Jeff
10-05-2013, 05:34 PM
I just saw the weirdest thing. One of my two remaining "healthy" koi did something very unhealthy. He died. I was out tending to my system, and I noticed him floating belly up, being carried by the current of the water (he's tiny........only about 6" in size). So I scooped him into my hands to look him over. His side fins were completely stuck straight out, horizontally. His mouth was CLOSED. I took him out of the water to see if I noticed anything out of the ordinary. Now, I'm no fish doctor, but nothing screamed out to me as showing signs of illness. I do see little black spots, but this is a black and white spotted koi, so I can't tell if it's anything to be concerned with.
Now for the weird part.
As I'm holding him, I gently squeeze his abdomen, which opened his mouth. When I let go, the mouth closes. Simply pressure, I tell myself. So I do this a few more times, and I notice him twitch. Leaving my hand in the water, I continue this "Fish CPR" for a couple minutes, and he begins breathing on his own. I hold him in my hand a while longer, and gently release him.....and he swims away like normal.
Now, I admit that I am not satisfied with this. SOMETHING caused him to go catatonic. Water chemistry seems acceptable:
Ammonia - 0.25 or possibly 0.50, which is a little high, but the temperature is only in the mid-70's
Nitrites/Nitrates - 0.00
pH - Looks to be the high 7's to low 8's
Now, I admit that I don't know how long he was floating like that......my guess is that it couldn't have been too long or else he wouldn't have revived. THE ONLY THING I DID was I added 5 gallons of new water to the system (treated with the recommended dosage of Stress Coat + to remove clorine/chloramine). Keep in mind that the tank itself has about 80 gallons of water in there, and I added this mere five gallons of water through a slow siphon (not just dumped in there).
So I don't know if THAT did anything, but it seems doubtful that such a small amount of water (compared to the existing water in the system) would have shocked that fish.
Any ideas? My questions are as follows:
- Aside from any disease explanation, do you know of anything that would cause a fish to go into this catatonic shock? Again, I thought he was dead (and may very well have been) until I squeezed him back to life).
- Had I not stepped in, do you think the fish would have naturally recovered? I have never seen a fish do this before. I almost dipped him in an immediate SALT DIP (3% solution) but when he swam off relatively normal, I didn't want to risk shocking him back to death.
Whatever "this" is, I think it may have been what killed most of my other fish, since all of them didn't appear to have any sickness or disease before dropping dead.
Now for the weird part.
As I'm holding him, I gently squeeze his abdomen, which opened his mouth. When I let go, the mouth closes. Simply pressure, I tell myself. So I do this a few more times, and I notice him twitch. Leaving my hand in the water, I continue this "Fish CPR" for a couple minutes, and he begins breathing on his own. I hold him in my hand a while longer, and gently release him.....and he swims away like normal.
Now, I admit that I am not satisfied with this. SOMETHING caused him to go catatonic. Water chemistry seems acceptable:
Ammonia - 0.25 or possibly 0.50, which is a little high, but the temperature is only in the mid-70's
Nitrites/Nitrates - 0.00
pH - Looks to be the high 7's to low 8's
Now, I admit that I don't know how long he was floating like that......my guess is that it couldn't have been too long or else he wouldn't have revived. THE ONLY THING I DID was I added 5 gallons of new water to the system (treated with the recommended dosage of Stress Coat + to remove clorine/chloramine). Keep in mind that the tank itself has about 80 gallons of water in there, and I added this mere five gallons of water through a slow siphon (not just dumped in there).
So I don't know if THAT did anything, but it seems doubtful that such a small amount of water (compared to the existing water in the system) would have shocked that fish.
Any ideas? My questions are as follows:
- Aside from any disease explanation, do you know of anything that would cause a fish to go into this catatonic shock? Again, I thought he was dead (and may very well have been) until I squeezed him back to life).
- Had I not stepped in, do you think the fish would have naturally recovered? I have never seen a fish do this before. I almost dipped him in an immediate SALT DIP (3% solution) but when he swam off relatively normal, I didn't want to risk shocking him back to death.
Whatever "this" is, I think it may have been what killed most of my other fish, since all of them didn't appear to have any sickness or disease before dropping dead.