Fish shaking head?

[Olee]

I walked out yesterday morning to feed my fish. I noticed one of my koi (orange w/white stripe) seemed unable to come up to the top and get food. He could swim around just fine albeit a bit slower than the others, but not much slower if at all. But then the oddest thing happened, he shook his head! Then he did it again, and again. I thought maybe there was something caught in his throat or something. Anyone ever seen this type of activity? He did eat some, but came to the surface slower than usual... I hope he is OK....

Thanks

 

[DrDave]

I have no idea. if all the others are fine, it may be something in it's throat that is partially blocking it. I would keep an eye on it and if you can, catch it and look inside it's mouth.

 

[Olee]

I can catch him very easily. If there is something in there, should I use something like a pair of needle-nosed pliers to remove it?

 

[koiguy1969]

i dont know if you noticed but if theres string alge in the pond and they eat it..ive seen mine jerking their heads around pulling off chunks attached to items. it gets pretty strong and pretty good grip on things. ....just a thought.

 

[clm]

gill flukes will make them shake their heads as well as spit out their food.

clm

 

[Olee]

That's not the situation here. I'm going to catch him and take a look....

 

[Olee]

what are gil flukes?

 

[koiguy1969]

gill flukes are parasites....can get real serious...ive never had to deal with them.

 

[DoDad]

The only way to tell if they have flukes is to scrape and look at it under a microscope.
About the only parasites you can see are anchor worms and fish lice.

 

[koikeepr]

agree with DoDad! Ditto! Ditto! This is why a microscope comes in handy. Must be a minimum of 400x tho.

 

[Olee]

OK, so I pulled the obviously infected koi out and put him in a 10 gallon quarantine tank. I added Quick Cure per all directions to the QT. I hope this cures him. Meanwhile I feel like I need to do something to rest of the pond now.....1500 gallons of it. Any Ideas? It would cost a fortune to do the entire pond with Quick Cure.....

I plan on doing a 25% water change tomorrow....

 

[jason081180]

you put a Kio in a 10GL tank??? how big is he like one inch? you need to get him more room as soon as possible. try adding salt to the pond. then when you do your water changes don't add more and it will get diluted out over time. some people keep a low level of salt in there pond all the time. helps with slime coat, parasite control, gill function, and electrolytes. I'm sure more but i don't know off the top of my head.

 

[Olee]

OK, maybe tell me what size tank you would recommend? The info has been slow in coming and I needed to something before this guy died and/or passed on something contagious to the other fish. So I go to the internet and read as much as I can without getting a headache and do what I think is best. If you know better, please share.

I have treated the pond already, did that late last night. Got up several times through-out the night to check on my sick guy. This morning he is actually looking a little better but not much, it has only been 12 hours. He still appears to be laboring when breathing. Anything he eats, he spits out. I need to wait 24 before I change water and treat him again. I feel like I have failed my fish, they would have been better in the store with someone else buying them last year....

 

[Quantum673]

Olee - Make sure you have plenty of aeration in the QT Tank. A plastic kiddie pool can be used also and is very cheap.

 

[DoDad]

I don't think Quick Cure will do much good if your fish has flukes.
If it's flukes I would have mixed Praziquantel with the Quick Cure.