ok i'm going to try and make this as brief as possible since i'm about to head out..

the two fish that i ordered arrived today, and they look absolutely awful. they ended up being shipped by freight and spent two days in an unheated box..so naturally they're not in the best of shape..here's an overview of their symptoms

fish A, the big one- this is the one that really concerns me..physically he looks OK; there's a small white, fuzzy patch on his tail that looks like it's probably fungus, other than that his gills appear healthy and theres nothing wrong other than a ripped fin. however, he's spent the past 3 hours sitting on the bottom of the quarantine, gasping like he's on his death bed..which greatly worries me..his dorsal fin is erect, though...

fish B, the little one- lots of stuff is wrong with this one..minor things mostly; there's some missing scales, a ripped fin..and he has what appears to be fungus (white, fuzzy stuff) so badly that it's completely covering one eye. he's swimming around though, acting fairly healthy

i've never received fish in this bad of shape before, nor have i ever experienced fungus. if anyone has any suggestions on how i should be treating them, please share..i'm lost

Hmmm I have not had any experience in this area but I will give the only advice I have. I would definetly quarentine both of them. Warm the water very slowly to get them accustom to the new water.
I would use some salt in their tanks and wait a day or two a see how they do.

As far as treating them I'm not sure. Do you have any medicated food? I would probably put them on it for 10 days.

Good luck I am sure someone will also be around to give you further advice.

I just rescued a fish with fungus on christmas eve and used Jungle Lab's Fungus clear. It worked. However in your fish's case, I wouldn't reccomend it. My fish only had a "slight" coat of fungus-- and it took approx. a week to get rid of it. It sounds like fish B would definitly need a more superior product that would kill the fungus much faster.

Unfortunately, I don't know what that product might be.....

Does anyone know if a .3% salt sulotion would clear the fungus up
(I'm also asking because I would like to know myself)?

Do you think perhaps fish A didn't have enough oxygen to last him in the bag during his trip to your house? And perhaps thats why he is gasping, because he suffocatied a bit, and his body is trying to catch up?

Boy, I know I'm not much of a help here. But I wish your fish well!

thanks for the replies everyone.

i know for a fact that he was most likely suffocating during the trip; the two were bagged together in a standard size bag and spent 48+ hours in the hands of the post office. he's a big fish too (5")..when i got ahold of him there was barely enough water in the bag to cover him not to mention the oxygen supply was almost completely depleted

i did a bit of research and discovered fungus CAN be treated with a .3% salt solution, so that's what i'm trying first, along with a diet of medi-gold just to be on the safe side. what worries me is the little ones eye..i'm afraid if i can't get it cleared up soon he'll lose sight in it

*update*

It turns out that both fish have columnaris, not true fungus. I talked to another person on another board who had recently bought fish from the same seller; she's also struggling with a similar problem.

I'm treating now not only with the salt, but marycn 1&2 and melafix. The largest fish, whom has now been dubbed Morrigan, is doing much better. She's very active, eating well, and is healing quickly. The little telescope eye still looks awful though. While it's fins have almost completely healed, it's eye has done nothing but get progressivly worse. It's gone from being approx 3/4 covered in fungus with the pupil barely showing to being so thickly covered with fungus that the pupil's no longer visable..plus, the parts of the eye that are still visable are clearly infected- red and swollen. It's started eating a bit now, and is swimming around acting fairly content. The eye's worrying be to death though.

I'm going to put some pictures up of it soon I think. Mayhaps someone's out there who has gone through a similar problem and can offer some kind of advice..

the tele. what this picture doesn't show is that there is a deep hole in the lower right side that formed last night...exposing what i'm presuming are nerves..

OUUCH! a deep hole---where? yikes!

So do fungus and columnaris look alot alike? (I've never battles columnaris before...)

How are your fish doing now? any improvements? let me know!