Simply Koi and More Koi

Thanks for that Duncan, very interesting as usual.

^^^ Ditto Duncan. Many Thanks, M

Hi all attempted to asperate fluid from my komonryu today
i anesthetised her and with the pic from Duncan i inserted the needle where the x mark was on the posterior of the fish i then carefully tried to with draw the fluid if there was any but only withdrew air so seems she is not holding fluid so stopped .she had two large pressure sores from sitting on the bottom mainly caused from the ribs in fact one was actually through the skin so i trimmed it back and treated the wounds. .
she is swimming around more and comes up to lunk air a lot but still sinks back down to the bottom i reckon sadly i will have to put her to sleep such a shame but at least i tried to do something with the help from Duncan its a very scary procedure though . Sorry i did not do any pics but i was on my own so had no one to take them for me.

Hi Amanda
I have a lovely showa bought at 60 cm, paid a hefty amount expecting good things. Unfortunately end of last season I noticed she was sitting on the bottom quite often.
I bowled her and on inspection noticed apart from a spongy belly no damage and gills looked good. Lots of scrapes done and apart from a few flukes on other fish everything was clear.
She would swim and lunk, but everything was erratic, then would sink to the bottom like a piece of lead, then she would sit for most of the day.
After a couple of weeks I bowled her again and noticed a couple of sores on her belly, I tried everything to keep it under control, but all the time she was on the bottom I felt there was no hope. Despite all my efforts the sore spread to the whole of her belly and looked bloody awful. All this time I was continuing to hold the temps high to help healing but I really wanted to lower it to start their winter spell. In the end I gave up with the showa, I nearly put her out of her misery but couldn't quite bring myself to do it as she still had loads of fight in her when bowling.
She spent most of winter on the bottom of the pond. Beginning of June we had Tricodina, I bowled the showa for scrapes and I was almost frightened to roll her over, but amazingly the belly had completely healed, maybe as a result of the colder temps?
She still sits on the bottom, but eats well with the others, does some erratic swimming then returns to the bottom!!
Does anything sound familiar with your fish?
Dave

Hi Koicarpus. Yes very much the same with mine she was so heavy the poor old gal was thrashing from side to side to get up from the bottom.
Well i thought b****r so i tried again yesterday knocked her out and inspected her sores on her belly.
I was surprised that they did look a little less angry and as i had trimmed off the ribs that were causing the holes one had begun to seal over though one side is still worse than the other.
So i attempted to aspirate again this time i managed to get a small amount of fluid but only about 10cc so decided to put some air in. i added 70 cc of air with no resistance.
afraid of causing too much damage i then put her back in another bowl to recover with air and left her for 20 mins to fully come round as it was shallow and might let the bladder naturally expand. i returned her to the pond and she went straight to the bottom so was disappointed but sat and watched ,after around 5 minutes i could not believe that she swam up to the surface gulped some air and continued so swim at all levels with out any effort or awkwardness. i watched for an hour she continued lunking for air but swam around with the others, at 5 pm i went and checked and she was at the deep end on the bottom so i thought that was it but when i fed the other fish she swam up took a mussel and swam around ! i am pleased that she is off the floor and eating but its early days she is still swimming today so 24 hours later it is still OK.
This time decided to inflate the front bladder instead of the rear bladder seems to have done something but as i said early days long term who knows. She is a big fish around 60 cm so it would be a shame to loose her but only time will tell she may just slowly go back to sinking mode.

Heartening to hear and, yes it's early days but that's such a promising reaction if I'd had a result like that I'd be chuffed with myself so well done to you. Fingers all crossed for a full recovery. Best regards, M

that's great news and very well done
obviously you there with the fish in your hands and as usual hands on is worth a 1000% more than anything we can add other than to guide you

keep the good work im so proud of you

dunc

Hi all
Here is a pic of her swimming she is still swimming around today still lunking but hey she is eating though a bit fussy as she prefers her mussels to the normal koi food but that's because i have been spoiling her so my fault, did have some normal food today though which is good. Apologies for the extra pic of same image but as usual having problems with technology
Will update in a week or so to let you all know what happens

Just an update on the progress , unfortunately she slowly lost the ability to stay buoyant over the course of the next week and has now gone back to the bottom.
So although it was nice for her for a week or so the injection did not work .
Thank you all for your kind words i will just see how she does with no further interference from me at least she can just about buzz around the pond for a couple of turns before the sinks .

Just an update
Sadly she passed away when i sedated her to treat the sore on her belly
Autopsy showed that the swim bladder was full of tea coloured fluid and it looked like her heart had hemorridged as the area there had massive blood clots though not totally sure.
Any way a sad day had her for 10 years

That's a shame

I'm also sorry to hear your sad news but, if it's any comfort, at least you tried your best to save her.

Sorry to hear about the outcome Amanda - it's good to hear what happened and how you treated her.

sorry to hear that but with hind sight as first thought it showed she did indeed have a heavy fluid build up in the bladder
at least you gave it your best efforts and can be commended for that

dunc

Thank you all for your kind words
She was no prize winner but she had a unique character and was always the first up as friendly as my chagois and as greedy.