Hi Guys,

I was cleaning my pond this weekend and I transferred my Koi from the pond into a big inflatable pool over night while I let the new water cycle in the pond. One of my Koi jumped out of the pool at some point in the night or early morning, it spent a few hours in my opinion on wet grass I found her at about 8am before the sun had reached the patch she was lying on, I thought she was dead but as I was picking her up her tail moved slightly and I saw her gills open, I immidiatly put her in a net under the temporary waterfall in the inflatable pool I left her there for a good few hours, she was swimming around the pond yesterday afternoon and after a bit of swimming she swims down and lies on the bottom of the pond or on the plant shelf, I'm really hoping she makes it through the day, her swimming bladders seem to be fine because she swims normally still, I've heard of people injecting Koi with Dexamethasone but I am no vet and I wouldn't know where to begin with that.

Could anyone advise me on how to treat her? Also has anyone had a similar experience?

Hi there BT33 ,

Welcome to the Forum .

Sorry about ur koi , just happy that she is ok now and swimming around in ur koi pond.
I will leave the koi , it seems that that the koi is ok. I t just what i will do for now.

How do you clean ur koi pond and how offen do you do it?
Do you have a filter system?

Hi Quinten, thanks for the welcome! when I got back from work my Koi was on the bottom of the pond on her side, I did some research at work today and got hold of some Dexamethasone which are s apparently the best thing for this kind of incident and an injection needle, I injected her with 1mg of it as per her weight using the IM method and put her in a net under the waterfall again, so I'm holding thumbs.

I have a 5000l liner pond with 2 x 5800l/h submersible pumps which feed into a 110l bio filter, so I have no bottom drain, this is my 1st pond and it was all DIY it needs some tweaking I'm going to have to put in a settling tank cos the bio filter has clogged up in the year that I've had it, it's the 1st time I've drained it completely though.

Hi there BT33 ,

Any update on ur koi?

When I left for work it was still alive and in the net under the waterfall, taking the IM approach takes longer than the IV injection approach so if there's no change in condition this evening I'll give her another mg of Dexamethasone in a different muscle group and see what it does. Still holding thumbs though.

Bevan.

No change in my Koi's condition, in fact it seems to have worsened, I'm starting to think I might have injected a bit shallow so I'm going to give it the prescribed 48 hours and try again in the dorsal muscle a bit deeper this time.

I personally found that by giving all kinds of medicine or injections in these cases, purely add to the stress of the fish, and it dies.

To be out of the water for a couple of hours is obviously very stressful for the fish. Why add more stress by injecting anti inflammatory medicine? The immune system of the fish is already low due to the accident, and needle holes will give bacteria a way to enter the fish, and the fish will not be able to fight it off due to a low immunity caused by stress.

I have revived many Koi from incidences like this, by purely giving a lot of oxygen, perfect water, salt to create a mucus coat to shield against parasites and bacteria while the immunity is low and it acts as an antiseptic, and I normally add a bit of Acriflavine in the water. The Acriflavine is an immune booster and prevents bacterial infection in situations like this.

Thanks for the advice Paul,

You have no idea how difficult it is to get solid advice on dealing with a situation like this.

I'll give that a bash, like I said this is the first time this has happened and all the information I could gather said Dexamethasone was the solution, I'll try your method and see what happens, how long does it usually take for them to come right? Because it's been like this since Sunday with no change.

I've also read that increasing the water temp can help the fish recover, would you recommend attempting this or should I treat the Koi in its current environment to prevent further stress?

Bevan.

Dear Bevan

The metabolism of Koi is much higher in warmer water, so it is always good to increase water temperature when you treat any health problem.

The only problem is that the hospital facility should be at least 1000 liter and to keep it warm can be expensive.

If you go this route, it is important to keep more or less the same temperature, as fluctuations also add to stress.

I hold thumbs for a speedy recovery.