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14-07-2012, 10:30 AM #1
How to sedate and treat an ulcer or infected wound
Hello guys
As some of you will know, I’ve been having problems with a large Sanke that had Costia but came out with some nasty bacterial infections. Despite trying to treat topically without sedating, the infections just got worse until the scales raised and went red. My good friend GazFish came round and showed me how easy it is to sedate and treat.
If I had sedated and treated properly in the early stages, the infection wouldn’t have taken hold and got anywhere near so bad.
When there is a raised scale or beginnings of an ulcer, sedating and treating properly will allow you to clean right under the scales, or remove the damaged scale if necessary; this is surprisingly simple and if done right will allow a new scale to grow back.
Gazfish did a great post on the steps here:
http://www.extremekoi.co.uk/koi-heal...785-ulcer.html
When we treated my Sanke, we took some pictures to show exactly what we did: so here is a simple set of steps; this may well be common knowledge to many, but hopefully will help a few newer guys like me.
First off, had to get all the treatments to hand; there are some ‘Koi first aid’ packs which have the basics but you can also get the items individually. Either way, we used:
-A large bowl to sedate the fish
-A solid table with space to set everything out in advance and to treat.
-A large old towel or old baby-changing foam pad to rest the koi on whilst you treat.
-A large very damp towel to wrap the koi’s head and tail in whilst you treat.
-Loads of cotton buds to clean;
-Kitchen roll;
-Good solid tweezers and some medical scissors (few pounds off eBay).
-A large carrier bag, opened, for all the rubbish to go in
-Latex gloves (as the treatments will stain everything, and also to protect any small cuts etc in your hands getting infected); again, few pounds off eBay for a box of 100.
Treatment-wise, we had:
- Sedating liquid; I used Kusuri Masuizai Sedate. £10 from most outlets; you only use a small amount.
- Antibacterial cleaner; I used Roccal, again, readily available from most outlets
- Antibacterial treatment; Aquatec or Mercurochrome (latter getting hard to obtain, but the KoiQuest chemical factory can supply).
- Antibacterial Sealer: G7 spray or ‘Lock n Seal’. Both readily available.
- Some may also use Hydrogen Peroxide in first stage to initially clean badly rotted skin away; ‘less is more’ with that; easy to damage good skin; we didn’t use it in this case.
So, once you have all that (and as some of this is bought online, you may want to get it all in advance ‘just in case’).
Then you can start the treatment; will post in sections with pictures:
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14-07-2012, 10:31 AM #2
Sedating:
We filled the bowl to just above the fish’s height (around 4 inches) using water from the same pond to ensure same temp. Added the sedative and stirred.
Fish was placed in the bowl with a Koi sock; after a minute or so he went quite drowsy; used this time to closely inspect him all over, identifying the patches that would need treating.
After he rolls onto his side, we leave him for a good 30 seconds more.
The test is to lift him up with 2 hands towards the centre of his body; if he jerks to straighten up, he needs another minute sedating. If he stays floppy, off you go:
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14-07-2012, 10:34 AM #3
Holding his head towards you and his tail end away, carefully lift him keeping him close to your body and move him onto the wet towel on the baby-pad. Make sure the lower fin is folded down when you lay him down. Cover his head and tail with the wet towel to keep him dark and prevent flipping.
The next stage can take 5 minutes to over an hour. He’ll be fine. If he starts flipping repeatedly at any time, return him to the sedation bowl for 30 seconds. (He will jerk slightly, occasionally, when you treat the wounds; I have no doubt fish can feel pain…)
Clean the area with the antibacterial cleaner (eg Roccal). Remove any damaged scales; they will feel like sandpaper as opposed to smooth. Easy to feel if you run your finger or the tweezers over them.
Grip the end of the scale with tweezers and gently pull out (towards tail) and up (towards the dorsal fin) in a gentle smooth action. Don’t damage the scale pocket underneath, where the scale grows out of.
Clean right into the Scale pockets with cotton buds to remove all gunk. Blot dry with kitchen roll. Removing scales may cause slight bleeding; washing the wounds may also cause slight bleeding. A final clean with Roccal and a blot will suddenly make things look a lot better.
Leaving infected scales will probably cause more problems; we chose to remove them all.....
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14-07-2012, 10:37 AM #4
Then treat the areas with the antibacterial treatment (eg Aquatec or Mercurochrome).
Again, use the cotton buds to push the treatment right into the scale pockets. Either product will stain everything so watch out; mercurochrome is bright red....
Blow gently for a minute or two to dry.
Then paint on the ‘sealer’. This will stop the treatment washing away as soon as the fish returns to water. Use liberally and again, let dry a few minutes.
You can see the sealer (green-yellow) in last picture.
If the wound was open, then a powder sealer like Orahesive would be sprinkled on at this point; we didn’t as there were no open wounds.
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14-07-2012, 10:41 AM #5
Finally, in our case after an hour's treatment, return the fish to the pond or even better, a quarantine tank. A floating inspection net will let you rock him back and forth gently a couple of times; either way, he should come round within a few minutes!
We then used a 3 day course of Chloramine T to reduce the bacteria in the quarantine tank; in my case, I also added around 6kg of salt to the quarantine tank; a 0.5% - 0.9% salt solution will help prevent re-infection. ( 1Kg of salt to 1000 litres = 0.1%)
I keep a few goldfish in the qurantine tank, to keep the filter going but crucially, to keep the koi company. Koi will stress on their own, and having a few small fish is pretty vital to keep them company.
Also, you'll see I'm using some trellis and pond liner to cover most of the tank; he's stressed and could easily flip and jump out; not what you want. I've since bought 2 sheets of polycarbonate from B&Q for £23 to cover most of the tank, as we also heated to 25'c. The water really needs to be above 20'c to encourage healing.
That’s it. Looks and sounds worse than it is. If this is done early enough, larger problems can be prevented.
Many thanks again to GazFish for his expert tuition here; I’m sure Al or Gaz will point out anything I’ve left out. Hope this helps anyone who needs to treat but hasn't got anyone around to help them...
Cheers,
Ian
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14-07-2012, 11:16 AM #6
Excellent post there. Makes it look so much easier with all the right gear.
I think this is essential learning, should be made a stickyBlog, Koi, Everything.
http://kanundra.com/
http://mybook.to/TSK
http://author.to/DC
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14-07-2012, 02:28 PM #7
hi
i agree with dawn this is an excellent post and have never done this before but after reading this i feel that i should be capable of carrying this out and think it should be made a sticky for everyone to refer to if they need to go through this procedure. its posts like this that make koi keeping alot easier for everyone cause if they get into a bit of trouble they can refer to things like this and carry out the procedure hence having a better chance of getting there koi to survive.
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14-07-2012, 03:05 PM #8
Great thread!! could have done with it sooner< I've just done exactly the same with a little 7" Sanke that had a sore on its side. I used clove oil in a small container to sedate. I was very surprised how easy it was and would do it again without hesitation, although it does make the nether regions twitch a bit when the fish rolls over!!
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14-07-2012, 04:58 PM #9
Hi Ian,
Well done mate and it was all you i just stood around passing stuff and you did a good job and with a nasty wound like this its always a struggle as mother nature is a tough old bird and can kick us in the teeth sometimes.
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14-07-2012, 07:42 PM #10
Hi Ian
You get the badge for being a caring, committed Koikeeper, great thread and thanks for sharing.
Sometimes you have to dig deep and put in some work, so easy to sit back, do nothing and then blame everything else but yourself.
Stick with with it, things will get easier.
Thanks Gaz
Dave
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14-07-2012, 09:21 PM #11
Any chance we could sticky these how to's or have a sub folder for them?
This is excellent stuff and ideal for all levels of koi keeping.
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14-07-2012, 09:33 PM #12
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14-07-2012, 11:23 PM #13
Thanks guys; hope you find this useful sometime....
Hoping things will settle down a bit in the pond now; and thanks again for all the help and advice from people on here and from Gaz.
Cheers again
Ian
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31-08-2012, 11:00 PM #14
ulcer on Koi
Thanks so much for info on treating my fish. Will follow your instructions. Hope for the best.
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18-04-2014, 05:03 PM #15
So once sedated you can keep the fish out of water for up to an hour or have I missed something?
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18-04-2014, 05:04 PM #16
So once sedated you can keep the fish out of water for up to an hour?
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19-04-2014, 11:58 AM #172016 new 6000 gallon pond
https://www.koiforum.uk/pond-construc...ghlight=feline
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13-07-2016, 11:20 AM #18
Hello guys! I have koi for the first time...10 of them that have been doing good but for one. It has a bloated middle/stomach getting bigger by the day for the last 3 months. Need help on identifying what is wrong and treating it .
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14-04-2017, 02:25 PM #19
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23-06-2017, 02:19 PM #20
hi Mate, im pretty new to the koi world, i have just extended my pond from 2.4m to just over 6m pics attached reason being to accomadate some koi i have taken in from my cousin, one of them has had a red mark appear and the scales looked raised, which is best way to identify what the issue is? any help would be much appreciated.
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