Hello, I'm back. I need your help once again. I have the same large 5" Oranda in the same 29 US gallon tank as before, but with a similar problem.

He is missing 5 scales on one side, which has happened before, and was the first thing I noticed. All 5 are right around the same area. They've been gone for more than a week, maybe 12 days or so, and not all at once, he lost them one by one and has stopped.

He has a small red sore on the front of his face near his mouth, almost like the thrashed and hurt himself, like with the scales. It's not very big, maybe about 3-4 mm. It happened around the same time. It appears to be healing, but very slow.

My fish is spending all of his time either bottomfeeding or sulking at the bottom of the tank. He just sits in his corner where he usally feeds, under the filter with his top fin clamped against his back. Around the same time, he had some red streaks in his tail fin and bottom 2 fins, right around the bottom 4 tips. The ones in his tail have gotten worse; more red and more affected aria.

Water paramaters:
Nitrate: 30
Nitrite: 0
Hardness: 75
Alkilinaty: 40-80
pH: about 6.8

I'm a little stressed out about this. I'm feeling under the weather, much like my fish, and we're leaving for Hawaii in less than 2 days, and I won't be able to help either of my fish then. I don't mean to rush you, but ! (Btw, Pictures are probably an impossibility given the circumstances.) Sorry I didn't post sooner.

Sounds bacterial with the bottom sitting and sore. The scale loss isnt good unless youve seen him scratching?
Have a look at his inner gills and see if they are a cherry red. Its best if you can catch him and use a fingernail to lift the gill to get a good look and see if you can see any white lumps.

I completly forgot to mention somthing:
His poo is a cloudy white. Bacterial?
I've neveer een him scratching, just darting, but it's possible.
I fed him some jello to make him open his gills, and they don't look all that red. I don't think they're healthy. There were no bumps on them, but as I examined him, I noticed that he has a couple small white bits of fuzz on him that look a little like cotton. they're definatly 3D, not flat. Also a small red sore near his lower back, a bit like the one on his face, but not as bad or large. the biggest bit of fuzz i on his wen, as are most of them, with 1 or 2 tiny ones on his scales. He has a tiny red sore on the joint of one of his fins, too.

I'm really getting worried. I can't believe I let my fish be this way for almost a week. We were just paying attention to the babysitting issues and getting ready for the vacation and me trying to do other things, that I practically neglected him. I don't hink I'm cut out for fish...

Sure you are because you do worry about them and that in my book means you're a good fishkeeper.

Just to recap, can you list all the meds you have at your place? I have a feeling you're running with 2 problems here, both parasites and subsequent bacteria.

I would salt the tank to 0.3% - over the next 24 hours (ie. now + 12hrs later + 12hrs later = 24hrs) starting with 0.1% but medicating if you're leaving in 2 days will be tricky.

If you medicate the water, you'll need to make sure you do a 90% waterchange before you leave and the meds can run between now and the big waterchange. It may not be enough to get rid of the bacteria though. Will anyone be feeding your fish while you're away? You could start feeding medicated food and salt the tank - this way your water quality won't go down the toilet while you're away, especially as a lot of bacterial waterborne meds mess with the beneficial bacteria in your filter

Do you have any medicated food?

I have Melafix and Stresscoat currently in the water.
I have AP Pro Quick Cure, Mardel, AP Plus Anti-Fungus, and powdered Maracyn Two.
I can make time to go to the lfs if I need to. There is a family friend that was going to take my ribbontail to her house for babysitting, and we all agreed that it would be better if she came to our house instead so she can help the Oranda too.

New Development: the large fuzzball on his wen was dangling by an invisible thread after I posted this, and has fallen off leaving a pinkish-red sore, diffrent from the one on the front, but just like the one on his body. the one on the front of his face looks more like an injury.

I forgot to post last time that his eyes look diffrent. the pupils are the same, but the irises used to just be mirrored yellow, but now I see a vein on them and there's a big dark area on each of them, covering the top 1/4th of the irises. They don't look great. He looks like he feels terrible. He just sits there. Could it be internally bacterial? I've seen a liquid product for medicating dry food.

JenW I forgot to say that I saw this liquid at the lfs that you're supposed to put in a fish's dry food to act as a sort of medicated food. I won't know exactly what it was called untill the morning, and that's pushing it. I'll tell my mom that we need to make a lfs trip and try and get the medication as fast as I can. As to how I'm going to do that, as well as prepare everything that needs preperation before 2PM tommorow (probably closer to 12:00 noon, by the Forum's clock), I don't really know. One thing is for shure: 10$ a day isn't close to what caring for my fish will be worth!

As you're going away, I would go with food that contains meds in it because you don't want your water all messed up while you're away. That would do more damage. But it sounds like a nasty bacteria and it's a pity you don't have any Metromeds They're an excellent medicated food for both internal and external bacteria.

Does your friend have any fish knowledge? Because if so, you could go with a dose of Maracyn and then do a massive waterchange after the required days otherwise medicated food and salt would be the safest while you're gone.

So post back what this liquid is for food... and i would try to make some gel food out of it. If you soak food in the meds, once they hit the water - the meds usually leech out. Making up gel food with the meds is an excellent way to feed as the gelatin will set the medicine within the food so there's little or no waste

The petsitter usualy dosen't do fish too often, but she says she has fishkeeping friends. I'd feel a little odd about asking them to do somthing so laber intensive, though. the Oranda wasn't even part of the deal originally. But I'll post back as soon as I can, assuming I'm able to get to the lfs in the morning. There's already another difficulty: We'll be gone for about 4 hours tommorow, but nobody knows when yet! My sister is coming home from a trip and needs us there, so it could be hectic. Either way, I'll probably stay home in the morning to finish what needs taking care of and post back.

