Aloha,

I have a black turned gold oranda that first started floating upside down. He now has these white turned black spots on his wen. It almost looks like it's eating away at his wen. He swims and eats well. The other Ornada in the tank does not have this. Please help.

Mahalo,
Kehau

Aloha!! I take it you are from Hawaii, such a beautiful place.
Hello and welcome, sorry to hear you have an ill fish.

We need for you to answer all the questions at the top of the page, so that we have complete information to help make a diagonsis. Thanks.

Post back soon and we can get started. Also if you can include a picture would be useful. Since you are new here you will have to set up a photobucket account from their site (it is free) as you haven't earned enough posts here to directly post a picture to your thread.
Just add the link from the photobucket act to your reply.

Thanks.

Aloha,

Yes, I am from Maui. Sorry I'm really new at this as you can tell. My tank size is a 60 gallon with 2 Oranda's in it about 6 inches long each. The filter is called uniquarium. No medication or new fish. The only thing is those spots that almost look like mildew on his wen. Floating upside down would be the only unusal behavior. Eco-Start is my water conditioner. PH level is 6.0 today.

I hope I've answered most of the questions. Let me know if there are anymore that you would like me to answer.

Mahalo,
Kehau

Ah, Maui..........you are a lucky person. It is 34F here today in Michigan!!! I can't wait for summer to see the sun!

Ok back to the fish.
There are some answers you didn't get to, so if you could fill those in that would help.
I am interested to see what the levels of the ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are.
Ammonia burns can often look blackish/brownish on the fish, this is most likely what it is. So getting that water tested for those is step one.

How many gals of water does the filter filter an hour?

That is ok with being new, we all were at some time.

Aloha Laurie,

Thanks for all the advice. Yes, my ammonia level was high. I did a 25% water change and added Amquel. As of how many gallons are filtered I'm really not sure. My tank was a Salt Water tank before I converted it to fresh water. It has those bio balls in the back. There is no carbon which I now am thinking that I may have to add to the filter. What do you think?

Mahalo,
Kehau

Oh! that's sounds cold where you are at.....

Honestly, carbon isn't necessary to good filtration but it helps when trying to remove chemicals from the water eg. meds etc

The best filtration for goldies is both biological and mechanical so sponge and bio balls (ceramic noodles etc) to house good bacteria...

If you can, it would be helpful to see what your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels as Laurie asked as it's important to rule out water quality issues. Bacterial infections can take hold when fish become stressed and one of the biggest stressors is water quality. It's also important that if meds are needed, water quality is excellent because medicating with toxic water can do more damage than good.

So if you can, please post back some numbers on:

- ammonia
- nitrites
- nitrates
- pH

to paint a clearer picture of what's happening. If you don't have test kits, perhaps you have a local aquarium that can test the water for you