I have a sick black moore, and I'm looking for advice. The water params are all ok ph 7.5, ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrate < 5. Yesterday I had an ammonia spike, but I changed about 75% of the water yesterday and it was zero this morning.

The moore is loosing his velvet coat and he's nervous. He's not flashing yet, but he's jumpy and will probably start soon. I changed about 90% of the water this morning just to be safe. A added a tbsp salt per 5 gallons of water and raised the water temp to 76. His excrement is also white and stringy.

I just got home from being out this afternoon and he has a couple small holes in his dorsal fin. They aren't on the edges, and his other fins seem fine. I just added a treatment of maracyn plus.

What should I do now?

The other two fish are starting to show signs of stress. My ryukin just flashed for a bit.

OK, the other two fish seem to be better, but the moore is getting worse. He's almost all gold now and he's flashing like crazy. I don't think he's going to make it until morning. Any ideas??

Hmmm...

Me personally, I wouldn't do such big water changes, unless the water params were drastic, like your ammonia spike you mentioned.
15-20% daily (if you have trouble with the water) would be the way I'd do it.

I'd also do a salt concentration of .3%. That's salt without anticaking agents. 1 Tbsp per 5 gallons. Dissolve it in a bit of tank water first, then add to the aquarium. Do that, then wait 12 hours, then repeat, then wait 12 hours, then repeat once more, so you have a total of 3 Tbsp per 5 gal...that's your .3% concentration.
Remember when you do water changes to replace the salt you take out. Remember also to closely moniter your salt in that tank...don't 'pickle' your fish.

Ranchugirl has an excellent post in the disease treatment section.

As an emergency for that moor, you may want to consider a salt dip.

I don't usually do such big water changes, but I was afraid some sort of poison got into the water some how, since they were doing so well before.

I gave him a 2 minute salt dip and returned him to the tank. Does the salt dip usually shock them? He's been floating since I put him back into the tank. I wish there was some sort of simptom for one of the diseases so I'd know how to treat him better.

Well, he's starting to swim around a bit, but he still looks like heck. I hope he can pull through, and I definitely hope my other fish don't have whatever he has. :mellow:

If I lose another fish I dont' think I can keep doing this.

he's dead

You say his poop was white and stringy and he's jumpy? He might have died from a parasite. Please go to this website to make sure that he didn't have a parasite because if he did you must get rid of it in your tank and prevent the other two from getting it. Okay so first see if the other two's poop is is abnormal and then let's go from there as you are already treating them with salt.

http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/disease/tec...agnosis_by_poop

I haven't seen either poop lately, but I've found quite a bit of long white poop around. I found a couple normal ones too. I treated them earlier today with maracyn plus, will that help them if it's bacterial?

I have a bottle of Wardly Complete Remedy, but I don't have any medicated food!

I don't want to lose all my fish!

Honestly I don't know about that medication. But I would really advise checking out that website to diagnose your fish. There is so much info on doing physicals, symptoms, treatments, and diagnosis by poop etc.

http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/disease/disease.htm

Check it out so we know if your fish have any condition.

Ok, I performed a physical on one of them.

The gills are bright to dark red, I think bright cherry red but I am not positive.

He is very small so it is hard to tell anything about the anal port. It doesn't appear to be leaking though. His belly felt a bit hard, but again, he is small so that might be normal.

His coat did not leave slime in my hand.

Behaviorally, one of them is darting a lot and also spending a lot of time resting on the bottom. The other darts only every once and a while but has been hiding under his terra cotta pot a lot.

Ok, since doing the physical, he's started swimming on his side!!!! He also seems to be shaking or quaking.

I just BARELY saw it! One of them had a white thread in his mouth... according to that physical page it means Columnaris.

SYMPTOMS:
white threads blowing in and out of mouth YES
dry skin MAYBE
skin color darkens NO
white fungusy or thready looking sores NO
peduncle disease ?
red anal vent CAN'T TELL
chronic bubble eating NO

Do you think that this could be it?

Now I'm at a loss how to treat it. I don't have the stuff that page says to use! All the stores are closed.

I'm more and more confident that it's columnaris, the inside of the lips are white.

I haven't been able to find anything for or against maracyn plus for treating columnaris.

The active ingredient in "Wardley Complete Care" is Sodium Chlorite, an oxidant. Does anyone think this will work in the place of potassium permanganate? It does say it's not supposed to be used with other medications.

I'm going to lose all my fish.

Is a columnaris infection called mouth fungus? Maracyn plus does say that it treats mouth fungus. I'm not too optimistic about that, though, since I've already lost one.

OK I've jumped from pharmacy to pharmacy and fish store to fish store, but I haven't been able to find any potassium permanganate anywhere. I did manage to find a an antibiotic that has columnaris specifically listed.

