[Spoder]

Around 14 weeks ago I removed a large shimmy from the flank of our gin ochiba, this is how it looked ordinarily...

a few days after removing the shimmy i noticed a patch of around 6 scales looking raised so i sedated the koi and just treated with mercurochrome and lock and seal then i kept an extra vigilant eye on things , over the next week the patch of scales had increased to around 20 + scales and began to look really sore and inflammed,so it went into our hospital vat (400 gallons ,heated and filtered,) with salt at 0.3% and some chlomine T , i had a good and extremely competant mate come round and treat this for us, during this treatment a total of 46 scales were removed as they were being attacked by bacteria and were being "eaten" away, the area under these scales was full of poison or gunk so the whole area was cleaned , topically treated then lock and sealed, this is how the koi looked around this time...

this was then kept in the hospital vat at a constant 27 degrees with the chloromine t and the salt , after ten days i netted and checked to see how it was getting on ( i was checking every day but its not as easy to see everything unless the koi is bowled and checked properly) well things had gotton much worse so i decided to take action myself ,now having a better knowledge of how to treat it properly after watching Gaz the first time around, so i checked everything and found that another 52 scales were needing to be removed then the area was cleaned really well and once again treated exactly the same way as it had been done before then placed back into the hospital tank to convalesce,the poor koi looked as if it had been filletted along the entire length of its flank, no photos were taken at this time . regular water changes were done every other day with around 15-20% of the water being changed, it was around this time i began to doubt the kois recovery and i asked myself and a few others questions like when would i know that enough was enough and to throw in the towel , i decided against doing anything too rash and to just leave the koi to its own devices and just keep up with the water changes , all the time the koi has been in the vat when the heat retention cover is pulled back it was coming up to greet me and occasionally i would give it a couple of pellets which it took with an almost scary amount of enthusiasm. Today had a visit from pondy and decided to bowl the koi and have a proper look at it for the first time in about 6 weeks... here is a couple of photos we took today ..



to say i am pleased with its progress would be an understatement, the whole infection has now gone quite a few of the scales have grow back with many more still growing back there are no "rough" or damaged scales any more . it matters not to me that many of the new scales that have grown back are no longer silver gin coloured but instead are "cha" coloured i am just truly grateful it has been so resiliant and is on the mend. it has lost a little of its body weight but i would imagine that is due to not feeding as much since its been in "hospital" and i think its thrown its energy into healing rather than into growth.
just thought i would share this with you guys

Ash

[Boo!]

I am pleased with him too - there were so many times when i feared the worst for him. So i am really chuffed to have him happy / hungry and still swimming!

Lx

[Gazfish]

Hi Guys,

Very well done and its amazing how well a koi can recover in the right conditions and how quickly scales will either repair or grow back.

It just goes to show that you got to it in time and have kept it in the best conditions and treated correctly and i am sure the fish will soon put a bit of weight on once back in the main pond

[pondy]

yeah. chuffed for your guys. it was a really nice koi to start with and with your help, it will be again.

hats off to you xx

[Limey]

Really pleased for you, very well done... a lesson to us all there showing how resilient our fish can be if we support best we can. Great job and bet you both feel great... [I mean you and Boo ]- ok and the fish

[Bullet]

Glad to see your fish is healing. Always nice when you bring them through something like this.

[ochiba110]

Around 14 weeks ago I removed a large shimmy from the flank of our gin ochiba, this is how it looked ordinarily...
Is this the result of you removing the shimmie?

[pondy]

Dependant on how you chose to remove the shimmie, you should of even lost a scale let alone scarred up on anything like that!! what did you use a sanding disk???

[Spoder]

No i didnt use a sanding disc or a dremel or a hammer and chisel , but yes this was the result of me removing the shimmi, when i originally removed the shimmi i anaethasized the koi , then using a brand new scalpal blade i ever so gently and delicatly scraped the shimmi until it came off then i cleaned the area, then brushed mercurochrome all around the area i had scraped (about the size of a pea) then i applied quite liberally lock and seal, it was not a deep shimmi more of the sort that just rests within the top layers of the scale, i had read up on how to do this before i started and did everything the text book way. somehow by scraping the scale i had left it open to a bacterial infection which progressivly got worse. i take full responsibility for this and felt real guilty about it , still do , had i of left the koi to its own devices it would of been fine (albeit with a shimmi that was increasing in size) . i am and have always endeavoured to be as meticulous as possible with my care for our koi. i have learnt from this experience so much that will in the future help me with treating koi.

[markf1fan]

Originally Posted by Spoder

No i didnt use a sanding disc or a dremel or a hammer and chisel , but yes this was the result of me removing the shimmi, when i originally removed the shimmi i anaethasized the koi , then using a brand new scalpal blade i ever so gently and delicatly scraped the shimmi until it came off then i cleaned the area, then brushed mercurochrome all around the area i had scraped (about the size of a pea) then i applied quite liberally lock and seal, it was not a deep shimmi more of the sort that just rests within the top layers of the scale, i had read up on how to do this before i started and did everything the text book way. somehow by scraping the scale i had left it open to a bacterial infection which progressivly got worse. i take full responsibility for this and felt real guilty about it , still do , had i of left the koi to its own devices it would of been fine (albeit with a shimmi that was increasing in size) . i am and have always endeavoured to be as meticulous as possible with my care for our koi. i have learnt from this experience so much that will in the future help me with treating koi.

Hiya

Would you ever do this again with a shimmi, i have a 55cm kohaku which has a deep black shimmi and also another 55cm kohaku which is getting two shimmi's coming. is this really a good idea to be doing this and even if it did all come out ok, whats the chance of another shimmi coming back some where else.