Is this koi sick or wounded ?

[Zayde]

Horrible looking wound, but what should I do about it ? The fish seems to be behaving normally.

 

[Tula]

Oh dear It's hard to say if it was initially injured and infection set in, or if it is an ulcer, that grew. We have a koi keeper here @Dave 54 , but he's on UK time. Either he can help you, or go to koiphen.com, which is a dedicated koi site, with a health care committee.

I'm hoping all it will need is topical treatments, clean water and time.....but I have no experience with this. What a beautiful koi.

 

[Faebinder]

Is it an injury or an ulcer, cause those are two different problems?
I would apply peroxide with a cotton swab to the lesion twice a day for 5 days.

 

[Dave 54]

Oh dear I've had this problem myself and its a bugger to heal we had to take our koi out of the pond and put it in a large aquarium with nothing other than a filter then you will have to treat this as an ulcer .
Do you know how to Anethatize koi @Zayde ? .... your going to have to learn asap :-

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/articles/trees-and-flora-dangerous-to-fish.6/

May I ask how long you have had this koi please @Zayde bormally these wounds start off as a burn to the nose of your koi if not placed properly over the cars axle with the koi hitting its nose on thebag when the car had braked quickly or it could be the result of a wound that you should have seenm and treated earlier i;e its nose is a mess and has been for a while I simply cant understand how you missed it .
It is treatable but this wound is in one of the worst places possible the nose .
What do you have in the way of a pond bottom i;e just liner or pebbles ?


Dave

 

[Mmathis]

Is it an injury or an ulcer, cause those are two different problems?
I would apply peroxide with a cotton swab to the lesion twice a day for 5 days.

I don't know how it is with fish, but when H2O2 is used on a person's wound, it's normally only used as an initial cleansing and not continuously. H2O2 causes tissue damage, and if used repeatedly actually slows healing. Again, maybe it's different with fish....?

 

[Faebinder]

Unlike a human, the fish is constantly exposed to water. The H2O2 will briefly kill the accumulated bacteria and dead skin of the ulcer. If it was a human, then yes you'd be in trouble from constant use cause nothing is removing it.

If you don't do a regular clean up of the ulcer and it gets infected (as it is likely) then it won't heal. Infections stop wound healing.

Your other option is to apply daily antibiotics to the water though the first step there is to figure out the pathogen causing this.

Reasons wounds don't heal in general:
- infections
- poor immune system
- steroids
- foreign bodies
- auto immune diseases
- diabetes
- radiation
- cancer

Naturally some of these don't apply to fish and I'm not a fish doctor. Best of luck.

 

[Dave 54]

I don't know how it is with fish, but when H2O2 is used on a person's wound, it's normally only used as an initial cleansing and not continuously. H2O2 causes tissue damage, and if used repeatedly actually slows healing. Again, maybe it's different with fish....?

Agreed Maggie it leaves horrific scars behind.....
However nowadays there are many products on the maket that act as a sort of chemical bandage., We orselves use a product called Koi clear gel which is a mixture of healing herbs[ a Japanese treatment used on both humans and of late koi :-

http://www.absolute-koi.com/prod2087.html

It isextremely good at what it does leaving no scar and normally after only two applications to the koi ulcer however you must slean up the area using cotton buds one swipe one bud also you need to remove all dead tissue around the area then gently scrub around the edges with a soft clean tooth brosh before washing and drying the wound before applying the gel

Note:-

When not in use it "MUST" always be kept in the fridge

Dave