My poor koi was out of the water for an unknown period of time. Long story short – I had 2 very large koi, one I was hoping would recover from a swim bladder issue (this is how I found this forum researching the isue) and the other was very healthy and was missing swimming with his buddy. The weather was cool here in NY so I bypassed the waterfall and stream that cycled back into the pond with a pool hose to keep circulation moving, keep the water warmer at night, in hopes that the antibiotic I gave the sick fish would take hold and his swim bladder would heal. I left this setup for about 2 weeks and we came home on a Sunday from being away for the weekend and noticed that the pond was empty. Something must have slightly come loose on the hose, or it got shifted, honestly it is a mystery, and the water was slowly being pumped out of the pond over the weekend (or it could have happened a few hours before we got home). All we know is that when we came home the pond only had about 2” of water in it and I thought that I lost my fish – 80% of the fish was out of the water – only his belly was in the water. In tears, panic, etc.. we went to pull out the fish (thinking they were both dead) – we took the net and the silver koi moved!!!! He was ALIVE!! I quickly moved him to water and filled up the pond again. The Koi with the swim bladder issue didn’t make it (I was going to have to put him down soon any way as he was developing dry scale patches and swelling from being on his side for over 2 weeks).
I filled the pond and put salt in it to help with the stress and slime coat. PH has been around 8.5
A few days later I noticed that the surviving koi's scales started to become kind of prickly and about a week later it had developed a white film, or fungus of some sort all over his body including the eyes (see picture). He was resting on a shelf in the pond – vs near the bottom, and seemed like his sight was limited.
I bought Malachite Green and gave him a 10 minute bath in a 1.5mg concentrate once a day for 3 days. As a result , I did notice that his eyes didn’t have that haze on them and they were clearing up nicely about 5+ days later.
Now it is about 2 weeks after the treatment and his head, tail, belly etc look very nice (his black eyes and head look great). He still has a sort of fungus (looks like dying scales that have a white film / fungus are growing alge on them). They are starting to sloth off and are revealing what looks like new scales (kind or pinkish) below. Some of the new / pink scales seem to have some alge growing on them.
I bought some Malachite Blue as well, but have not used it (should I give him a dip in that - will that help the new pinkish scales- or try the Green again?). I wanted to post this here to see what you think, also to show other Koi owners what could happen if the koi are out of the water for a long period of time (could be sunburn, just dry scale, etc.)