Would it be completely idiotic of me to do a partial water change to try to get rid of some of the maracyn plus, then begin the antibiotic treatment?

Oh my goodness...I'm so sorry you're going through this!

Me, yes I'd do the water change and start the antibiotic.

Goodness, I hope some of the more experienced members of this board see your post and answer....

Sorry for not getting back to you until now. Yes I think that initially that you took too high of a water change out. Maybe do a 20% water change before adding new medicine. Also do you have any healthy bacteria you could add to the water before you do this?

I have some Cycle left, will this help?

Definitely. How are they doing?

Update:

I just changed 20% of the water and added the ampicillan. I also added the last dose of 1 Tbsp salt / 5 gallons water.

This morning my ryukin showed signs of improvement. He greeted me at the top of the tank and I was able to get him to eat a little.

He's pretty much back to hiding now, and swimming in one place. I just had to rescue the oranda from the filter uptake tube.

I turned the lights back off in case that was causing too much stress.

I also bought some stuff that's supposed to boost medicines by breaking the cell structure of the bacteria... I'm hesitant to add it, what do you think?

How am I doing? Thanks for the help so far!

I would not try more than one medication at a time. I think that it would stress them out too much. Good idea turning off the light to reduce stress. I'm glad to hear that they're doing better. Just keep watching them. Don't add any more salt as that would be combining treatments. I hope they're okay but time will tell, just monitor them closely and keep them stress free.

My oranda's having it rough, he's spinning sideways when he's swimming. He's also swimming in circles. Basically he's having a tough time going where he wants to go.

Wow it sounds like a really tough sickness on your fish. Just keep watching as you've done your best to diagnose and treat them. Also test your water just to make sure the parameters are normal. You'll want to make sure that anything that you can control is at it's best.

I have an ammonia alert in the tank and I've been testing the water params often.

My ryukin is stretching his lips a lot like he does when he's back washing his gills, except he's doing it fast and often.

Add the Cycle if you haven't already. You're tank is starting to cycle which will probably put the fish under some stress. Do you know about the cycling process in tanks? See this link:

http://faq.thekrib.com/begin-cycling.html

It says a lot about what cycling is and how to reduce stress on your fish.

Sorry, by ammonia alert I mean the card that warns if your ammonia level is toxic. The ammonia's still at the safe level, and the last time I checked it, it was zero. My lastest nitrite test is still developing, but it looks like it'll be zero as well.

I did add the Cycle when you suggested it.

It's not looking good for the oranda. He's on the bottom, on his side, breathing heavily.

Oh I'm so sorry to hear about your Oranda. I don't know how else to help you. I feel so helpless

The tank was cycled before this happened. I noticed a ammonia spike a couple days ago, but two days earlier the ammonia was zero.

The bottom of my tank is a layer 1-high of small (1/2" diameter) rocks. Even though I vacuum them biweekly, I'm worried they built up wastes and caused a toxic shock. That would probably explain the spike and the columnaris (since I read it's usually associated with wastes).

I think am going to switch to a few medium to large rocks spread out over the bottom of the tank. Hopefully this will trap a lot less waste and be easier to clean.

You've been a lot of help! I just think that this infection is too much for my two little ones (they were/are both only around an 1 1/2" long including fins). I'm hoping that they'll both make it! If worse comes to worse, I am hoping that at least my ryukin will make it. He's bigger then the oranda and probably has a much better defense system against bacteria. He's also very spoiled and loves attention. He's the fish in my avatar.

Make sure that you get some nylon and put your old gravel in it, suspend the little bags of gravel in the water for two weeks to get the bacteria on your new rocks. I think that you're cleaning your gravel too much. Once a week is sufficient. How is your ryukin?

I picked up a couple nylon bags for that reason when I went med shopping this morning. I did the same thing when I upgraded tanks because I didn't want the red/pink rocks that were in my last one

The ryukin's gasping has slowed, but he's not at all interested in coming to the glass to see me and he's got a couple of his fins clamped.

Well I don't know what to do now since you are treating with an antibiotic. If you feel that it's time to do something drastic maybe you should add that stuff that breaks down the cell structure of the bacteria. If it aids in helping the medicine work better maybe you should try it.

Well I put back the carbon in the filter when you warned me not to mix antibiotics. So the amoxicillin should be out of the water but the maracyn plus should still be there. I just added the medicine booster. I'm getting worried again about the ryukin since he started clamping his fins. I'll have to wait until tomorrow for their next maracyn treatment.

I got the room really dark and quiet so hopefully they can rest and not get stressed out.

I guess now I can just wait and see.

You know they're not even my fish and I'm all worried too. It's so frustrating to not know how they're doing. Grrrr Like I said only time will tell.

