I had to post here as well as the 911 board, I am a new member from San Diego CA>
We have a fish we just adore. shes about 10-12 months old, Ryukin, she has just started to show her knobby head, she really grew!
She is all by herself in a 5 gallon tank with a filter and light, plastic plants (cuz she ate the real one!!)
I was told to give her frozen peas, which i did, and she nibbled a bit, but now she won't eat at all. She still has spirit, and willsometimes try and swim when you visit her, but she mostly just sinks and stays at the bottom right side up.
I am new to GF and our family is madly in love with this fish, please-----how can we save her??

Thanks
Melanie

im sorry,
theres a rule that says 10 GALLONS PER GOLDFISH. has he/she got ick or any other symptons and does it always stay down at the bottom of the tank.
can you tell us what levels your PH and nirtites are at? if you dont have a test kit then i advise you get 1 asap. do you use stress zyme and dechlorinator?

Thanks for responding, she shows no other signs of disease. Just seems "bloated" maybe, like the scales on her sides are starting to stick out, and she just sits on the bottom and doesn't swim.
i do not have a ph kit, but can get one today. Fish store said to feed her peas and she'd be fine, but I see no improvement.

oooooo. that sounds like its got dropsy, can you take any pictures? maybe if you dont already have dechlorinator and stress zyme you should get some. maybe try getting a bigger tank because a goldfish can double in size in a year.
look on this website on the diseases page that might tell you someting about how you can cure it.
good luck

Hi Melzy,
Welcome to Koko's. We need the water params also to help rule other things out, but it does sound like dropsy is starting and the prognosis is not good, I'm sorry. I wish I had better news on that score.

Dropsy is a symptom, not a disease on its own. Many things can be the cause of it. Please do a gill check. Gently raise the gill plate cover and take a peek inside. The gill should be nice and firm, uniform and meat red like a beef steak. They should not look like cooked meat, pale, tattered, slimey or excess mucous. If they look badly then its not good as its a sign the internal organs are failing.

You can start by salting the tank to 0.1%, that 1 tsp per gl. Increase the o2, raise the temp to 79* slowly to help kick in the fih's immune system and help it work at top condition.

Any salt will do so long as it has no binders, no preservatives or YPS. Rock salt, canning salt, AQ salt, water softening salt or sea salt to name a few.

Feed medicated food strictly, Maracyn 1 & 2. Covers both gram positive and negative.

Post back soon!

Kathy's right. my 3 goldies had ich which progressed and they had to killed, try salt not treatment . salt iv'e heard is sooooooooo much better

I'll try salting, thanks for the recipe for the salt to h2o ratio, we have sea salt, that should work right? What about table salt?

gonna check the gills now..........

How do you check fish gills?

I got her in the net and she flopped and flopped, but I gotta say, her scales are sticking out pretty good, she's also quite round. We changed the water last night and cleaned the tank (only less than half of the 5 gallons were changed, and we used water conditioner with super filtered water from the water store)

I have posted pics here: http://homepage.mac.com/melaniepeters2/PhotoAlbum3.html

I can not link them for some reason otherwise.

That poor fish, well I am to agree that you need to get her a bigger tank asap... I have a fish right now that has dropsy, he is a 6 year old fish and I have to tell you now that once the scales start doing that the likelyhood of them serviving is really not good, but you can try, test your water, PH,Ammonia,Nitrate,Nitrites...everything if you cant get all the kits right now take a water sample to your local pet store that has fish and they will test it for you.
You need to know this stuff and start her on meds ASAP!!!

Maracyn 2, is great stuff!!

Good Luck I hope she makes it, Hope for both our fish.

(Frozen Peas are more for SBD then Dropsy)

I am terribly sorry if we did something to hurt her, we were never told about any 10 gal rule, we had thought about gettting a bigger tank but were waiting because we are planning a move across the country soon.

We will get the salt and ph kit today, we really love her and want he to be happy and healthy.

Well, several days have passed: we had the water checked, it was high on nitrates, but thats all; we added an O2 generator in addition to the one that came with the hexagon tank. We have been giving doses of Maracyn 2 as directed-------but she will not eat, is motionless at the bottom of the tank except for little gasps of breath. She seems bloated, my guess is she is slowing dying. I'ts really hard to watch.

Is there anything else to be done?

Hi Melzy,

I'm sorry Mel... its not sounding good at all and probably just a matter of time. As I said earlier, dropsy is a bad thing. There's very little hope in regards as most things causing it are also causing internal organ failure!

Even with a Vet to obtain Baytril from the odds for dropsy are not good. That also has to be given in injections and the odds of a fish friendly vet near are very poor still.

Your not at fault for not knowing the RoT, many lfs's are still very behind the times in regards to a lot of information or just do not simply care. They are in buisness to sell, so its what they do. New tanks, new fish, snake oil tonics.....

She did die yesterday. We will miss her!