Lying on the bottom like that is a sign of stress. How frequently do you clean the filter?

We just noticed it looks like something may have attacked her... A couple gouges on her back by her tail and a small part of her upper fin is gone. She does still swim around and eats but does seem stressed also and taking lots of time outs and hanging out by herself in the shallow end. Any suggestions what we can do?

Shallow end? How deep is it?

A pic of the injured fish would help. Nice healthy white tissue is what a healing injury should have.

Does the fish have it's fins clamped to the side?

Koi don't get pregnant. They get gravid which means full of eggs. That normally happens in the spring.

yes it's white and she is swimming with her fins tucked in most of the time for 2 days now. Looks like a small chunk missing by her fin. Probably not much we can do for her?

If she is eating and swimming like in the pic, I wouldn't be too worried. The wound looks like it is healing well.

I would be worried about future attacks though. How deep is the shallow end? Do you have plant ledges?

Thank you for the good news that it looks like she is healing well. The shallow end is about 1' with rocks on the edge as pictured and there is a lot of fish line across the top of the entire pond since we saw a heron attack and kill at least one fish.

She didn't make it :-( very sad day. It appears a heron got her and the damage was too bad.

Sorry to hear that.

Aw so sorry to hear you lost your girl -I know how they become beloved pets - with personalities all of their own.

Some people have a hospital tank in their basement for this sort of thing - need only be a poly stock tank . However... I thought I would mention there may be something else going on besides just the heron .... as if that werent enough, right?

The frayed fins in the photo are suggestive of bacterial disease which would be caused by poor water quality. It can look ok but still not be good for the fish - there should be zero ammonia and nitrite, very little nitrate if any. Tests wont detect too much dissolved organic compounds but those can be a major factor in poor water quality as well.

Are you doing periodic partial water changes, how many fish? HOpefully no more than 3-5. Are any others exhibiting frayed fins?

Try the forum at www.koiphen.com - its much more active and frequented by experts than this one! Koi can be a handful, due to their size. All the best to you and your fishies.

We did test our water, all was good, the only thing slightly high was PH. We've seen 2 herons and called Thepondguy north of Detroit & they were so helpful. They feel it was bacterial infection after the heron attack (we hadn't experienced before and didn't know to treat for an infection being new to this) We treated the water with wipeout and saved one fish but not the older larger one. Thanks for the help and thank you for the recommendation of the other forum also! Debbie