Ammonia: 0, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate: 5, Ph:7.0
55 gal tank running 7 months with two Emperor 400s. I do a 25% to 50% water change weekly. There are four three inch and three two inch fish that are eating Pro-gold, spirulina flakes, frozen bloodworms and peas. I have one 3" oranda that has a case of fin rot that I have been battling for a few months now and 2" pearlscale that is recovering from fin rot but now just bottom sitting. All of the fish gulp air at the top of the tank after feeding even though I have always soaked their food.

I purchased all of the fish at the same time last October from a breeder that had them outdoors in a pond together. After bringing them home I fought the cycle for about four weeks before it stabilized. I salted the water to 3% for a month, used Maracyn and Maracyn II, Parasite Clear and fed medi-gold for a month. The pearlscale, however, was the first to show signs of a problem. She would stay hanging in the bubbles for a couple of months then developed a case of fin rot and bottom sitting. When the oranda also developed a case of fin rot a couple of months ago and then hanging in the bubbles, I researched on the internet and thought that they might have gill flukes so I used Clout, did a massive water change and then treated a week later with Prazi-Q. When the oranda showed no signs of improvement and in fact seems worse, I purchased a microscope. I tried doing a gill scrape and a slime coat scrape and can see no evidence of anything that I recognize from 'Fancy Goldfish' or the internet. I do not know what to do now. The pearlscale is bottom sitting, the oranda is hanging in the bubbles until he can only float at the top he is so full of air, my ryukin has started hanging in the bubbles until she is also full of air and floating at the top, and all of the fish gulp surface air after eating. Help!!!!

Hi, sorry to hear about your fishies. I dont know what could be wrong with them. Your tank does seem a bit overstocked though. A 55 gallon tank is big enough for only 5 goldfish. And did you mean 0.3% for salt, cause 3% is crazy high. Is the tank oxygenated, try adding an airstone. Also make sure not to overfeed them.

Yes, I meant .3%. I have a bubble wand and that is what they have been sucking up the air in. I turned off the wand yesterday as an experiment. So far I have had no floating issues since they don't have the bubbles to suck up. The surface gasping seems less as well. Is there a possibility that the bubble wand could be toxic in some way? It is one of the blue flexible ones.

I don't think the bubble wand would be toxic personally. I do know that when I have had a tank full of only female fish they can get egg impacted and hang around at the surface gulping a bit. I found raising the temp and adding a male stopped this. I don't know if that's what's going on here at all but it's something to think on. You could see if there is a single egg bubble in the poop?

It also sounds like a lot of medicine over a relatively short period of time and this can take its toll on the fish. Are you monitoring the cycle which may have taken a few bumps even though your readings today are fien. Mmm. I would also say that many pearlscales do not seem to do well at all in .3% salt. I have found some of the pearls pop. I usually do up to .2% for pearls. Just some ideas, I really feel for you as you seem to be doing what you can for them.

The oranda with the fin rot is definetely a male and I think one of the other orandas might be as well but he is all white so it is hard to see the breeding stars.

I check the water weekly before and after my water changes and it has stayed pretty stable since I cycled. The tank is barebottom to try to minimize any lurking problems. My biggest mistake was probably too many water changes - I had no nitrate build up for a while but seem to have stabilized at 5.

I forgot to mention that their is thin clear to white poop floating in the tank on occasion; sometimes there is a single bubble in it. I think all evidence points to parasitic infections....???? I did feed with Medi-worm for a month and did the Prazi-Q so I am just not sure... I am worried; even though it seems to progress slowly I can see the same symptoms reoccuring.

I have not purchased a heater yet. I live in southwest Florida and my ambient room temperature is rarely under 75 even in the winter - should I try raising the temp?

The temperature sounds fine.
The poop sounds suspicious. Bacterial infections can make poop look white and stringy. It can also be seen occasionally in fish that have been fed a new diet or medication though. I don't think this is parasitic because parasites are usually introduced through new fish, plants or other new items in the tank. It could be bacterial. I would wonder about zero nitrates which might have been a cycle bump. Also, if your males are not well they will not chase the female and if she is gravid she will not release the eggs without the chase so I still think there's a possibility the fish at the top could be egg-impacted. I am assuming your pH has been stable all along which can also make fish gulp air at the top..I'm sorry, I'm running out of ideas and hope someone else will offer you more advise.
For the finrot, salting is usually very effective.