OK on the gel food, but I'll be making 2 batches, 1 for the ribbontail and one for the oranda, unless you think I should medicate both. The ribbontail is still in the 10 gallon. Would it be easier to answer if you knew what the product was?

Anyway, when I think about it I'll probably have enough time in the morning to get it ready. I'll post as soon as I return with the medicine.

The medicine is the most important part so post back the contents - if it's good for gram negative and gram positive bacteria, even better

And no, I wouldn't feed it to your ribbontail unless she's ill. I know she has severe swim bladder issues but medicating without any illness isn't a good idea...

OK I have it! Finally...
they didn't have wht I remembered, but the had somthing else.

All the product seems to be called is "Anti-Bacteria Medicated Fish Food". It's made by 'Jungle'.
The description reads: "Aids in control of internal bacterial infections (such as bacterial enteritis, septecemia, kidney dsease, wasting), and aids with many external infections, open sores, ulcers, columnaris and fin rot. Also helps reduce the effects of microsporidian infections such as Pleistophora, the causative agent in neon tetra disease."
Elswhere on the box it says "For All Aquarium fish".
The active ingredients are: Sodium Sulfathiazole 2.3%, nitrofurazone0.13%


Since you mentioned parasites, I also purchased the "Anti-Parasite Medicated Fish Food; For Internal Parasites" It's also made by Jungle.
The active ingredients are: metronidazole 1.0%, praziquantel 0.5%, levamisloe 0.4%



What do you think? Are you familiar with these active ingredients? Did I get ripped off? The anti-parasite said internal parasites, so I doubt it would treat him if his parasties are external, but I got it just in case.
It's about 1:22PM here. I'll be checking the forum consistantly untill I have to leave.

I'm starting him on the antibacterial medicated food.

I'd feed the medicated food also. Before you leave for vacation, I'd do a massive (80%) waterchange to tide them over for 2 weeks. I'd also salt the tank - it can't hurt. That way if it's an external parasite, the salt should take care of this and the medicated food will help with bacteria.

Do they like the taste of the Jungle medicated food?

Also, medicated parasite food isn't a bad thing to keep on hand especially if it contains metronidazole - this is a good antibiotic and eradicates some internal parasites. So no, you weren't ripped off. I'd want them in my cupboard.

So excellent water, salt and medicated food should hopefully see them pick up

Well the oranda seems to like the medicated food. I was only able to change about 4 gallons, though, so it'll be really close. We did a change of 50% Wed. so it should hold him a week and a half I think. His water isn't too bad, but I wish I could do better.
My other fish's water could be better too, so I'll see what I can do. If all else, the petsitter can alert us of anything extreme. Would it be a good idea to still do the Maracyn Two? She agreed to start it on Wednesday if his condidion dosen't improve. Online my dad read that someplace that the antibacteria food dosen't react with anything.

Anyway, I'm not going to be able to interact with the forums a whole lot after this post. I'll wait 20 Min, but then I'm offline for the next 9 days. In case I don't get a chance to say it before then, thanks a lot JenW, you really saved the day. Dot and Bubbles appretiate it.

That's a pleasure

I wouldn't medicate the tank because you need to do big waterchanges in between plus it can mess with your cycle so I would stick to some salt and just the medicated food. The one thing in all this is to try and keep the water as perfect as possible so no other problems arise.

I hope you have a great holiday and you come back to healthy, strong fish

I regret to say that I have some bad news. We returned to find that, despite my last-minute effort, what was done was not enough to keep Bubbles the Oranda from passing on. The pet-sitter left us a sympathetic letter on the table, telling what happened. It she claims that he appeared to be fine, swimming around and such, all the way until two days ago, when she returned to find him floating around the top of the tank. He's currently waiting to be burried in a temporary resting place, where the sitter was kind enough to place him.

I think she did all that she could, but our timing unfortunatly didn't coencide with his. Honestly, while I regreted going for some time, knowing that this was a bad time to leave home for several reasons, I have mixed emotions about staying home. I'm sorry he's gone. We all have a lot of memories surrounding him, and it will take time to recover, but I have to wonder; would he have survived if I was here? Maybe. But I would have had a much harder time mourning him if I had been there when it happened. But for this I feel guilt. I also feel guilty because I know my brother David was much closer to Bubbles than I was, because I made him take over the task of feeding him. He isn't taking it well...

It's hard to remember what he looked like already. Thinking about him isn't the same as being with him, but I'd rather hold on to the memories I do have then replace them with these. Cleaning out the 29gallon will be hard.


Sad as this might be, I'm stunned, but not entirely suprised. I knew he was sick.


There is one last thing for me to cling too, though,: when I came into the room, I was greeted by Dot. She somehow managed to outlive yet another generation. She truly amazes me, and for that I'm extremly grateful. She was worrying me too, because I was having a hard time getting her to take food from the turkeybaster before we left. Somehow she came through though, and reminds me again how much I've fallen in love with her, tiny little fish that she is.


Again, I want to thank you, JenW. Though things are what they are, I appretiate you being there for me at such a frantic time. I'm very grateful.

Well, I suppose there's nothing else left to do;

Aww - i'm so sorry Don't feel guilty, you really did do everything you could especially within the parameters you had to work with.

I'm that pleased Dot's still doing ok - It would be even better if you post one day that she's doing well

Hopefully that will be soon, but for now she's just doing well. We're not giving up yet.
However, school has started up, making things a little more complicated. It will take better planning of time on our part here, but I think I can still get it done.

I know you can