Cloudy eye

[davesurfer]

Hi! I've had one koi with a cloudy eye on one side for quite a few weeks already...it also seems to be a bit protruding too. I thought I'd wait and see if he gets better but it's staying the same. He's very active, eating ferociously, schooling with the others. I do have a 110 gm packet of TRICIDE-Neo and was wondering if I should use that and dip him for a bit? Add salt? Thanks!

[RichToyBox]

Does the fish have any cloudiness of any of the other skin, indicating some irritation by parasites? If so, then I would be treating with something like Proform C. I don't particularly like the dip of Tricide Neo, but instead like to mix enough for a quart spray bottle and spray it on the fish. Tricide Neo as a dip causes the fish to shed a lot of slime coat, fouling the water, making multiple dips with it questionable, and once mixed it needs to be kept refrigerated, which makes temperature matching the next day difficult, whereas the spray doesn't have enough mass to need temperature matching, and has not been contaminated by the fish. It is the only treatment that I would use on an eye, so it couldn't hurt. Don't know if it will help or not.

Has the fish run into something in the pond to damage the eye? We always like to see test results as numbers for the tests of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, and KH, as they tell us a lot about the pond, and it is good water that keeps healthy fish, and there may be something we could use to assist in improving water quality.

[davesurfer]

Thanks for responding so quickly! I don't think it's bumped into anything as there's only 4 smooth walls in the pond and no rocks, however there is a pump and some hose down there too, and I have the pond partially covered by a thick sheet of insulation. There's no other cloudiness on the rest of the koi, the scales look nice. I'm not the expert when it comes to koi coloring, but he looks like a platinum ogon as he's all perfectly white.

The pH is around 8 and stays that way all the time, ammonia, nitrite and nitrates are below measurable amounts and I use SAFE when doing weekly water changes. KA is 110.

[RichToyBox]

I would just do a watch and see, as the eye is an area that is very difficult to do treatments without doing permanent harm.

[davesurfer]

I would just do a watch and see, as the eye is an area that is very difficult to do treatments without doing permanent harm.

Thanks Richard. I'll wait it out. I guess as long as he's perky and there's no sign of other stuff happening to the rest of his body...

[davesurfer]

I would just do a watch and see, as the eye is an area that is very difficult to do treatments without doing permanent harm.

Thought I'd bump this post. My koi still has a bit of cloudiness in his one eye, I haven't treated the fish as suggested, it's been well over a year. It looks a bit better. But what should I do now? Still super active and jumping out of the water like the rest of them when feeding time comes.

[Marilyn]

Given that it's been over a year, I'm not sure how much improvement you will see.

A couple of things come to mind though. A koi's immune system is at full throttle in the 75-78 degree zone, or 23.9-25.5 celsius. If you still want to try something, I would move the koi to a quarantine tank, get the temp in that zone, raise the salt to .6 (Koiphen has a calculator for salinity on the Main page, upper left), add Elbagin at 10 grams per ton (250 gallons).
Hold it there for one week, adding new Elbagin every 3 days. If no improvement, return to your pond.

[davesurfer]

Hi Marilyn thanks for the tips! My pond is kept always at at least 65 degrees and in the summer it can get to 78-80. I could keep it 75 degrees all year round but my hydro bill would go through the roof! I can do the salt and quarantine, but where do I get the Elbagin? My quarantine is about 140 gallons so I guess that'll be fine for one fish.

[Marilyn]

I am not sure of who sells it in Canada. If nobody your side of the border seems to have it, you could post a thread in Trader to see if a KP vendor can ship it up to you.

[Michaelanype]

Cloudy on the inside or some kind of junk on their eye?

If the inside of the eye is cloudy you cant do anything.

If there is #

[davesurfer]

I'm not sure, it does look like a bit on the outside, and it does get better sometimes and clears up more, then gets worse.

[davesurfer]

So I haven't been on the forum for a while, but several weeks after I posted, like a month or so ago, the cloudiness just disappeared! There's no evidence of it ever being there! The eye looks totally normal and exactly like the other eye. I'm not sure how but it looks like my little Koi finally beat whatever he had!

[icu2]