Hi.Are you able to take a look at the gills and tell us what they look like?Are they red/meaty--paler pink in color-do they look clear or like they are kind of glopped together for lack of better words. Any dark spots on or around their outer gill area? Is their poo brown/chunky/long thick brown,or are they all now pooing white?
Alot of pond kept fish do end up bringing some sort of Parasites into the house.Salting for a month at 0.3 % should have taken care of most of them.Ther are though,a few parasites that seem to have become resistent to the salt treatments,but I see that you've used quite a few treatments here..
I just want to add /ask,if you were keeping a good eye on the adding of the salt?There is a thing called "Salt Creep".Salt doesn't dissipate from your water,so the only way to rid it in the tank is to do alot of big water changes.An over abundance of salt build up in the water can also cause problems too like shredded fins and such.
Are you still adding salt to the tank?
My only problem with all of this is the fact that these fish have had so many treatments of medication/medicated foods constantly,which can wear a fish's immune system down from the stress of it all.Have they ever had a period of time where water was just water,Ammonia and Nitrites were 0 and Nitrates were under 20?
I am far from the expert here,but I worry when so much medication and salt is involved.As for the Nitrates,was that 50 ppms?If so,I'd do enough water changes to lower that to around 20-under 20 is even better.
How often are you cleaning their filters,and how?

The male oranda with the fin rot has gills that are normal looging in appearance and color, not gloppy or pale at all but not a really dark red either. I just purchased my microscope so I am new but I really don't see anything at all at 40x magnification that looks like a parasite. If you know of any good references for pictures I would appreciate it.

When I was salting to .3%, I added water with no salt in it first to bring the tank up to full before doing a water change to make sure that I did not have a salt creep. After about a month, though, I noticed that one of my ryukins with a white head looked almost dried out and they were still having the gulping problems. That is when I thought that maybe it was a gill fluke problem. I completely emptied the tank to remove as many parasites as possible and cleaned the filters, replacing the pads (the biowheels I didn't touch). After refilling the tank and making sure that I didn't have any 'new tank syndrome' after the cleaning is when I used the Clout. That didn't seem to have any affect either so I did two 50% water changes a week apart and added the carbon back to my filter to remove the medicants. I then tried the Prazi-Q and then once again used the carbon and water changes to remove it from the tank. I have been doing 25 to 50% water changes since every week-end since then so they have been in medicant free water for a month now and appear to be worsening. It has been close to 2 months since I have had salt in the water.

The nitrates are at 5, really to low to measure but I do a lot of water changes.

As far as cleaining the filter, I have only cleaned it once, about 6 weeks ago. I took it apart and scrubbed out the arms, rinsed it out and replaced the filter pads. The bio-wheels I have not touched.

I don't know if this is a clue but when the first fish showed signs of this she was hanging nose down in the bubbles of the bubble wand for about two months (I thought she was playing); then she developed frayed fins (which could of been from the salt), not really a true rot and now is bottom sitting. The second fish started out the same, nose down in the bubbles but has developed a true case of fin rot and is now hanging near the top with his nose down, lower back area near the surface. All of the fish surface gulp mostly for a couple of hours after feeding. I now have two previously incredibly healthy looking fish that were starting to hang nose down in the bubble until they were developing floating problems so I turned off the bubbles. Now one of those fish is also hanging out at the surface, nose down, lower back at the surface and gulping after feeding.

I just fed my fish their evening meal. I had described what they are doing as gasping but it really doesn't look like a gasp. They are more sucking frantically at the surface like they were trying to vacuum it up. I have always fed sinking, soaked pellets as did the previous owner.

Hi there.


I have a few questions for you if you don't mind:


Do you test every week for ammonia and nitrItes along with nitrAtes?



When you broke the entire tank down and cleaned everything, you probably destroyed the colonies of bacteria that are responsible for the nitrification process. This leads to new tank syndrome and could be the reason why you weren't registering nitrAtes for a while. Never perform a 100% cleaning of the tank and filter unless your prepared to re-cycle and cause more stress than the cleaning helped. Also, nitrAtes never stabilize, ever. They continually rise. Thus, one of the reasons for regular testing and waterchanges.

