new koi suddenly develops raised scales on several parts of body

gosti · 07-06-2009, 12:05 PM

We bought a japanese koi from a reputable centre two weeks ago and 3 days ago we noticed that scales on parts of its body were raised. There are no other symptons - the fish is lively and eating very well. The other 4 UK koi that we have had for a couple of years look okay.

Any ideas what might be wrong?

koimaster · 07-06-2009, 05:32 PM

sounds like dropsy my friend try giving it a salt bath for 10mins

gosti · 07-06-2009, 05:48 PM

oh dear - i thought with dropsy that the scales all over the body were raised rather than just in parts. we've never handled our fish so the thought of getting it out of the pond and putting it in a bowl is rather daunting.

worthy · 08-06-2009, 09:46 AM

I agree with koimaster altho it might not be dropsy it could well be an infection under the scales if you can get a pic it would be great to help identifei the prob but a salt bath is a good start you will need 2 bowles of water one with the salt 3oz per galon and make shore it is desolved befor you put the fish in as undesolved salt can burn the fish and its fins you will also need a bowl with juas pond water to put it in befor it goes back in the pond and make shore you have a air stone in each one and when it comes to catching the fish do it slowly you dont want to strees it out to much first lower the net in the water and leave it there till the fish will swim around it and then slowly move it to catch the fish you intend on bathing have the bowl of just pond water floating in the pond so you can go from net to bowl easely then take the bowl and fish out of pond then you can trancfer to the salt bath for 10 min's and make shore you put something like the net over the top to stop it jummping out then after 10 mins do the reverse in to bowl with pond water lift the bowl and float in the pond and the let the fish back in to the pond hopfully all this will help not to strees the fish to much

gosti · 08-06-2009, 07:43 PM

thanks worthy and koimaster for your help so far. i have taken some photos to show extent of damage but don't know how to make them smaller to upload onto this site. they are jpegs and are about 951 kbs each. will keep trying to find a way! anyway just to let you know we have been doing a five day anti bacterial and fungus treatment - today is the last day of that in case this makes a difference to any further treatment you might suggest. the fish is still very keen to eat and eyes are normal just he has these raised areas (the one at the end of his body is very much worse today) and also on one side a red area is spreading under the scales. he did one big flip in the water this evening - not seen this before and he took a long time to come up for food today.
we go on holiday day after tomorrow so it would be great if we could save him before we go!
thanks so much.

worthy · 08-06-2009, 08:41 PM

Right you need to get a scrape done asap to check if it could be a parasite wich is under the scales and has cause a bacterial infection because of the parasite i dont know if you have a microscope to do it your self if not all good koi dealers will be able to do one where about do you live in case some one is close to you to come and do a scrape for you

gosti · 08-06-2009, 08:48 PM

we don't have a microscope and when we phoned the dealer who sold us the fish they just said oh it's dropsy and didn't offer any advice on what to do. we live in west london near olympia and tomorrow is the only time we could do anything as we leave for our holiday on wednesday early. it doesn't sound very hopeful does it?

koimaster · 08-06-2009, 09:21 PM

i would try a salt bath does your local dealer not offer scrapes ???

worthy · 08-06-2009, 09:28 PM

pluse how long ago did you buy the koi as most koi dealers offer a 2 week garantie if they are good that is and as long as it did not die from bad keeping

gosti · 08-06-2009, 09:40 PM

we bought the fish nearly three weeks ago from a water garden centre in enfield where we got two of our other UK bred koi. They have quite a lot of fish and the ones we bought before have been healthy but I don't think the people (all young) there are that knowledgeable and when we phoned up they weren't at all helpful - they said it's dropsy and that's it! We can try and do the salt bath tomorrow evening but then that's it as we are going away early wednesday morning. will the other fish get the parasite too?