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Koi Health, Disease and Medication ForumPost here about any Koi health problems and water quality problems you may have.
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Top Poster: markf1fan (3,500)
I am new to koi keeping and have a quaranteen tank in my house. I have tested the water regulary and results have been slowly improving. The last water test I did was yesterday, and the water was/is the best its ever been.
Today I noticed one of the fish has a deep red flesh wound underneeth (see pic below), and has red marks in its fin?
You need a scrape done to check whether parasites are the root cause.
I would be looking to isolate this fish and do any treatment there, what you dont want is a nasty bacterial infection spreading in a small environment.
My thoughts from this one pic are that the chances for this fish are low but there are others on here with much more experience of this kind of problem than I.
I am afraid that does look very very nasty and with the position of this it looks as though the bacteria have eaten through the layers of dermis and in the vent area.
Long term if the fish was to survive there may well be further complications and a very tough one to call.
If you was to treat i think you would need to get it into some warm water 26-27c with a salt and CT mixture (again strong) and not that i would normally suggest but also perhaps a antibiotic course of injections.
This would also need cleaning up and some way of sealing and thats where it gets complicated as it looks so close if not on the vent so a very delicate job.
So for the bad news but it may be much easier to let this one go and put it to sleep as even an experienced person i think would have to be on their game to sort this one out.
I have just had the fish out again and to be honest the pic does look worse than it actually is, having said that there are lots of scales missing and you can see raw flesh.
Dave, I dont have a clue how to do a scrape or the tools but I suppose as I want to keep koi I had better learn how to do these things and equip myself.
Gazza, why does rasing the temp and adding salt help? and what is CT mixture?
Also, if and it does look likely that I will lose this one, what do I need to do to ensure that the other fish are ok once this ones gone? do I need to clean the tank and filter with anything to get rid of any remaining harmfull bactiera in the water?
One of the first things is to try to find out what caused this in the first place which isn't always that easy. that is why Dave has said about a scrape because the majority of times a bacterial infection is secondary and can be caused by parasites so we have to sometimes take a mucus scrape and have a look under a microscope for the little critters.
Raising the temperature helps the fish as there immune system will work better and they will heal better and have a higher tolerance against the material in higher temperatures. The salt is part of the natural healing and also calming process for the fish and again the bacteria don't like it and can also help with the osmosis if a fish is taking on water through an open wound similar to how we treat for Dropsy. The CT is Chloromine T which is a great tool for stopping bacteria in its tracks but the dose rate depends on how bad the problem is and also how hard/soft your water is.
By doing all the three things in conjunction (heat,salt,CT) we can gain control of bacteria and help heal the fish but as said above you have a very very hard task ahead of you and i suspect not the equipment for the job at this moment in time.
You will need to make sure all the other fish are not showing any signs of bacterial infection so a good check over of all the fish. If you can doing a scrape of a few of the fish will also be a good idea to make sure they are all in good health before you start just in case there is a parasite about that may need to be treated.
For fish to do well and heal the filters need to be up to the job and a nice clean system has your QT been running long and do all the water tests come out OK ?
Its been running for about 2 months now, it took about 6 weeks for the amonia to drop, and now the ritrite is coming down too so im was really pleased.
The results on thursday morning were-
Ph between 7 and 8 (a very light green colour)
Ammonia 0.2
Nitrite 0.25
KH 7
Temp 22
Think i met you at the last Crouch Valley meeting? Any good aquatic shop should sell PDV (pure dried Vacuum salt). Good luck with getting these guys on the road to recovery.
Think i met you at the last Crouch Valley meeting? Any good aquatic shop should sell PDV (pure dried Vacuum salt). Good luck with getting these guys on the road to recovery.
Lx
Your probably right as I was at the last meeting, I meet so many people can you jog my memory to who you were.
Help needed! 
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