Please help identify what is wrong with this fish

[capewind]

New here, so for those who missed my introduction, we got several fish last week that have been in quarantine. Just spotted this a few minutes ago. Before netting the fish, it was more pink in color, round, and raised about 1/8"... Can anyone here tell me WHAT this is? If it is anything nasty or contagious, planning to call the seller for a refund:-( Both images are from the same picture, just cropped one smaller to zoom in on it...

Thanks in advance!
Geri

 

[Mmathis]

Poor baby! How is the fish?

 

[fishin4cars]

It appears to be a small ulceration starting, possibly from a injury during shipping. Looks like it may have have lost a scale so it may not be the sellers fault. Good news is it doesn't appear to be that bad at this point.
Here are some suggestions: Reduce fish load. Give this guy as much room as possible with good quality water and plenty for oxygen.
Make sure the water Temp is at least 65 - 70 degrees. This is very important if your going to try any treatment with antibiotics.
Ammonia needs to read 0 nitrites need to read 0. This is very important. This fish will not improve until that is the case. Green water is actually good for the fish, I don't know why but it is true and documented. If you can get algae growing af any type and still keep water quality as good as possible, this is the ultimate water condition for treating. Salt needs to be added to a level of .3% this needs to be checked and kept at that level so a salt meter is pretty important. No guessing here! Antibiotic food is a good way to start getting antibiotics into the fish for early treatment. If it continues to grow then injections with baytril may be needed.
This is direct from Koi Health and disease by Dr. Erik Johnson. You must raise temps, provide excellent water quality, eliminate all parasites, decrease crowding, and improve nutritional support in order to save the fish. After all that it is arguably unnecessary to provide antibiotic support.
There are over five pages of diagnoses and things to learn about this condition Just in this one book I'm quoting from. I've tried to give a brief rundown on what to do. each step is just as important as the next. Taking it back to the seller will probably mean the fish will die. It's already way stressed, moving it back will probably kill it. But contact them and let them know. They can then inspect there other fish to see if others or conditions there may have caused this. If that is the case the seller needs to know. If not take the effort to try and treat. it may or may not be successful. But the learning of how to avoid and how to treat are needed knowledge in Koi Husbandry. The education you can learn with this fish is still priceless and books and Internet are only going to provide so much assistance. Contacting a Koi club or Vet. that can help is also a good thing to try, as the more experience that can be found the better than chances of saving.

 

[capewind]

Here's the quick history... the "original owner" had their power shut off for nonpayment. Pond was way overcrowded and they were doing nothing to cure the situation which was going down hill fast. Another party got permission to place some of the fish. The first round of placements included 30-40 fish ... About ten being in the 18-24" range, with the balance evenly mixed 12-16"... The "rescuer" did not have room for them at their place either, their own small pond was over crowded, so used a kid's inflatable pool as a temp shelter for these first fish. I am guessing the inside dimensions to be 42" x 60"? may have been a bit larger, but if so, not by much, and was barely a foot deep with water. At best, appropriate for short term for 1-2 fish as a hospital tank. Other than some minor ammonia burns and a few (not many at all) missing scales, they really looked great considering. A little spooky, but not bad at all.

The new fish are in a quarantine pond inside, and it IS more crowded then it should be, and I can not change that but they are able to swim freely. It is only 750 gallons of water (5' x 10' x 2'), but has four filters, with a combined total of 3,000+ gallons per hour of filtration. One of the filters is an old wet/dry system from a 180 gallon marine aquarium (I do not know the gph on this pump), 2 are pressurized canister filters (1400 & 1100 gph), and the other, I dont know what to call it (home made out of a tote with a 500 gph pump, that has a spray bar and lots of filter media) and UV (appropriate for 1000-1200 gallons).

Ammonia and Nitrites are at 0. I do not have a salt meter (can only find marine specific gravity meters), but the salt "should be" close to .3% as I do add salt with each water change by weight. Water temp is a consistent 68.

Doing a 25% water change every 2-3 days as I was worried about an ammonia spike with the new load. (New water is from the outside pond.) The ammonia has come up a couple of times... Our ammonia test has the little card with the colors on it that you compare the water to. The test color change is minute. It doesn't match 0 perfectly, but is NOT as dark as the 0.25 reading. After a 25% water change, the ammonia reads 0 again. The Nitrite readings have stayed at 0.

They also spawned a week ago (so also know this guy is male). Immediately after spawning, did a 50% water change. This "bump" is not likely related to the spawning (I dont think anyways), as my husband said he saw a red "spot" the first night, and had just blown it off as a missing scale from being moved from the original home, to the rescue pool.