Parasites incite the following behaviors:

-scratching on the gravel, glass or ornaments with their sides
-pacing along the sides of the tank rubbing their gills or sides
-mouth chattering or seeming to cough (as well as a fish can)
-rapid fin flickering


Usually all of the symptoms above are seen in parasite cases in some ratio or another. Otherwise parasites aren't to be suspected as the continuing cause of the symptoms. Now a facultative parasite (part time) could have been a factor in the recent past and caused gill damage enough that its taking a while to heal completely. This can sometimes take a few months. I've seen and dealt with cases where one side of the fishes gills rotted away to almost nil but after the proper treatment was administered the gill lamellae grew completely back. The secret is stability. To an extent, stability is more important than quality...... I would suggest that you not perform so many waterchanges. Too many waterchanges causes the water chemistry to fluctuate too much. Just work on keeping your nitrAtes below 40ppm and you'll be doing just fine. Also, it sounds as though you have excellent filtration and if you keep the water level so that the return slide of the filters broadcasts the water out rippling across the surface, you'll be adding all the aeration you need. I stopped using aerators in my goldfish tanks long ago and have never found a problem with 02 in the water columns.


Hope this helps!


PAul

Thank you for your reply. Yes I do check every week before and after my water changes.

Basically it sounds like I should just keep an eye on my water params and cut back on the water changes. I have already turned off the additional aeration.

What should I do about the oranda that has the fin rot and just hangs out at the top when not stimulated? At one point he had the black edges that indicated healing but he is back to the white edges with little pieces breaking off. I don't want to salt the entire tank again. Should I do salt dips, and if so what concentration and for how long?

I have been trying to learn about UV sterilizers recently - would that help?

A UV sterilizer is ALWAYS a boon to any aquatic set-up. When employed correctly, they destroy ANY living micro-organism that enters it.....


Have you seen any of the parasitic symptoms I listed above?

Could you give us a daily briefing of how the fish are acting and any observations that you might make? Like little nuances in their behavior, minute details in their appearance, eating/not eating, etc. Sometimes the smallest detail is all it takes to illuminate the root cause.


PAul

No, I do not see any of the parasite indictions that you listed. I did find a video of a ranchu with "regurgitation reflex": http://www.rafflesgold.com/members/goldrus...gurgitation.wmv
I have seen my fish do this on occassion but not often.

When I changed my water this weekend, I put the male Oranda in the bucket of tank water and examined him again. His gills look healthy and pink with good definition. I did a gill scrape and can see no parasites or evidence of gram positive or negative bacteria. I am new to the microscope but it goes to 40/0.65. I looked at a little piece of his fin that is white and shredding off. Nothing looks unusual.

I dabbed the edges of his fins with hydrogen peroxide to try to dry up the rot but it is not helping. His fins still have white edges that are coming off. If I am not standing at the tank he floats at the top of the tank, head angled down. He has started floating over and laying against the intake tube of the filter, head down back to the tube; when I tap on the tank he swims away, though.

The pearlscale is still bottom sitting but her fins appear to be slowly growing back.

The other fish all appear healthy but gulp at the surface, especially after eating. I noticed one of them sucking air and blowing it out of his gills. I have noticed that my white oranda has a couple of pink veins that are showing in his tail.

I brought the salt back up to 0.3% over the weekend and ordered another round of PraziQ from Goldfish Connection. I keep thinking that they must have gill parasites and possibly my water was too cool to effectively have killed them all. I was going to try to raise the temperature this time and do another week. What do you think?

You are certainly justified in your suspicions of parasites. To me, the coughing while seeming to scoot backwards in the water is a classic symptom of something irritating the gills of the fish. The ranchu in the video is doing EXACTLY what I have seen many times with goldfish that have been infected by some protozoan. Namely chilodonella or tetrahymena.

To test for either tetra or chilo being in your tanks water, you can either search for a shed fish scale or you can place a fish scale into the tank for a day. If you use a scale from a saltwater fish, you shouldn't worry about any kind of infection being added to your tank. Let the scale sit for a day and then pull it out very slowly. Place it on a slide and within minutes you should be able to verify if tetrahymena are indeed there. Tetra LOVES shed scales. As for Chilo, they to seem to like shed scales but they are more of an organism that likes filterbeds and algae. They are little harder to find and identify. I have some excellent pics and video of both that I took from my tanks and fish.

