Egg compaction

[welsh_kai_boy]

Having read the post about the tumour and Duncan stating egg compaction i have the following questions:-

1) How does it happen?

2) How can you spot it?

3) How can it be treated?

[Duncan]

hi ya matey

sorry about the delay i typed this answer last night then hit the wrong button and it was gone but i wasted by then

a female carp adds immarure eggs to her ovary stash every day of her life here they wait not fully mature while all the while they are being added to

then at some point usually spring when daylight length and temps trigger her to release a hormone which will complete the maturing process this will happen within 24 hours at the same time the release of the hormone starts the male maturing his milt ( sperm) and then things are ready to go for the usual mayhem

but for some reason and its not fully known some females dont or cant release their eggs and these eggs start to go past their sell by date hardening off and evenutally rotting down

there is no way to predict this some fish dont spawn every year although they are certainly capable yet dont go on to impact their eggs not all of my females spawn every year, in fact none of mine spawned last year but did not go imapacted because they were never matured off

now there is now way to predict this or prevent it but if you dont feed a koi just as in a human the body will start consuming itself for nutrients and obviousley with a female the egg stash is the first logical choice and indeed this happens but the circumstances for this to happen are extreme first the fish has to be totally deprived of nutrients of any kind, second the fish needs to not be carrying into the winter months any fat at all and thats almost impossible to acheive in a typical garden pond and if these conditions are met she may start to consume her eggs ( also males will consume the milt in the gonad

as for treatment you ned tyo jump on this pretty fast but the trouble is how do you know she is impacted and not just carrying a huge amount of natural roe ?

if you can assertain she is indeed impacted you could inject "CPE" (carp pituitary extract) this will release the hormone that will start the spawning process off or if you can get some water form apond where spawning has just taken place this will also carry the scent of the hormone and this will sometime start them off

but while recovery is difficult if the impaction goes to far the ovary will rupture and form here there is no way back

hope this covers it for you, but bascially its hard to recover from this condition which is why its always fascinated me why folks always try and get a female in preference to a male ?

dunc

[welsh_kai_boy]

Don't you just hate that when it happens!

OK, so the bottom line is it's bloody hard to spot.....not a good recovery rate and if your uncertain then you could lose perfectly good roe.

I undertsand the starvation thing as you say humans are the same.

I am guessing you would have to starve the fish for a long time before the self eating process works?

[Brockp]

Duncan et al

For a sick fish with egg impaction it shouldn't be difficult to surgically remove the impacted mass but it would have to be done with as close to asepsis as we can get. But a nice big fish dying from a breech delivery seems a bit sad......... now you can all shout at me.

Peter

[Gazza]

Now where was that post that Bob did a while back

[welsh_kai_boy]

Duncan et al

For a sick fish with egg impaction it shouldn't be difficult to surgically remove the impacted mass but it would have to be done with as close to asepsis as we can get. But a nice big fish dying from a breech delivery seems a bit sad......... now you can all shout at me.

Peter

So you open up, scoop it out and then sew it back up?? what about massaging the roe out?

[Duncan]

OH Man!!!! whats going on here? have i wondered into the twilight zone or area 51?

please, please tell me your joking ?

im gonna chill and watch the karate kid

[boogatee]

I can't answer the question about cutting a koi open, cutting into the ovary, removing eggs and then stitching it all back together and expecting the koi to survive???? .... but for massaging eggs out of a koi that's ready to release it eggs, if you don't know what you're doing you will rupture the ovary and then it's game over. Now, replace this with a koi that may or may not be impacted - either way she's not releasing her eggs - and then I think you have an almost impossible task.

[Brockp]

Hi Duncan

Welcome back from the twilight zone........ you put stretch targets out there in this group, which you have chosen, and you will get out of the box options............ in every 2000 crazy answers there is a gem this forum I thought was meant to stretch us to the limit. What are our options with a large fish that is impacted lets deal with them one by one and see what we are left with.

Where in the reproductuctive tract does the obstruction occure ? my first quesction.

Welcome back to the matrix.

Peter

[eds]

Couldn't you remove the ovary entirely as a sort of a piscine hysterectomy?

[Duncan]

hi guys i was funnin wid ya !

thats exactly what this section is for

right the problem with this is this ::

you can see the kind of inscision that needed for an operation like this very intrusive and even if the op goes well the likey hood of survival is small

coupled to this: ( and im not being funny, nasty or condescending here) i seriously doubt if there is anyone on the setion yet that is capable of sedating a koi to the degree that this procedure could be carried out . this fish would need to be sedated for around an hour and then sutured back

in my recent wet lab i did an experiment where i sedated a fish and asked the student to put their hands up when they would have pulled the fish out i think out of 7 or 8 students the longest one was around 4 minutes most bailed at the 1-2 minute mark when the last one declared they would have pulled the fish to work on it i left the fish for another 10 minutes pulled the fish worked on it and had a chat while the fish was laid out till after around 30 or so minutes the fish started coming around andf was placed back in the water

And last but not least how would you know the fish was impacted and not just heavily laid in roe? you could be risking the fish for no good reason

so while i admire your enquiring mind you have to be a bit realistic here , you would have to do the more conventional and every day stuff first then cross this bridge when you get to it for instance the first thing is to inject CPE now where would you even get that ? i cna tell you now its not on a vets shelf? im the only one i know that stocks it but it for my personal use i dont resell it as it costs a fortune around £300 1gm

you can see where im going with this there are options here but not a lot of them realistic but keep asking thats what it all about i was just wasted last night

dunc

p/s i teach suturing and sedation on my wet labs the vets would not like it but there ya go

[welsh_kai_boy]

Seems I opened a big can of worms, but thats what this new zone is all about.

All I can say is way beyond my skill level and in any case the likely outcome to the fish is death.

[Duncan]

no you have not opened a can of worms mate i wish i had a more definitive answer for you but i dont

what i means is i know what it is and how to deal with it i also have the experience and where with all to deal with it but i cant pass this on in the way i would like it to be understood

i'll give it some more thought see if there is a simpler way to explain it

dunc

[Brockp]

Hi Duncan;

I think as starting point just understanding what has gone wrong with the normal mechanism would at least point us in the right direction........... Perhaps and anti luteinising hormone we put in the water ?

I joke as the public health impact of that would be disastrous. We have enough problems with oestrogen from woman on OCs getting into our rivers already.

Peter

[welsh_kai_boy]

no you have not opened a can of worms mate i wish i had a more definitive answer for you but i dont

what i means is i know what it is and how to deal with it i also have the experience and where with all to deal with it but i cant pass this on in the way i would like it to be understood

i'll give it some more thought see if there is a simpler way to explain it

dunc

I understand it's difficult.....