Behaviorally, the fish is acting as a fish should. It is swimming "casually" (not spooking), sees people next to the pond and comes right over, with or without food in hand, and is eating well.

On one of the other fish, we noticed last night that there is a tiny bit of gill plate damage, but understand that could also happen with an ammonia burn. Doing some research, came up with the possibility of gill flukes (dont have a microscope either, but it could still just be from the previous ammonia), and then looking at ulcer disease as a secondary? and then also found images of carp pox. MOST of the pics of carp pox I could find do not look like this, but then a few did...

The whole point of quarantining is so that we dont add any nasties into our pond. IF whatever going on is treatable and not contagious, I am up to treating (once we know what to treat for), but even if only "ugly" and not fatal, I do not want to add carp pox to the pond, so trying to figure out what is going on, and what to do about it.

 

[fishin4cars]

It sounds to me like your on the right track, every thing you just posted is exactly what my refrence book is pointing toward what caused the problem, and everything your doing is heading in the direction of curing. I'll give you some reassurance, I seriously don't think from the pic you posted that that is Carp pox. I've run into two fish that had carp pox and it didn't look anything like that. Carp pox looks more milky, it doesn't really feel slimy it has more of a silicone when it's dried on your skin feel and look. Not slimy, not mushy, and has a firm feeling. That appears to be more of a early stage of a ulcer. Super good water conditions, heat, salt, and antibiotics are the best way to approach treating. Now for the gill flukes that's back in the dirction of Ulcer. In my refrence book it does mention on more than one occassion that the fish needs to be free of parasites before treating with injectable antibiotics. Many time parasites are present as they cause the fish to weaken and the body sores or Ulcers start up as a secondary infection from the poor water quality and parasite infections. With the above information we can comfortably assume that they were kept in some poor water quality at the original keepers home for sure. If gill flukes or any other parasites are on the new koi they need to be treated for them as soon as possible. I would be far more concerned about them than the carp pox. They can spread just from water to water, net or other direct contact. carp pox is far harder to spread and in many cases may not effect other fish in the herd at all, IF they are healthy and the water is in pristine condition. (Carp pox is a viral infection, Very similar to Cold sores on humans, yea Herpes doesn't sound good at all, but a cold sore is common and rarely contangious.)
On the salt meter, These are very inexpensive and not a bad idea to have. I would recommend getting a Koi Medic salt meter but they do run in the area of $50-$75. This one is less than $25 shipped direct to the door, arrives in 3-5 days and works great if rinsed with fresh water after each use. I have bought two and both worked great for the testing I needed. (Similar situation as you, just needed to monitor salt level during a treatment) http://www.ebay.com/itm/TDS4TM-3000...611?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35ac644ae3

 

[capewind]

I am the type that will panic over bad water quality (lots of mistakes in the past), so we try to stay on top of it, especially so with the quarantine pond being in the basement. Minimal natural light (have grow lights) and just not an ideal situation for the load we have put on it. In many regards, we have been super lucky with our errors, but through the school of hard knocks, really learned HOW important good water quality is, and HOW FAST it can go bad. OTHER than previous ammonia spikes, have been really lucky with not having/getting sick fish. One round with popeye, and I forgot what the other thing is called.. one goldfish turned into a pinecone...

From what we were told, even before the original owners power was shut off, the pond was way over stocked. It was estimated the pond was 20 x 30, but maybe a foot deep. I ran 20 x 30 x 2 through a calculator (cant imagine someone building such a big footprint so shallow), and only came up with 9,000 gallons. The first 30-40 fish were supposedly less than half of the fish, and in my opinion, even 9,000 gallons is NOT enough water for the ones removed, let alone more than double that, with many larger than the ones first taken. The power had been shut off on a Monday, and when these fish were taken on Thursday, the water was already going to pea soup and the fish were gasping at the fresh water the rescuer was adding. We got the fish the following day, Friday... While the rescuer didnt have them in much water, she did have a 1200 gph pump on them, was adding lots of fresh water (with ammonia lock and I dont know what else)... then a couple days after we took them, surprise surprise, they spawned, so more stress... then a 50% water change was likely to stress them too (basement smelled like a bad fish market) but was so paranoid of a serious ammonia spike...

I do feel much better to know another person doesnt think carp pox. The "bump" is kind of squishy, and not all that hard. My husband was pretty sure it wasnt, but after looking at so many pictures, I was still on the fence to keep it in the running. I research some things to death, and hate when I cant find definitive answers LOL.

Will definitely check out the ebay link! Just going to assume parasites, with secondary ulcers, so now to find the right treatment...