Hello everyone,

One of my goldfish has what appears to be ick, now i'm not sure if it is or isnot ick because the last time i had an ick outbreak was many years ago. Primarily the spots are appearing on the back of the fish, however just today i've noticed some appearing on the tail and on the wen. What makes me unsure if this is or is not ick is the fact that if the gentle current from a turkey baster is directed at the fish, the spots come off, i kno that this sounds cruel but the fish doesn't seem too affected by the turkey baster. and the turkey baster is brand new. ANd if the fish swims quickly or turns quickly the spots come off. Another thing, he/she appears to hang at the surface (like a 1/2 inch under the surface mayb 3/4) for awhile and then swims off and is normal, and the rest of the fish don't hang at the surface.

Test Results for the Following:
Ammonia Level? 2 (my fish SHOULD be dead?)
Nitrite Level? 0
Nitrate level? 40 ppm
Ph Level, (If possible,KH and GH and chloramines)? pH 8.3 KH at least 358 ppm GH 17.9
Ph Level out of the Tap? 7.8
Tank size (How many Gals) and How long has it been running? 45 gals, many months however because of another treatment filters were nuked
What is the name and size of the filter/s? Fluval 304 (older) and Emperor 400 (brand new)
How often do you change the water and how much? 2x a week now bout 20-30%
How many fish in the tank and their size? 4 fish, all around 3-4 inches from head to begining of tail
What kind of water additives or conditioners? Amquel Plus or Prime and also BS
Any medications added to the tank? None
Add any new fish to the tank? No
What do you feed your fish? Pro Gold
Any unusual findings on the fish such as "grains of salt",
bloody streaks, frayed fins or fungus? "grains of salt"
Any unusual behavior like staying
at the bottom, not eating, ect..? Bit of hanging

hmmm my fish SHOULD be dead with the ammonia and pH reading... i shld test the ammonia again, mayb i mis counted drops?

anyways the tank is recycling so ammonia is expected

Just did a 40-50% water change last night, out of BS so won't be doing another till i can get some more BS (should be tonite/tomorrow) to avoid a pH fall (adding BS to keep KH up)

O yea i forgot that ammonia should be showing since my test kit isn't a salicate (sp) but still there is probably a good amount of that ammonia that is unbound. i'm using aquarium pharmaceuticals master test kit as well as the aquarium pharm. gh/kh tests

interesting article bout amquel + http://www.aquascienceresearch.com/AmQuel+2.doc

Andy my goodness that water is toxic with the ammonia!! Hopefully you can get a hold on it.

I am not sure what these white spots are, any chance you can get a picture?

i kno, i was sooo surprised by the level of ammonia, i was like WHOA!!, but i'm pretty certain that theres was something wrong with the test that time, like added too many drops
will test and pictures inthe morning/ or if i find time tonight

i must've done sumtin with the test cause its reading .50 now! better!!

and pic...

Hmmm, this is strange. From the pic it does sorta look like ich. Maybe treating with a salt concentration of 0.3% and see what happens. The fish won't mind and it is safe and not hard on them. If it goes away....well then it might've been ich.

okie dokie will gradually raise the salt to .3%

Andy I had someone else look and she agreed it looks like ich. So I would definitely get the salt in there.

thanks, salted to 0.1% now adding more in the morning?? or later 2nite??

Each dose of salt should be about 12 hours apart. So 12 hours from when you salted last is good.

ok, so i'm gonna salt this morning, nd 2nite.

Andy sounds good, let me know how things are progressing.
I am going to move your thread to the regular section. IF the fish takes a turn for the worse let us know and we can move it back.

thanks laurie,
how long does it usually take for the salt to work? nd how long after the dots disappear shld i remove the salt?

It usually takes a few days to kill the ich, but it is recommended that the salt be run a full 7 days past seeing any ich on the fish.
It is also advisible to vacuum daily for pick up any that fell off the fish.

After that you can remove the salt.

Ok thanks

if i vacuum won't that remove some Salt and water??

Yes it will, but it is necessary.
You have to replace what water and salt you remove. I recommend writing down everything so you don't get confused about the salt doseing.

ok i will

hey laurie,
i have some not soo good news,
no one seems to have an appetite, and i think the salt is making my ryukin float, and something else is making my red-cap oranda have red fins, but not red fins like septicemia, red fins like from nitrites but i think ammonia can also do that?

yesterday's tests...
pH 8.4
ammonia 1.5
nitrite 0
nitrate 5

i'm confused now... cause my nitrate dropped?? nd i didn't do anything cept i followed the directions closer... i waited longer than usuall(usual is like 1 min) before adding the second bottle's drops. i waited like 5 this time.

i've added prime to deactivate the ammonia, need to get a test that reads only free ammonia.
do you know how well this lil gizmo works? http://petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?R=1236&...familyID=14886&
i think this is the same
http://bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xm...id1=3233;pcid2=

thanks laurie,
andy

update:

noticing extra slime coat trailing off of the fish,
but they aren't all hanging at the surface anymore... which is a good sign i think
but the ryukin is still having buoyancy issues

Wow that is some water!!! You are going to have to really stay on that.
I do know if you don't follow the directions to the exact with the nitrates you won't get correct readings. So I would test them again and follow the directions to the letter.

