Sick koi and need advice (with pics)

I have a koi with an unusual growth on its tail fin that looks like a
praying mantis egg sac. The fish also has hazy white areas on its
body. On its back there is a large opaque oval and I noticed some
smaller areas on its head. I first noticed issues with this fish in
the spring of 2005 and put it into a holding container with another
fish for several weeks as I dosed it with anti-bacterial and anti-
fungal medicines. It didn't seem to get better but upon closer look
it didn't seem like these white areas were disease, so I blew them off
as possibly an ugly batch of scales.

Now it's early 2007 and those white areas still exist and are possibly
larger but not substantially. The growth on the tail is something I
just noticed a few weeks ago and definitely is not healthy. I think
another of those growths exists on the underside of the fish near the
tail fin, but as you can imagine it's difficult to net and examine
this fish close up. The end of the fin itself seems to be diseased,
yet not in a way that would cause tearing.

If I had to take a guess I'd say this fish is at least 18" long and is
at least 2.5 years old and the other fish in the pond seem healthy.

Here are links to some photos:

The odd growth == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi.JPG
The white region == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi2.JPG

I have a feeling this isn't a bacterial infection, fungal disease, or
parasite because those issues should have spread to the other fish in
the 2 years that I've noticed odd health issues with this one. The
only other thing I can think of would be some sort of fish cancer, but
I'm not a vet so I have no clue.

Any ideas on what's going on? If so, what do I do about it?

On 13 Feb 2007 18:17:37 -0800, "scs0" wrote:


Here are links to some photos:

The odd growth == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi.JPG
The white region == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi2.JPG

Great shots! Pictures worth a 1000 words as they say. I'm thinking
Lymphocystis... more commonly called Carp Pox or it could be columaris....

They can be contagious, but not easily. Usually, if Carp Pox they get
better or go away when the season changes and the water warms up, only to
come back in the fall. Do a search on those things and then decide your
course of treatment. ~ jan
--------------
See my ponds and filter design:
www.jjspond.us

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

"scs0" wrote in message
ups.com...

Any ideas on what's going on? If so, what do I do about it?
===================================
Check this site:

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...phocystis.html

I had a beautiful deep yellow female diamond-scale butterfly koi with this
disease. It looked exactly like what your fish has. She would appear cured
at times but it always came back. She went to a farm stock pond rather than
keep her with the other fish and possibly infect them.
--
ZB....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Troll free pond and fish Forum:
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö ~~~~ }((((({*

Oh thats really good thinking there CArol. Push off yur sick or
diseased fish and put it in a farm pond out of sight out of mind and
let who ever has the farm pond worry about their fish coming down
with what ever the koi had if its communicable. At a minimum it should
have been euthanized and not dumped in another body of water, but
better yet, just like you told me, if you can not afford to take care
of your fish properly you should not have any..........you do
remember that statement don't you? Probably not, your suffering from
yet another bout of selective memory recall when things don't agree
with you. Yet your tract record of erroneous and bad advice predeeds
you as usual.

Looking at those pics my "Guess" is not worth a darn as I really d
not have a clue. None of my info from the university of Florida eveh
has anyhting like this listed, however its possible its an ulcer.
Short of finding a bona fide answer, I would dab it with some
potassium permanganate paste..Only do this one time, then apply some
panalog or other antibiotic ointment, and cover it with denture
powder. Yea sounds weird but if its an ulcer it will fix it. Let me
send the pics to a "fish doc" I know here locally and see what he
says.




On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:47:39 -0600, Zëbulon
wrote:


"scs0" wrote in message
egroups.com...

Any ideas on what's going on? If so, what do I do about it?
===================================
Check this site:

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/...phocystis.html

I had a beautiful deep yellow female diamond-scale butterfly koi with this
disease. It looked exactly like what your fish has. She would appear cured
at times but it always came back. She went to a farm stock pond rather than
keep her with the other fish and possibly infect them.



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

"Tristan" wrote in message
...

snip same old BS
==========================
Who cares what you think when you tell people to break the law and shoot and
kill protected water birds such as herons?
--
ZB....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
http://www.ganesha.org/ptb/hipcrime.html
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö ~~~~ }((((({*

Here is the skinny

It has two possibilitys Koi herpes virus (KHV) / Carp Pox on that
tail.....as for the whitish film on scales, it could be a thicker
slime coat or it could be a poor section of scales but odds are its
due to Koi herpes virus (KHV) White spots on scales as such can be a
positive visual indicator for Koi Pox ....The fish is definately
stressed as there is lots of red streaks in the tail which is a good
indicator of stress or on set of a bacterial / viral infection. It
would be good to have a complete set of water parameters . Koi POx or
CArp POx can make fleshy warty growths on a fish as well but its not a
fatal disease. If it is Koi Herpes (KHV) its required to be reported
to the Dept of agriculture due to its seriousness. ONly one way to
really tell and that is to have it checked and have a scope done and
look for the herpes or pox virus.....

Check out Universtiy of Florida in regards toKoi herpes virus (KHV)
Info.

KHV is contagious so a QT is best. Mortaility is high with KHV....

Certainly not smart to arbitraily toss in a farm pond as another
stated as KHV is highly contagaious to other fish in that species be
it fat head minnows or goldfish.



