Pop-eye with Pine-Coning or Dropsy

SPop-Eye with Pine-Coning or Dropsy

The fish below was found to have costia. Costia is the smallest of all microscopic parasites that attack Koi. It can be very hard for even the most experienced Koi keeper to find!

It had started to pinecone. Careful inspection on your part will reveal scales on the left side standing out.

In the view to the left you can see the eyes are starting to bulge or pop-eye.

This picture shows the side view of what is really going on with the fish. You can see blood and all though the scales are raised it is harder to see in from this view of the fish. This fish did also have flukes and were treated 2 weeks ago. I am of the opinion that the area you are seeing now is from the flukes and not the costia.

Quite frequently fish will die from costia with no appearance of anything being wrong with the fish.

Costia can usually, but not always, be detected by spider webbing or veining. Naturally you can not see this on a dark colored fish. In this case I was able to readily see it on the white under belly of this fish.

Prognosis is not real good on this fish. Dropsy is very hard to cure even for the experienced. What is happening on the inside of the fish is that the kidneys have stopped functioning. Fluid is building up in the body. As this happens the pressure from the fluid causes the body to expand and the scales to stick out. The head does not enlarge because of the bone structure in the head. But in all cases the eyes pop or greatly enlarge.

I have started injections of Baytril. The tank is being treated with Potassium Permanganate today January 26 2003. If the fish survives, I will post pictures here in the near future.