Please help.

1 of my 2 goldfish became stuck in/under a tank ornament and suffered relatively severe fin and tail damage 3 days ago. At 1st, he seemed to be recovering well, but now he's lying at the bottom of the tank, and his fins appear to have some red discolouration. Even more distressingly, he now seems to be lop-sided, and swimming with 1 side up (when he does move, which is rarely).

The fish are in a new BiUbe (we followed all the instructions when setting up), and the other fish seems fine.

I feel like he's going to die and there's nothing I can do. Would an antibacterial agent help, or is it too late?

Thanks for reading this, I hope someone can help.

Hi again,

Sorry, I didn't give a lot of information regarding the tank in my last post. I'm afraid I'm probably the goldfish-keeper that you despair of, but Fran and Dougie have been fine for 3 and a half years until now : (.

Ammonia, nitrate, pH - unknown
Filtration - biological, mechanical, and chemical
Additives - Stresszyme I think
Feed - Hikari staple floating type baby pellet
Unusual behaviour - see previous post
Nitrite - unknown
Tank size - 35L, running for 6 weeks
Water changes - 2x 30%
Fish - 2, medium goldfish
Chloramines - unknown

Is is possible for you to get a test kit or have your petstore test a sample for you? Its important to keep the water as clean as possible especially when you have a suffering fish.

Try adding some aquarium salt 1 teaspoon per gallon (repeat after 12 hours and again after another 12 hours). It works as a tonic for fish. You can add some more Stresszyme to help build up the slime coat that may have been scraped off while he was stuck.

That's my best advice until one of the experts gets here! Keep us posted on him.

Also, take a look that this thread, the circumstances are similiar: http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=34456

Thanks for your replies : /.

I could either get a test kit or get the water tested. I've transferred the sick fish to a new bowl in the meantime (with a 50% water change), as I think the other fish was bothering him.

Is normal sea salt as opposed to aquarium salt okay? It's all I have to hand and it's 10:30pm here.

Thanks again.

I've put a photo of the red bits on his fins on this page: http://anjackson.net/extras/fran/

Thanks again.

Hi eilidh and welcome.
Sorry to hear your fish is not doing well.

To answer your question on salt yes sea salt is great! Thats what I use. As long as it is all natural sea salt its perfect
keep us posted.

As for the read streaks in his fins this can be caused by stress from his ordeal or a number of other things.
The fact he is lopsided and bottom sitting sugests a possible bacterial infection.
Stress lowers the imune system so they become suseptiable to other illness.

I am not experienced enough to feel confident on advising treatment or meds at this point until someone with more knowledge has a look.

In the meantime till someone else can advise further...the best thing you can do right now is pristine water and salt tonic.

Keep us posted.

Thanks for your reply : ).

Well, Fran is still hanging on in there. He looks a little better this morning (he moved a little when I went into the room), but is still usually lying at the bottom on 1 side. I think the red streaking in his fins has decreased, but I'm not sure.

I'll do a partial water change before I go to work, and I'd like to add some sea salt. How much should I add? 1 teaspoon/gallon (although I'm not sure what a gallon is...)?

I'll also try to get some things for water testing, and some more Stresszyme today.

I read that a fish may appear bent due to muscle strain, and as Fran may have been stuck in the ornament for up to 3h, I suppose that this could be the case. Has anyone heard of anything like this before?

: /

Eilidh

Thanks for posting back!
ok
35 liter = 9.2460218 gallon [US, liquid]
therefore you need to add 1 TEAspoon per gal


so thats 9 TEAspoons

grab some of his water and disolve it in that first ...then add it
this will take you to a 0.1% salanity
its a good general tonic for the fish
also maintain tests and good water, hopefully his imune system will kick in and fight!
It is amazing how well a fish can do if in great water

Dont be tempted to add meds that pet/fish shops may advice
not yet! to many meds without a good diagnosis can harm.

You are doing well!!
the fact he is looking better and red is decreasing is a good sign however...where do u live?
Id would just like to know this incase....as each country has some meds and some not available
I just wanna know this in advance.

Hi,

I'm afraid Fran died yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to write this until now.

We'd just been to buy Stresscoat, aquarium salt, and a comprehensive water testing kit, then he died within 10m of us getting home : (. We tested the water anyway, as we were unsure whether he was alive or dead; all the levels were good though.

He was a great little fish, thanks for the help. Dougie now has a new tank-mate; Leonard, a blue oranda. They seem to be getting along well.

I hope I won't need to post in the emergency forum again.

Eilidh

Ohh Im so sorry eilidh. Thats very sad

Best of luck with Leonard! Blue oranda's are lovely.
I wish you all the best

Hi eilidh,

I only just found your thread now, I'm sorry to hear about Fran, you mentioned that this tank has only been up and running for about 6 weeks and it is only 35 litres?

If you had your fish in there from the start (ie before the tank was not properly cycled) your fish will have been under a lot of stress over that time due to poor water conditions while the tank was cycling, take some time to read about nitrogen cycling on koko's site, there's heaps of information that will help you to understand what was going on. Your fish getting stuck probably was the thing that initiated the bacterial infection (that's what the photo looked like), but the fish was already stressed from being living in an uncycled tank.

Another thing is that 35litres is not really large enough to house two goldfish in. you need at least 40litres for one fish. There are a lot of funky new tanks out there that claim they're made for goldfish, but they are rarely big enough to house them in the quantities they advertise. The reason for this is that the water quality can crash very quickly as goldfish excrete a LOT of waste, and the level of waste accumulates much quicker in a smaller body of water than a larger body of water. It's good that you bought yourself a water test kit! as your tank is still quite new you should be keeping your eye out mainly on the Ammonia and NitrIte levels, but also the pH and nitrAte as well.

Good luck with your other fish! and keep reading this site, you'll learn heaps!