Ok, Professor Strange has already gotten back to me regarding the "air bladder coming out of the mouth" issue. (Read previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) The following are his comments:
"Hi Jackie, actually that is a great question. The gas bladder is not connected to the esophagus, so when you see the "gas bladder" protruding from a fish's mouth what you really see is inverted stomach being pushed out by the huge bladder. The bladder membrane is right behind the stomach membrane. If a fish is returned to the water with an expanded gas bladder, it will take hours to reabsorb the gas and sink making it vulnerable to birds, etc. Piercing the gas bladder carefully (a hypodermic needle is best) going through the stomach membrane and then into the gas bladder behind it, is preferable to letting the fish flounder. The best thing to do is put the fish in a weighted/modified crab pot and lowering the fish back down to bottom, the bladder shrinks and the fish swims out. No doubt there internal damage when the bladder/stomach prolapsed, but many fish survive.
Richard"
The picture above is not a koi and you will never see this in koi, but just a picture so you know what happens to other deep water fish with air bladders.
So there, I won't lay awake wondering about that anymore...now how do I find the origin of "souped up"???
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