Koi has a weird appendage

[newbieincaliprincess]

My platinum butterfly koi has grown a new appendage. Right above his tail fin is a finger like thing same color as he is it does not seem to be part of his fin and his fins all look GREAT. He blushes when irritated (I was thrilled to see him blush when I cleaned my pond this weekend not because I was happy he was stressed but it was pretty cool to see him do what "real koi" on the internet do!) he swims fin the "finger" does not seem to bother him at all. He does hide a lot down at the bottom of the pond but I expect with time that will change. Oh and the "finger" looks stiff. He also has a dark "line" under his skin on the top of his head. Is this a bad thing?

[marla]

Can you post a picture???  is the apendage thin or fat.....it could be an anchor worm....if so easy to cure.  As for the dark line it could be color change or something else.  The fact that he hides and/or stays at the bottom may or maynot be a sign of illness.

[newbieincaliprincess]

Sadly... I am stuck in the 20th century and do not have a digi cam. I have a picture of him I had snapped when I bought him but that was with my cell phone and it does not show a lot of detail. this was almost a month ago. Ummm it seems fat in comparison to his tail. I asked my mother (who has a few years of ponding experience) and she said it is a parasite that I could pull it off (EWWWWW) and told me to get sea salt, powder treatment and food for the parasite treatment to go at it from all angles. Monarch does come out and eat and chase the other larger goldfish around but mostly she stays hidden she is very timid. Any movement has her shooting to the bottom to hide among the plants down there or in the small spaces between my lilly pots and the side of the liner. (the picture of the pond is from march when I got the pond started I have added and moved around stuff since then)

[newbieincaliprincess]

Oh and monarch has grown A LOT since I got her/him. When I saw Monarch in the dingy tank with the other sad looking koi I felt so bad for him so I brought him home (plus I have always dreamed of having a butterfly koi!). So I knew there was a chance but I figured after I got him fixed up he was ok. I read I can use something to make the worm let go. I also read that the eggs are not susceptible to the treatment so if they hatch down the road I will have a whole new problem started again. Should I continue feeding the parasite killing fish food? Would that keep them from reinfecting the fish?

[marla]

If it is an anchor worm there are lots of commercial products to buy...Dimilin is a great one(I've used it with success), also Anchors Away I've heard works.  You can pull them off, also a good salt water bath for 15-30 min of 0.6% (2tablespoons per gallon) will help.  You don't need to use sea salt that is pretty expensive, go get a box of mortons canning salt (green box) this does not contain YPS which is in most table salts and not so good for fish but will do in a pinch.  The problem is there may be eggs and the fish could get more so it would be best to treat the pond, but know how many gallons you have.  From what I can see it is a very pretty koi.  Good luck hope you get rid of it.

[newbieincaliprincess]

Well I was braving the slightly nippy weather and finally got a glimps of Monarch. She/he seems to have either lost part of the worm or all (it was very fast and hard to tell since it was the same color as the fish) but  I think the treatment's are working! today (48 hours later) I will do the second treatment and continue feeding the parasite killing food for a while. I am so happy! Hopefully now they will stop being so scared of me and start coming to the surface.