Next I would start water changing. Yes that ammonia can cause red streaks as well.
This is not a good thing to happen, hopefully you can get it under control asap. Good luck.

yea, the water seems to be "acting" strange, i've sent mom out to get a ammonia alert thing to see how much ammonia is actually "free".

i'll begin the water change now... well after i post this.

i'll retest the nitrates 30 mins after i've finished the water change nd added prime and what not.

did a 50% water change,
tank is resalted
more (but not good) accurate readings...
pH 8.3
Ammonia 1.5 ppm (total ammonia)
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 40 ppm

Wow those are still really bad, sounds like you'll be at it some more tonight.

alrite so today things are better but also worse. I'm happy to say that i don't see any signs of ick on the fish anymore. However this morning i woke up to find a long skinny white poop in the tank, which leads me to believe that someone has a bacterial infection. And i have a pretty good idea who it is, i think its the red-cap oranda with the red fins. Sooo anti-biotic foods have been started but they don't seem to be too hungry, even though they haven't really been fed for a few days.

Not wanting to eat or having a hard time eating can also be a sign of the parasites. Is today the first day you haven't seen any ich?
How is the water?

water params:
pH 8.3
Ammonia .50 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
the ammonia alert thing says that there is around .2 ppm to less than .5ppm

after the most recent water change i've got clamped fins now, but it might be because water temp difference, a few degrees

What is the ph out of the tap again?

the last time i tested that pH it was 7.8

my red-cap i believe now has a internal bacterial infection, the redness in the fins closely resembles what i had seen when my other fish had either a mild internal bacterial or full blown septicemia. That fish is now isolated, none of the other fish are showing signs of redening fins or anything. Still got clamped fins and buoyancy problems, but no ick!! @ least none that i can actually see.

thanks for alll your help laurie, hopefully things will improve todayy

o yea the redcap is being treated for septicemia since it wouldn't eat.

Ok it is good you are feeding a medicated food.
But until you get that ph problem under control you are fighting an up hill battle.

With the ph out of the tap being 7.8 and the tank reading 8.3, that is a too big of difference and the fish are feeling the effects.
Are you any closer to fixing this problem? With so many other threads it is hard to often remember who is doing what, so if you clarify with me on this I would appreciate it.

my pH hasn't really changed with doing all these water changes. on feb 27, i added a pretty hefty amount of BS to raise the kh which then was really low, a few drops. the kh was raised to alot of drops, more than the test kit has to show. I admit that i overdosed on BS and raised my kh too high. Soo i think the reason why my pH is staying the same is because of all the buffering there is left.

Maybe what I would do in your case is test the tank morning and night for ph and write it down. Post it in the morning for us to monitor.

After you change your water do you test it and if so how close to the chagne?

after changing the water and testing it, i didn't not see a change in the pH.

this morning the pH is 8.3 still(closer color to 8.2 than 8.4) . and last night it appeared to be in between 8.2-8.4 but closer to 8.4.

great hopefully you can keep it there. That will be good for the fish.

things have been good soo far in the 45. But today when i got home which was like 10 mins ago i noticed that 1 of the fish (ranchu) has a funny coloration now on one of his sides. i've never seen this before.... water quality tests will be coming shortly...

I'll get a pic...

got it...

Good shot but all are see are dark spots??? Is this what you mean or are they bloody?

yea, they're not bloody and they weren't there yesterday or this morning

could it be a color change?

pH 8.3
ammonia 1.5
nitrite 0
nitrate 30


could ammonia burns look like that?

the spots don't seem to be affecting the fish.
Appetite has returned!!! YAY!!
and i think we have nitrites!!! and the ammonia has gone down!! YAY!!!
I've added a stocking of oyster shells to buffer my water so i don't get a pH crash. yesterday and today have been such awesome days!, its warm 60'sish and the fish are doing better, spring is finally coming!! and when it finally gets here for good the koi get to go back outside and the goldfish get a new home hopefully a new stock tank for them (mini-pond).

Yes it could've been ammonia burns. Keep watch on them and see what they do. I am glad that you are finally getting a handle on the water.

been quite a while since an update,
ick is cleared, water params are pretty good too now.

having trouble clearing slightly reddened fins, but the reddening should not be septicemia because i've treated the 2 fish that have the red fins seperately for it for 2x the treatment. I will keep feedind medicated to the 2 fish to get all the bacteria out of their systems.

Thanks for the update. How long have they been on the med food now? Your plan sounds good.

umm lets see... about 1 1/2 weeks i think. gonna have to order some more, what kind do you recommend? metro-meds or medi-gold?

thanks laurie!!