On 13 Feb 2007 18:17:37 -0800, "scs0" wrote:

I have a koi with an unusual growth on its tail fin that looks like a
praying mantis egg sac. The fish also has hazy white areas on its
body. On its back there is a large opaque oval and I noticed some
smaller areas on its head. I first noticed issues with this fish in
the spring of 2005 and put it into a holding container with another
fish for several weeks as I dosed it with anti-bacterial and anti-
fungal medicines. It didn't seem to get better but upon closer look
it didn't seem like these white areas were disease, so I blew them off
as possibly an ugly batch of scales.

Now it's early 2007 and those white areas still exist and are possibly
larger but not substantially. The growth on the tail is something I
just noticed a few weeks ago and definitely is not healthy. I think
another of those growths exists on the underside of the fish near the
tail fin, but as you can imagine it's difficult to net and examine
this fish close up. The end of the fin itself seems to be diseased,
yet not in a way that would cause tearing.

If I had to take a guess I'd say this fish is at least 18" long and is
at least 2.5 years old and the other fish in the pond seem healthy.

Here are links to some photos:

The odd growth == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi.JPG
The white region == http://s1974.home.comcast.net/sick_koi2.JPG

I have a feeling this isn't a bacterial infection, fungal disease, or
parasite because those issues should have spread to the other fish in
the 2 years that I've noticed odd health issues with this one. The
only other thing I can think of would be some sort of fish cancer, but
I'm not a vet so I have no clue.

Any ideas on what's going on? If so, what do I do about it?



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Great day, how did we go from koi herpes Virus to herons.your a bona
fide lunatic carol.......meltdown, meltdown, take action, lunatic on
the loose!


See, if we were on terms I would , show you my permit to harvest
herons , oh hell I ain't even gonna discuss it with you as it matters
not. What matters is finding an answer to this persons fish illness
and your beligerant belly acheing is not helping him any now is it. So
please go away and troll else where.

But I think yur totally off the wall tossing a highly contagious sick
fish into another persons pond and walking away from yur
responsibility, and possibly be the cause of a massive outbreak. YOu
got class CArol, real class, about as much class as the Nazi's did
during WWII . Your also a class act....and a fool!


On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:09:00 -0600, Zëbulon
wrote:


"Tristan" wrote in message
m...

snip same old BS
==========================
Who cares what you think when you tell people to break the law and shoot and
kill protected water birds such as herons?



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Zëbulon wrote:


Who cares what you think when you tell people to break the law and shoot
and kill protected water birds such as herons?

Shooting at herons is legal in the UK providing that the gun is licenced
- I'm not sure if there is a need to get a special licence to shoot at
herons but from what I've heard from someone who keeps a fishery in
Scotland it does not appear to be....and the whole question of shooting
herons has no relevance to the OP question about his sick fish.

The dumping of Koi and Goldfish is illegal over here even if they are
healthy.....the dumping of a diseased fish is even worse IMNSO and
totally irresponsible...

Gill

From what I've gathered my koi's problem may be:

Carp pox (aka Lymphocystis)
Or
Koi herpes


I'm unclear on whether or not Carp Pox and Koi Herpes are different
diseases or just the same name for the same thing.

I don't want to kill the fish, but it certainly sounds like I should
isolate this one. That's a bit of a pain considering the size these
fish are getting to, but one thing I learned is that these bigger fish
are much lazier and easier to catch than the impossible-to-catch
younger ones. I definitely don't want to contact the Department of
Agriculture. Government and environmental issues are a scary thing to
mix and I've heard the horror stories. I'd probably end up with 100
euthanized koi and a demolished pond. I'll be lucky if they don't
find a way to condemn my property altogether!


I would like to get out of this without the death of this fish. I've
never really liked its color patterns too much but that's a mean
reason to settle for its euthanization!

Don't worry; the last thing I'll do is release this fish into the wild
or any other body of water for that matter.

"Gill Passman" wrote in message
...
Zëbulon wrote:


Who cares what you think when you tell people to break the law and shoot
and kill protected water birds such as herons?

Shooting at herons is legal in the UK.......

The person who recommend the illegal killing of the birds lives in the USA,
not the UK. The country was not specified by Roy "Tristan" Hauer.

providing that the gun is licenced
- I'm not sure if there is a need to get a special licence to shoot at
herons but from what I've heard from someone who keeps a fishery in
Scotland it does not appear to be....and the whole question of shooting
herons has no relevance to the OP question about his sick fish.

Nor did the insulting TROLL post have any relevance to anthing to do with
ponds or fishkeeping.

The dumping of Koi and Goldfish is illegal over here even if they are
healthy....

That doesn't not apply to where I or the person who recommended the illegal
killing of protected birds live - the USA. The farm stock pond in question
is cleaned out constantly by predators. There is no way the fish can make
it to a waterway.

..the dumping of a diseased fish is even worse IMNSO and
totally irresponsible...

Of course it's worse in your opinion - I posted it. It's called "pack
attack." ;-) Your endless psychology to get rid of Roy "Tristan" Hauer's
trolling here by harassing me and constantly criticizing me isn't going to
work Gill so give it up. That's a nice girl. :-)))
--
ZB....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö ~~~~ }((((({*