I just lost Bette this week, my big beautiful butterfly goldfish - and we dont know what happened. We went away, and got a call from our pet-sitter that she was sick and had one cloudy eye. When we got home the following day, we transferred her to a QT tank and tried to feed medgold food, but even force feeding didnt work.

For a few days, we also put some medicated food in the 50 gallon tank "just in case", since she came from there and we didnt know why she got sick and died. The other fish, Desi, Elton and Little Ricky seem just fine. Should we continue to suppliment their feedings with the medicated food for awhile to be on the safe side? Do you think there could be, like with humans, an immunity build up to antibiotics if we do?

What were your water params reading when you got home? Cloudy eye ususally shows up from poor water quality-sometimes med burns.What other symptoms did she have? Do you see anyone else in the tank acting out of sorts?

Hey Devs! Thanks for answering!!

The reading params when we got home were 100% PERFECT. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrIte, 10 NitrAte, PH 7.2. NOTHING was amiss. Other than she seemed to have the beginning of Dropsy for no good reason. She was bloated and starting to pinecone - tho she NEVER pineconed a lot. She died the day after this pic was taken and looked much the same.

I mis-spoke. Her eye, that is the usually crystal clear lens around the eye was fine. No discoloration whatsoever. Only the pupil - the inner black part of her eye was discolored and seemed to be ........... running. Where the black of the pupil was, was grey, like a cataract in a human - UNDER the lens. Here's a pic, tho you cant see the grey clearly, you can see the bottom of her black pupil which seems to be sort of enlongated looking to the bottom of the eye.



And not only is nobody else out of sorts, they seem better than they've ever been! I have a really good petsitter who raises GF's herself, so she knows how to take care of them. This had us all stumped.

I know what you mean about cloudy eye meaning bad water, when they had that REALLY bad bout of ICH back in March, poor Desi's eyes were almost white. But that was the lens COVERING the eye, not the pupil. Or should I say if it WAS the pupil, you couldnt tell becasue the lens of the eye was so discolored.


So any hints on the medicated food question? Should I continue it to help fend off anything we didnt see at the time for Desi, Elton and Lil Ricky? Or is that not a good idea because of immunity issues?

okay, i dont know why the pic isnt coming up. I'll repost it from home later.

Hi tinker. I am sorry that you lost your fish. Often they can stump us. While I am unsure of what could've caused her demise I can answer the med food question.
Any time you start an antibotic food you need to feed that food exclusivly for no less than 7 days, preferable 10 days. See it is like us with taking antibotics, if we don't take the prescription all the way to the end we can breed resistant bacteria that the medicine can't cure.

Thanks Laurie! The other question is, since they werent exibiting any symptoms, is it okay to use the food prophylacticly, as a preventitive - given that they were in the same tank as Bette?

It is ok to give them, it shouldn't hurt them. And if there is an underlying bacterial infection well then this will help them out.