Here's a couple links to some topics that I created: http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=36188 http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=12847


I was never able to find them in scrapes from my fish. That is, except for damaged areas that had some true fungus growing on them. It would seem that tetra and chilo both have a hard time negotiating their way out of the labyrinth of rods that fungus creates.

I was able to destroy tetrahymena with two back-to-back treatments of quick cure. The chilo is next to impossible to totally eradicate as they have the ability to encyst themselves. The cysts aren't succeptable to standard treatments that won't kill the fish. With tetra, you can eliminate, with chilo, whittling down their numbers to a level that allows the fish to regain control of the infection is the best option.

I have a pretty neat technique for detecting parasites that I think you might find worth a try. It takes a little time to construct the device but it worked VERY well for me during my battles with parasites. I'll need to find the links or search through my files for it but when I find it, I'll definitely post it.

I wouldn't bother with a temp raise just yet. If you dose praziquantel every 3 days for two full weeks, no fluke should survive. Besides, temp raises during parasite treatments are only advisable if its definitely either costia or ich.


It sounds as though you are doing about all you can at this point. Keep it up. I'll go look for my detecting technique.......


Paul

Thank you so much!!!!!! I took a sample of goo from my filter and I have a positive id!!!! Tetrahymena. Finally I have a culprit! The problem probably became worse because I removed all of the gravel a few months ago.....

I have a 55 gal tank, in your link it sounds like the entire tank has to be sterilized. Do you suggest keeping the fish in 5 gallon buckets with aeration, daily water changes and salt dips until the tank is disinfected and recycled?

I read your response again, Paul, and you mentioned back to back treatments of Quick Cure which sounds a lot easier than breaking down the tank. Where can I purchase the product and which do you recommend? I have more Praziquantel on the way; will it help at all? Thank you again for all of your help - Traeanne

Awesome! Great sleuthing!


So your pretty positive that you've found tetrahymena in there huh? They're pretty unmistakable once you've seen a few of them. Try clicking around on google images for more pics and examples, just to be sure. Tetra, although unmistakable to me, tends to look a lot like other organisms such as colpoda.



Unfortunately, to run a successful treatment for tetra, a complete breakdown and sterilizing of the tank is my recommendation. There's just no way to kill them ALL off unless the meds in the water retain their efficacy throughout the entire treatment. When the tank has lots of bio-material in it, the meds are depleted fast and the tetra will survive.


Do you have multiple tanks in your house? If so, your going to need to work out how your going to keep from re-infecting your tank once you have the treatment under way or completed. Keeping the two tanks a room length apart is advisable. Also, don't use the same buckets and hoses between tanks. The rest is self explanatory.....

There are two ways you can go as far as the chemical of choice. You can either run a fairly high salinity, say 0.45%, and hit them with salt dips just before adding them to a treatment vat of potassium permanganate (2-4ppm) for 4 hours. There are a couple other ways you can tailor this treatment to the needs of your goldies.

OR

Hit them with salt dips just before adding them to a treatment vat of quick cure. Its not advisable to run a constant salinity in their hospital tank/vat when treating with quick cure. There are a couple ways to tailor this treatment as well.



Tell me some more about your fish that need treatment. Are they.... Floaters? Flippers? Not eating? Piping? Any info will help me to come up with a regime for you......


Post back soon.

They were kind of flea shaped and fast moving, able to flip and turn around quickly. They seemed to have little cilia-like legs (?) sticking out.

Yes, I have a 10 gallon tank with just one oranda in it but I am sure that is infected also. I don't have any gravel, ornaments or plants in either tank, however. Is it possible to treat the fish right in the tanks that they are in since I do not have a lot of bio-material or should I add a second 55 gallon to my tank stand? I just bought a bottle of Quick Cure.

One fish is floating and has fin rot and one is bottom-sitting. The others seem like they are just recently infected, they are just starting to gulp at the surface like the first two before it became full-blown.

I am going to google some more photos to be sure. Thank you again!

