gravid with dropsy????

Question
I have a Koi I thought was going to lay eggs........ Her sides were big, and not evenly so. I asked the local aquarium store owner about gestation periods etc... She said 8-9 mths. So I wasn't worried as she got bigger and bigger. Tonite, thinking this was the night for her to release her eggs, I noticed that she had become extreemly bloated, deformed even in a short perod of time. She is translucent and the puffyness has extended to the area below her head. She is so fat that her spine is bowed....... Could she be both full of eggs and have gotten dropsy too. She is still eating, but appears stressed. her mouth opens and shuts rappidly. Am I going to loose her? Any thing I can do?  

Answer
I'm sorry about your koi.  Eight to nine months gestation?  For a human maybe!  Once fully egg-laden, a female koi will either spawn and lay the eggs within 1-5 days, reabsorb the eggs, or develop an infection from the eggs (egg binding).  When egg-laden, a koi is slightly big (like a human who's 20 pounds overweight).  If your koi is huge (obese), that's normally not from eggs.  It sounds like she has dropsy.  If she did have eggs that she couldn't get rid of, that could have caused an infection but it's just as likely that she just got an internal bacterial infection all along for some reason.  If she doesn't have dropsy, then it's certainly something else profound - internal infection of some other sort, fish tuberculosis, or malfunctioning kidneys resulting in fluid retention.  None of these problems is easy to fix.  If you have a koi vet in your area, you can get the fish a shot of antibiotics.  I wish we had a koi vet here!  Otherwise, suggested treatment is pond salt and antibiotics.  It's better to do treatments out of the pond which can only be more stressful.  I wish I had some uplifting news for you.  I hope she beats the odds and improves!