Help - Koi with skin tear on his forehead

[rockman]

I was sad to see my favorite Koi somehow has a tear on the skin on his forehead (my poor prize Kokahu ). The tear seems just the skin, underneath looks pure white, in other words I tihnk only a superficial wound, but it is in a critical place on a valuable fish (at least sentimental value to me!)

I found that he has a strip of skin that has torn, about 1/4" wide and about 3/4" long, the skin flap is still attached. Of course, the rip has occured right in the middle of his forehead, so there is a white strip among the beautiful read marking. I am disturbed since this is my best Koi, just won Novice Champion at the WKWGS show.

Otherwise he is behaving quite normally, running up for food like nothing was wrong. This must have happened during the day since he looked fine when I saw him early this morning. I do think it was due to an aminal attack since the koi do not seem skittish at all. I am supposing the damage occured due to swimming into a rock edge or other sharp surface in my pond (which I tried to avoid).

Any thought on what I can/should do? Will this heal itself? Is there any way to try and use some kind of suture/glue to help healing? If it helps I will take a picture of the wound and post it tonight.

[saratogatan]

rock,
At this point, I will say just watch the koi, practically watch where the wound is, the first thing is to prevent the wound from balloning. Get some H2O2 and ultra strength tripple anti-biotic ointment handy. If you see any redness around the wound, you will want to apply H2O2 to clean it up, and apply the oitment to it, do that once only and watch it like a heron.

As for the wound, I believe it got into beni, as you said "read marking", I guess you meant "red marking". I don't know if the beni will grow back, it all depends on the depth of the wound. I have seen some recovered, and some never grow back. Maybe the experts like JR can enlighten us on this.

stan

[rockman]

Yes, the strip of beni (sorry about the typo!) is flapping around. I did call an expert about this, and was told that probably doing nothing is the best, and keep monitoring the fish closely. The tear does not seem deep at all, but it is through the beni. I was told it might be useful to try and find some sort of bioadhesive and try to catch and apply it to the fish, but who knows maybe I might damage the fish even more in trying to catch it.

[johnsmith]

hi, if the tear if fresh and the cells still alive you can paste the flap down with an 'unerwater bandage of orabase and mild antibiotic/steriod. But if this has been doing on for a day or so, the flap is now dead and will slough off after decaying. This will leave a window in the beni and makes the fish of little value as a show fish. The heartbreak of show koi! JR

[dick benbow]

Keep in mind that as our pond temperatures dip with the season, the metabolism of our koi slows down and so does the healing process.

If for any reason you decide to put your koi under to attend to the wound I have some bee propollis that will help speed healing that your welcome to come down to auburn to pick up and use. If the koi were mine it would be put under and I'd cut off the trailing skin and put it in the QT tank and raise the temp after treating with bee propollis to allow it to heal. Young koi are remarkable resilant and many times will heal so as not to be able to tell the following year.

As A follow up you'll want to scrape that koi to make sure it wasn't just a
preditor scaring the koi that caused the wound and then you'll need to try and actively determine where it happened so you can remove the problem so things don't repeat themselves. Good luck...don't let this "get to you"...owning koi is full of challenges but it's learning from each one and moving on after learning to deal with them that will make the measure of your experience as a koi keeper!

[rockman]

I appreciate the comments...this just happened today, so maybe I can still look into trying some Orabase or equivalent, problem is I fear to cause damange by catching him and trying to wrassle him to get treated.

Here are some pics.

[bekko]

I have a kohaku who jumped and banged her head on the boardwalk over the pond. I felt the thud from 50 feet away. She had a loose flap of skin about 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch. I didn't do anything except keep an eye on her. The flap disentegrated and fell off leaving a white spot in the middle of the hi plate. The beni returned after about a year. I handle this fish every now and again because she is a reliable and prolific spawner. Sometimes I think there is still a scar, but it could be my imagination. It's certainly not something you would notice if you didn't look for it.

-steveh opk

[rockman]

Bekko,

Thanks for the story, gives me some encouragement that this can indeed heal.

I think I will indeed do basically nothing but keep close observation of the fish, that seems to be the most popular advice.

[Flounder]

Rockman, i would not worry about it. Do what the others say and just watch it for now. I had a kohaku w/ a similar scrape of the head, pretty much like you but a little smaller.

Here's a pic of it when it got hurt. Now I'm at month 4 after this happened and the beni is filling back in.

[rockman]

Flounder (great name by the way!),

That is most encouraging to see your pic. I will monitor and maybe the hi will grow back and I can take a picture to show the progress.

I had clue today...not once, not twice, but three times today I chased a heron away from my pond. I have the scarecrows armed and ready, but I pretty worried that the heron did this (and wanted to do much worse!), and I am now thinking about putting a new over my pond, at least for a while to discourage it if it keeps trying to come back in the near future.