It sounds kinda like you might be mistaking euplotes for tetra. The cilia on tetrahymena are not actually visible until you get to a magnification that equals 900X or larger. Even then, you cannot actually SEE the cilia, you only see the suggestion of cilia as they oscillate witch causes a small portion of the outer edge of the cell to appear blurry or "fuzzy".

I am going to start posting some pics of look-a-likes. If you see one that you think looks more similar to what your seeing that what you see in my tetrahymena link, let me know:


Let's start with Euplotes:

http://forum.mikroscopia.com/uploads/post-140-1130861767.jpg

http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-cu...eginIndex%3d360

http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/research-cu...eginIndex%3d360

Here's and excellent page that gives a good impression of size comparison between commonly found ciliates in freshwater: http://members.magnet.at/p.eigner/Diversity.html Note that euplotes (#57) is significantly larger and easier to spot than tetra (#35-36).


I'll be back with more later.

The first picture resembles it but not exactly; the lines inside the body that extend from the "head" region were the same length and extend just past the edge of the body. The shape is about the same, though, as well as the flea-like legs.

There are actually two bugs that look similar to each other, stylonychia and euplotes: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexm...all/cilidr.html

If you actually see what looks to be legs, then your not seeing tetrahymena. However, this doesn't mean that they're not there. Keep looking through your filter mulm for tetra or chilodonella.......

They don't look quite like the pictures but very similar. I guess from your responses that they are not causing my problem.

Can I use a fish scale off of a frozen fish or can I spread more parasites that way?

A scale from a frozen fish is fine. Just be sure that its from a saltwater fish only. That way, any possible parasites that may be on the fish scale cannot survive in the freshwater environment of your tank. It would also be a very good idea to seclude the fish scale somehow so that your fish cannot disturb the scale. The filterbox may not be the best place to set the scale because the high water flow makes it difficult for organisms to colonize it......

Keep trying

I just did another gill scrape on the oranda. I saw a worm-shaped organism that had an elephant trunk-like end. I wish I could give a better description but when I went down to the strongest magnification on my microscope, it was hard to see in the gill tissue. It stopped moving within a few minutes. I want to say it is a gill fluke (?) but don't want to jump to conclusions again. If there is any organism living in the gills is it safe to assume it is parasitic? I am doing a 50% water change today, my salt content should be down around .1% now. I am going to do a double dose of Praziquantel afterwards (1 level tsp treats 100 gal - I have a 55 gal tank) and do a standard dosage every three days for two weeks. I am planning on feeding Medi-worm which is a praziquantel based feed for the treatment period as well. Sound good?

Should I also treat with Clout or Jungle Labs Parasite Clear for a broad-spectrum annihilation?

Thank you for your help, Traeanne

Check this thread here for fluke pics and fluke look-a-likes: http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=38239


When you say an elephant trunk end, do you mean the way the very end of an elephant trunk looks and moves, or the whole thing? If you meant the way the end of the trunk is shaped, cupped like and prehensile, then that would be an accurate description of the "foot" of a fluke.

Did this worm contract and expand pretty easily like a slinky or did it move along in an inchworm like fashion?


Are there any other characteristics or observations that might help?



Post back soon.


Paul

It seemed like the end was almost attached or clinging on at the base. The other end of it was rather prehensile and cup-like and seemed to be trying to reach out and grab something; then retracting back towards the base. I didn't really see it move much but when it did it looked like the trunk-like section retreated back towards the base then the base moved up and the trunk-like section reached out again; I guess more like an inchworm. The body of it seemed more cylindrical than the photos of the flukes in the links, however.

This is much harder than I anticipated! Can a fish have benevolent beings living in the gills?

Not necessarily living in the gills, per se. It's pretty much impossible to get a gill snip/scrape without finding some random beneficial organism on the slide with the sample. Since the gills are like fine feathers when suspended in the water, they tend to get a little debris stuck in them. This is normal as long as the frequency of finding such things in gill samples is random.

The idea is to find a conglomeration of the same organism on a snip/scrape sample. A lone organism, unless positively identified, isn't considered much for concern. Unless, of course, you were to find the same thing in every sample taken.

Here's a couple vids I took of the rotifers that I have in all of my tanks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_EqE8T6yK8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSoFwCkTbj0

There are other species that look similar to this one. However, ALL phylodina rotifers have the retractable corona as seen in the video above.