Fish medicine

I guess this is a kind of follow up to the water blog.

Most people don't know that there are actually veterinarians that specialize in fish medicine. NC State has the two big guns in this field.

Why, you ask, would someone take their 50 cent guppy to the veterinarian? Usually they don't. But they could.

The most common work in the field has to do with koi, goldfish, and farm-raised fish. Some show koi fetch prices upwards of $20,000. Seriously. 20K. For a fish. But not just any fish. A beautiful, well bred, perfect color, history of reliable breeding, sexy kind of fish. So if your twenty thousand dollar koi has a tumor in his abdomen, you'd better believe that those people would pay for anesthesia and tumor removal.

Yes, anesthesia. The fish is maintained out of water with water and anesthetic combination flowing through the gills. Surgery is completed, wound closed up, fish back in water. I've actually done this in one of my fish and yes, the fish survived. It was REALLY COOL. Fish medicine, not unlike zoo medicine, was a field I could have really enjoyed getting into. But, understandably there aren't too many jobs in this field. Maybe some day.

Fluid therapy in a fish does NOT mean flushing them down the toilet.

AMH