I just got back from supper, and my oranda's gone.

How often do people who actually take good care of their fish lose some? I've only been doing this for 4 or 5 months, but it seems like the more care I put into it (better food, good cycling, frequent water changes, tests every day) the harder it is to keep them. I just want to know basically if I'm not cut out for it! My girlfriends fish lived for 4-5 years with her and she didn't know anything about taking care of it.

I'm so sorry. Well my goldies have been living for 4 years now. I think if you want to start over you'll have to clean that tank out. First of all cleaning your tank. You can use a whole lot of salt and soak the tank and scrub down the walls and such. Then rinse out well. See this link in Koko's to cycle your tank:

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/cycle.html

I think that if you're keeping to the one fish per 10 gallon rule than you shouldn't have to do water changes more than once a week. I think that you removed too much bacteria when you did the 90% water change. This with the twice a week vacuuming and the disease was too much for your goldies. I am so sorry When you're tank is too clean there is not enough bacteria to break down the waste. So I think by cleaning it too much you were crashing the tank and putting way too much stress on them. Goldies usually get disease from either being overcrowded (more than 1 fish per 10 gallons) and poor water quality which can include too much waste or too little bacteria to break down the waste. Don't be too disappointed it's all a learning process.

I was following the 10 gallon rule, and I haven't had any crashes except for that one spike . I've been taking readings everyday since I got the last fish so I could make sure that the cycle got reestablished. It took only a couple days after getting the last one for the ammonia and nitrite to go back to 0. I've been taking measurements anyway just in case.

Well, the ryukin seems to be picking up a bit. He's swimming around more and he's unclamped his fins. I'm hoping for the best. If he makes it, should I put him in a temp tank and clean out the main one anyway?

No I would leave him in the tank. I'm glad that he looks better. Sometimes some fish are a little stronger than others. You know I know that it's frustrating taking care of goldies sometimes but you're doing a great job. Like I said keep up with the treatment and make sure that after the treatment's done that you add some kind of good bacteria to the water to replenish the bacteria that will be destroyed from the treatment. Also I always add stress coat and a little bacteria every week when I clean the tank. Maybe try testing the water that's used for the tank. I've heard of some weird PH readings for tap water that needs to be adjusted before using in the tank. I've never had that problem but you never know.

I have to treat my tap water before changes. It's acidic (around 6) and it has ammonia in it. I use amquel+ since it also gets rid of ammonia. I use baking soda as a buffer and proper pH 7.5 to set the pH. I've tried crushed coral, but I had pH drops. Just today I found a feed store that stocks crushed oyster shell, so I'm going to try that next. I use stress coat religiously I've FINALLLY found a store that sells Cycle, so I've been able to use that recently.

It sounds like you're doing everything right. So maybe try not doing the twice a week vacuumings and only clean once a week 35% of the water with a vacuuming. P.S. the reason I'm at this computer night and day is cause I have finals coming up and I'm going crazy with studying!

I'm on because I need to be catching up on homework, but I'm not.

I got him to eat a few flakes tonight. Hopefully he can make a recovery. I ordered some special "after sickness" food to reboost the immune system. I hope that it comes in soon.

Oh, and good luck on the finals! Luckily I don't have any this semester, and even better, I don't have any classes next semester. That's going to be nice.

Thanks!

Well the ryukin made it to morning! He's hiding again and very nervous, though. I just added the second treatment of maracyn plus.

now you;ve made a dianosis, you'll want to remember to run the medicine for the entire treatment, with the marcyn 10 days would be even better.

changing the medication half way can make for bacteria that are immune to antibiotics. which then will be harder to treat.

it is hard to see a friend in distress, we want to make it all better NOW, but not letting the medicine work can cause even more problems.

let us know how things are going. -Toot

I am so glad that the ryukin is doing ok.

Well, he's still hanging in there. I fed him some flakes, but he spit most of them back out. He's swimming around the tank, his fins are unclamped, but he seems depressed.

Well try other things like peas. If he still doesn't want to eat after 5 days than you'll have to force feed him. But for now just keep up with the treatments. Here's a quote about fish that won't eat.

Fancy goldfish should not be allowed to go without eating for more than 5 days. AFter that they need to be force fed. Start with strained peas (baby food) in a small syringe. Get the tip of the syringe (NO NEEDLE) all the way into the back of their mouth past the gills. A fish will open their mouth as they are brought to the top of the water.

http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/disease/sym...WON'T%20EAT

Thanks! Hopefully it won't have to come to that. I'm sure if he starts feeling any better at all he'll be eating like a pig again. I was able to feed him a fewtimes yesterday and the day before too. He even ate all the lionhead food I tried to feed the oranda. Mostly I'm just going by his appetite to gauge how sick he is.