Goldfish wasting away...

Sleepy

My common goldfish has been sick for nearly two weeks now.

Symptoms started out as staying on the bottom of the tank, fin clamping and some fin rot. Did a 20% water change and treated with eSHa 2000 for 3 days but she just got worse.

Did another 50% water change and treated with TetraMedica GoldMed and she's still just got worse. She's just looking pitiful at this stage: lethargic, fins clamped tight, slimecoat largely gone and her tail is half gone to finrot. I'm completely out of ideas and the other half is very upset as we've had her almost as long as we've been together.

The water is absolutely perfect. Only thing I can think of that's been any different than normal was that I fed her some of our clown loaches bloodworm for the first time about 3 weeks ago after reading online that it can be good for them as an occasional treat...

Silverfish

Do you have any water test results?

Sounds like either water quality problems or could be bacterial / parasite related.
She didn't have ich recently, did she?

Sleepy

Nitrates, Nitrites and Ammonia are all at 0 after all the water changes I've been doing (minimum of 10% a day). Prior to the changes, the only one above 0 were the Nitrates. PH is the same 7.5 it's always been.

Had ich about 4/5 months ago and had appeared to be fully recovered.

Only change I can think of beyond the bloodworm was beginning to use API Stress Coat instead of Nutrafin Aquaplus. Have continued to use this for all the water changes.

fungun

how long have you been doing daily water changes? if its long enough to know its not of any benefit, personally id stop it (prob goes against most advice but ive had issues with incoming water before) and put in carbon filter & polyfilter to try and clean out the water thats in there of any potential contaminant. The only other general thing I might do for symptoms like this is to stop feeding for a few days - if there is any issue from the worms/bloating/constipation then a bit of starvation wont go astray
I tend to use melafix when fish are sick/for fin rot but not sure if what you put in is the same type of thing. Dont really have too much knowledge on goldfish, sorry cant offer more.....some tropical fish cant take worms (e.g. some cichlids) , might be worth googling your breed of goldfish to check its ok...not sure if this is potentially a problem or not.

However let me say for the record that this is what Id do for tropical fish, really dont know anything about goldfish health!

Hope it works out....however if you and your partner have been together a while then maybe the fish is just getting on a bit!!

Silverfish

I'd lay off the water changes for a while, every time you add new water it's changing the temperature and new minerals / metals whatever that she'll have to adjust to each time.

Silly question, but you are just dosing the amount of stress coat for the amount you're putting back in, not the whole tank?
I know a few people who won't use it as they reckon it's an irritant to the fish, I never had any issues with it however, I just stopped using it cos it doesn't remove as much of the harmful stuff from the water as Prime etc.

Other than that, just try keep the nitrates low, might be worth trying to pick up a bottle of Waterlife Myxazin just in case there's no improvement.

Sleepy

Yep, just treating the replacement water.

Will get the Myxazin at lunch time and see if it helps

fred funk }{

Sound like an internal parasite. I saw three of my big Clown Loaches waste away several years ago. They literally wasted away and died, I tried all sorts of meds but they didn't work.

Silverfish

Sleepy wrote: »

Yep, just treating the replacement water.

Will get the Myxazin at lunch time and see if it helps

Try see if you can get a bottle of Seachem Prime as well.

Sleepy

I've been looking out for that in every fish and pet shop I've visited and have yet to find it in stock!

BigAl81

The Orchard in Celbridge has it, or you can get it on Amazon ;o)

Sleepy

RIP Dory

Since I'm unsure as to what killed her, I presume the best thing to do with the tank is fully empty it, disinfect everything in it and re-cycle the tank?

What's the best disinfectant to use for this for this BTW? Am I looking at Milton or something similar or something completely different like a strong Saline solution?)

Silverfish

Aw no, poor Dory

I normally clean out my tanks with water and vinegar, and rinse it out very very well. Salt solution would be no harm as well.

Sleepy

Doesn't look as if I'm going to get a chance. My partners Dad arrived up to the house with three new goldfish for the tank because the kids were upset...

So, now have 3 young goldfish in a 100l tank that may be contaminated! :eek: I do think, however, that it was a parasite that got Dory, the water was treated with such a wide range of medications (all broad spectrums) that there surely couldn't be anything harmful to the fish alive in it?!

I presume the tank will be big enough for them for a few years at least? I have an eheim pickup 160 internal filter in the tank so it's well filtered.

Silverfish

Well, you know what I'm going to say

But what can you do. Anyway, it's when they're young that they grow the most. They release a growth inhibitor in urine that will stunt growth when there is a buildup of this in the tank.
Technically, if you reduce the quantity of this via regular and frequent water changes, they really will not know the size of their environment from a biological point of view, so should grow normally.
I'd say maybe 2 x 25% water changes a week.
And I would definitely switch to Prime, as it removes more toxins from the water, and won't clog gills.

Sleepy

Does filtration do anything to remove that inhibitor? Or could I help it to via the use of activated carbon?

The Eheim Pickup 160 is backed up by a Stingray 15 so it's a combined 800lph filtration in a 100 litre tank.

While I know they really should have a much bigger tank, there's not much I can do about it at the moment. I can't really return them / give them away when they're a present from the kids Granddad and there's no way I could afford a 300 litre tank at the moment

Silverfish

No of course not, the filter is certainly up to the job, so with regular water changes once or twice weekly, they'll be okay, it'll buy you a year or two at least. And never look a gift fish in the mouth :pac:

Keep an eye on your water params now for the next few weeks cos you've gone from one fish to three fish so it'll take a while for the bacteria to catch up.

Once you keep on top of the water changes and keep the nitrates as low as possible then I'm sure they'll do ok. Moss balls are also good for keeping nitrates low.

Are they fancies or commons? If they're commons, you could start digging for a pond :pac:

Sleepy

Commons, far too many cats in this neighbourhood and I'm renting so a pond isn't really an option...

The tank could be a good home for them until we've our own place and that becomes an option though