive for the work to be done for sure.

[Jackie Ramo]

Bullet and Tweet seem very happy together. Bullet rubbed her lip while in the metal stock tank and it was white but now the crease has a touch of redness to it. Cranked up the heat a bit more. Mind the sore mouth did not stop her from getting her share, or more, of the food.

[marla]

Glad to hear things are looking up by you Jackie, amazing if we don't have enough stress in our lives, then we go and add fish and more stress, thought they were supose to calm our hearts, nerves, lower blood pressure etc.

[Jackie Ramo]

Yes, for a hobby that is supposed to be relaxing it sure has its moments :yup:

[BonnieIN]

Never a dull moment........

How are they Jackie?
( you also)

[Jackie Ramo]

Bonnie, so far all is well. Elf is still outside and looks no better and no worse. Bullet is inside bossing Tweet around. She does, she pushes him out of her way :lol:

[BonnieIN]

Glad to hear that Elf hasn't got worse, maybe in time and wamer weather.........

AHHH POOR Tweet!

[The Other Lynda]

Poor Elf! Poor Jackie! And poor, baleful Tweet! You've really had a lousy spring so far, Jackie - but you're sure doing well with it! You're a good fishy mommy! :)

[Jackie Ramo]

If things would just warm up I'd be happy. Flurries right now of all things!! I'm complaining but I know folks worse off than me but ask me if I care :crybaby:

Bullet is looking very good even her nose has healed up even if it is black instead of grey. I may rename her Puppy :grin: