Unusual Skin Condition / Lesions - Doitsu Ochiba

[Shropshire_Tom]

Good luck RS. Hope it perks up and gets on the mend


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[RS2OOO]

Just to update that there's no update on this Koi yet.

Got the swab from Paula a week or 2 ago which was shortly after I basted the Koi in Tamodine.

I've waited and waited but the lesions haven't opened back up yet, and really that would be the best place to swab from.

She is still isolating, and still being hand-fed separately, and now the skin peeling has spread to her mouth, but so far no signs of bleeding or sores opening up. I think its just a matter of time, but as soon as I see a good opportunity I'll swab her.

[RS2OOO]

Hi all,

Another update.

Finally got an opportunity to get a decent swab sample and send it to Paula.

The results came back as:
1) Aeromonas Sobria veronii 2 ) Aeromonas species

The preferred treatment is 2 doses of Amoxicillin by injection 5 days apart.

Paula said this case has spurred her to write an article which she'll publish on her site. It will be interesting to read that.

In the meantime the lab report is sitting with a local vet and hopefully they'll be able to prescribe the recommended course of treatment.

Ochiba is now very much down on weight, yet I have others who are beyond obese. It is going to be a real balancing act to slim down the fat ones while feeding up the Ochiba. I'm very fortunate now with the addition of an ASHP that I can at least control temps through winter.

[BrucePondsteen]

Hi all,

Another update.

Finally got an opportunity to get a decent swab sample and send it to Paula.

The results came back as:
1) Aeromonas Sobria veronii 2 ) Aeromonas species

The preferred treatment is 2 doses of Amoxicillin by injection 5 days apart.

Paula said this case has spurred her to write an article which she'll publish on her site. It will be interesting to read that.

In the meantime the lab report is sitting with a local vet and hopefully they'll be able to prescribe the recommended course of treatment.

Ochiba is now very much down on weight, yet I have others who are beyond obese. It is going to be a real balancing act to slim down the fat ones while feeding up the Ochiba. I'm very fortunate now with the addition of an ASHP that I can at least control temps through winter.

Good luck RS, well done for making the effort to care for your fish.

Paula is brilliant. My Gin rin chagoi picked up an internal infection back in March (secondary to costia) which turned into dropsy symptoms. I had it in a hospital tank salted to 0.6% and heated to 23c for 3 months and tried repeat doses of antibacterial meds in increasing doses which kept it alive but not healed. I sought help from Paula and sent a swab which she identified the particular strain of bacteria and reconnected 3 injections of gentamicin. I managed to get in prescribed from a local vet after sharing the report from LFH and injected the chagoi. It’s taken another couple of months but the fish is back in the pond and doing well now. Definitely not the easiest thing, but well worth the effort


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[RS2OOO]

Good luck RS, well done for making the effort to care for your fish.

Paula is brilliant. My Gin rin chagoi picked up an internal infection back in March (secondary to costia) which turned into dropsy symptoms. I had it in a hospital tank salted to 0.6% and heated to 23c for 3 months and tried repeat doses of antibacterial meds in increasing doses which kept it alive but not healed. I sought help from Paula and sent a swab which she identified the particular strain of bacteria and reconnected 3 injections of gentamicin. I managed to get in prescribed from a local vet after sharing the report from LFH and injected the chagoi. It’s taken another couple of months but the fish is back in the pond and doing well now. Definitely not the easiest thing, but well worth the effort


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Quite an amazing story there and a great result.

Did you inject into the back at the end of the dorsal fin?

The one thing I'm nervous about is knowing how deep to go with the needle. What size is your Chag and how far in did you inject?

[BrucePondsteen]

Quite an amazing story there and a great result.

Did you inject into the back at the end of the dorsal fin?

The one thing I'm nervous about is knowing how deep to go with the needle. What size is your Chag and how far in did you inject?

Thanks mate, tbh it really was touch or go a few times and think it despite all the treatments I was lucky to get the fish through.

Yes I’ve just checked, and they’re 25g needles (0.5 x 16mm) which the vet gave me with the gentamicin. I followed their advice and Paula’s, and injected at the base of the dorsal fin. Procedure I followed was to make sure the fish is completely sedated and wrapped in wet tea towels aside from target area (don’t want it flapping about with syringes out). You need to inject into muscle tissue, so I found a scale slightly either side of the dorsal base, lifted it up slightly to avoid blunting the needle, and then injected underneath the scale. I was told you want to inject roughly at a 45 degree angle to the fishes body, so it goes into the muscle. The needles I was given are 16mm long, and suspect there was 10mm at least into the fish. I rotated scales either side of dorsal base, as found the area bruised after 1-2 injections.

One thing to be aware of, the vet will likely ask for the weight of your fish to determine the antibiotic amount. I had to weigh my chagoi, which was 4kg something. So make sure you’ve got some scales to hand potentially.

Good luck! I should have videoed it at the time for others, but I wanted to pay full attention!


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[RS2OOO]

Thanks mate, tbh it really was touch or go a few times and think it despite all the treatments I was lucky to get the fish through.

Yes I’ve just checked, and they’re 25g needles (0.5 x 16mm) which the vet gave me with the gentamicin. I followed their advice and Paula’s, and injected at the base of the dorsal fin. Procedure I followed was to make sure the fish is completely sedated and wrapped in wet tea towels aside from target area (don’t want it flapping about with syringes out). You need to inject into muscle tissue, so I found a scale slightly either side of the dorsal base, lifted it up slightly to avoid blunting the needle, and then injected underneath the scale. I was told you want to inject roughly at a 45 degree angle to the fishes body, so it goes into the muscle. The needles I was given are 16mm long, and suspect there was 10mm at least into the fish. I rotated scales either side of dorsal base, as found the area bruised after 1-2 injections.

One thing to be aware of, the vet will likely ask for the weight of your fish to determine the antibiotic amount. I had to weigh my chagoi, which was 4kg something. So make sure you’ve got some scales to hand potentially.

Good luck! I should have videoed it at the time for others, but I wanted to pay full attention!


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Brilliant info, very helpful thanks so much for sharing.

How big was your Chag?

My Ochiba is skinny now, 48cm, and I've given the weight as 1.4kg. I think typically a 48cm Koi is about 1.6 - 1.8kg but she's definitely thinner than she should be so I estimated a bit lower.

My Kirin last year was 69cm and 5kg, but she had a huge body.

If you look at the 3rd picture in the very first post you can see she has one final huge doitsu scale right at the back of the dorsal fin, so I was thinking to go in from just behind that at the 45 degree angle you suggest. Would that fit with where you injected?

One thing the vet did mention was to initially draw on the sryinge very slightly to make sure you haven't entered a blood vessel, if blood comes up withdraw and try again.

[BrucePondsteen]

Brilliant info, very helpful thanks so much for sharing.

How big was your Chag?

My Ochiba is skinny now, 48cm, and I've given the weight as 1.4kg. I think typically a 48cm Koi is about 1.6 - 1.8kg but she's definitely thinner than she should be so I estimated a bit lower.

My Kirin last year was 69cm and 5kg, but she had a huge body.

If you look at the 3rd picture in the very first post you can see she has one final huge doitsu scale right at the back of the dorsal fin, so I was thinking to go in from just behind that at the 45 degree angle you suggest. Would that fit with where you injected?

One thing the vet did mention was to initially draw on the sryinge very slightly to make sure you haven't entered a blood vessel, if blood comes up withdraw and try again.

I can’t remember the exact length (must be close to 60cm) but weight was key for the vet, and think it was 4.1kg.

Yes I see the picture and single scale you mean. I’ve edited it and drew a couple spots to show where I injected my fish roughly.

If you can keep it heated and salted as well it should help with the recovery. Hopefully you can get some weight back on it before winter


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[BrucePondsteen]

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[samp09]

When I was injecting mine it was at the back of the dorsal, if you lift it up you see like a triangle of skin and you angle in there which should be the same on a doitsu fish as you are injecting under the dorsal rather than where scales are if that makes sense.

I found that by getting the bowl with the sedate in by the pond then having some kitchen roll, tamodine and the syringe loaded and ready, I would get the fish in the bowl and wait for it to pass out then lift and hold it against the side of the bowl with my left hand/arm and use my right had to dab the spot dry, then inject the fish slowly and I would leave the needle in once the full injection was done, massaging the area around it either side of the back before slowly removing the needle and covering the injection site with tamodine to avoid risk of infection.

I then held the fish in the water with the injection site still above the water for about a minute or two to make sure the tamodine had time to work within the wound and would then lower the whole fish in and wait for the strong kick away ensuring it was fully awake again. By doing it this way I found there was next to no bleeding in all the injections I did which was like 10 fish 5 times each. You will find that when you get the needle in the right angle it slides in very easily.

[RS2OOO]

When I was injecting mine it was at the back of the dorsal, if you lift it up you see like a triangle of skin and you angle in there which should be the same on a doitsu fish as you are injecting under the dorsal rather than where scales are if that makes sense.

I found that by getting the bowl with the sedate in by the pond then having some kitchen roll, tamodine and the syringe loaded and ready, I would get the fish in the bowl and wait for it to pass out then life and hold it against the side of the bowl with my left hand/arm and use my right had to dab the spot dry, then inject the fish slowly and I would leave the needle in once the full injection was done, massaging the area around it either side of the back before slowly removing the needle and covering the injection site with tamodine to avoid risk of infection.

I then held the fish in the water with the injection site still above the water for about a minute or two to make sure the tamodine had time to work within the wound and would then lower the whole fish in and wait for the strong kick away ensuring it was fully awake again. By doing it this way I found there was next to no bleeding in all the injections I did which was like 10 fish 5 times each. You will find that when you get the needle in the right angle it slides in very easily.

Thanks Sam.

I just read Paula's full report and regarding the injection it says:
"This should be given into the back muscle accessed in the scale free area immediately behind the dorsal fin" so I guess there must be a tiny bit where the trailing edge of the dorsal fin goes into the body that is scale free.

That must have cost a fortune? Just my 2 injections are coming out near £100.

Over the last few days I've seen strange things going on with a couple of other fish, one of which has developed a white coating over one of the gill plates and also on the tail. I'm praying that it isn't spreading from the Ochiba.

[samp09]

Think I paid £130 for the bottle of baytril. Yeah, it's literally where the dorsal joins the body so lift the dorsal and look and you'll see a sort of triangle of skin just above the body. Angle in about 45 degrees. If it was a month or so from now when I was measuring the fish I would have taken a pic for you.

Fingers crossed it isn't spreading but at least you'll have the remedy to hand.

[john1]

Great read from you guys and I take my hat off to you for doing these injections I wouldnt have a clue.

Good luck Steve and hope it works for you.

[RS2OOO]

First injection done this morning.

It went as well as it could have done but my hands were shaking too much so the wife had to do the needle work!

Body looks proper rough, she's in a bad state (the Ochiba I mean haha), I took photos and have tried to post one below through tapatalk as I'm at work.

It could be touch and go whether she makes it through the next 24 hours, looks really dazed and out of it in the pond, but her instincts did bring her up to hand feed a single mussel so that was positive.

Wife keeping an eye on her as I won't see her till tomorrow now.

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[KiOgon]

Good luck, you're doing the best for her, hope the improvement is fast, fingers crossed ��

[Maddog1]

Wishing Her all The Best!

[samp09]

Hope she turns it around mate defo looks rough now but you've done amazing to keep her going this long. Fingers crossed the injections work quickly!

[RS2OOO]

I feel bad about how rough she looks, if it was anyone else's koi I'd think it's suffered serious neglect.

But that isn't really the case. Took a while to be absolutely sure parasites were not the cause and by the time I decided to go down the swab route she had healed up from the previous tamodine treatment so there was no open flesh to take the swab from.

Then another 2 weeks between sending the swab back to LFH and convincing my vet to dispense the antibiotics, and then they were out stock of the required antibiotic. In the end to save wasting more time I went for the second best antibiotic based on Paula's report and they had that in stock.

In all fairness both LFH and my local vets have been brilliant. Initially the vets said they'd require a consultation covering and registering every individual fish in the pond, then me to take the sick fish in person to the surgery, and then once the required medication is confirmed to take it back again for the injections. Not only would all this have cost hours of everyone's time and immense stress for the fish, it would have started getting close to 4 figures just to treat one koi!
Fortunately the exotics vet was happy to deal with me directly hence the eventual outcome.

My wife managed to hand feed 6 mussels to her throughout the course of today so that was positive.

If she gets through tonight I think that will be very positive, then just a case of fingers crossed that the injections work. Next injection due on Thursday.

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[john1]

You've done your best for her now Steve so here is hoping she pulls through for you.

[samp09]

Any update Steve?