Help! my husband and I purchased a foreclosed home (no occupancy) with a koi pond.

This morning, I noticed a goldfish hanging by himself and on closer inspection, he's swollen and looks like a pine cone. I have the meds to treat him (Maracyn and Maracyn-two). I think we need to get him out one way or another as I don't want the others to catch what he has.

And yes, i realize dropsy is usually fatal, but I have a betta who's recovered from it in the past.

Please enlighten me on the best course of action to take!! I've never really had fish besides my betta and I am still learning.

This post has been edited by 2BlackCats: Jun 14 2008, 02:39 PM

I ran and got a 10g tote and quaranteed the patient. I filled it with 1/2 pond water and 1/2 fresh water. None of the other residents look to be sick.

Going to mix his meds now. Wish him luck!


edited to add:
Didn't see this before, since we inherited this pond, i'm afraid I don't know too much about it:

Size of aquarium/pond - not sure
Types of fish - koi and goldfish.
Number of fish and sizes - 3 Large, over a foot each. about 2 dozen medium (4-6 inches) and about 2 dozen or more babies (1 inch)
Filtration used and how do you clean it and how often - there is a filter that uses lava rocks, we need to replace the floresent light bulb (was told it costs $500!). The water is drawn into a huge black thing and than runs down a "stream" back into the pond. I use a pool skimmer to clean out debris
How much in the way of water changes and how often -- we add fresh water about once a week. They love to play in the hose stream, it's really cute
Do you dechlorinate - no, should we? not sure what this is
Symptoms of sick fish ie, spots, behaviour, etc - hanging around the edges and by himself, he looks like a bloated pinecone ~ definately dropsy
How long has the fish been sick and which medications are your currently using or recently used - just noticed it today. gave him his first doses of meds: maracyn and marcyn II
Test results for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph both from the tap and tank - do we need to do this?
Anything else you need us to know - we use well water that is not filtered for the fish. We aren't very knowledgable about keeping a pond and any information you can give us would be extremely helpful!

This post has been edited by 2BlackCats: Jun 14 2008, 04:03 PM

When you add fresh water to the pond, you need to dechlorinate it, as water suitable for drinking contains chlorine in it and this can put a strain on fishes health and it also kills of the beneficial bacteria that resides in established ponds/aquariums and keeps the water quality good.
You do need to test the pond for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates- water quality problems are one of the no.1 reasons why fish fall ill, and even if the waterlooks clean it can still have toxins like ammonia or nitrites in it (which are harmful to fish), so its very important to test the water quality with an accurate test kit/s. Understanding how the water quality/nitrogen cycle works in your pond and aquariums is very important when it comes to keeping fish successfully and properly, i recently wrote a long post on understanding water quality in this thread in the link below on post 4;

http://www.fishforums.net/content/Coldwate...-Turning-Pale-/

.


Is the quarantine/hospital tank you have the goldfish in right now filtered? Because it is a new tank set up, it will start to cycle and the water quality will become very unstable for a while; it will be probably best to clone the beneficial bacteria from your pond filter into the new tanks filter by transferring some of the bacteria rich gunk/muck from the pond filter, you will need to definitely dechlorinate the tanks water first though- use a dechlorinator/water conditioner that neutralise's chlorine and heavy metals in the water .


Dropsy is generally not a very infectious condition, however there are many things which can cause this health problem in fish, from water quality problems to internal bacterial or viral infections and even cancer or constipation in the fish etc. Finding out what probably caused the dropsy in the fish is very important when it comes to treating the fish successfully- the first thing we need to do is check is the exact state of water quality of the pond by testing it with accurate test kits for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and ph, because if the fishes condition was caused by stresses it experienced with the ponds water quality, then the other fish could also be at risk.
Because you do not know the gallons/liters of the pond that it holds, what is its length, width and depth and general shape ? Also, how often do you feed the fish and how much on average and what exactly do you feed them as well ?

We have well water, not city water. There is no chlorine in it, it's fresh from the ground. I don't have him in a "real" tank at the moment. I have to go get one today ~ I got him into a 10 gallon bucket so I could start giving him meds right away. I filled it with 1/2 of the pond water and some fresh water.

We were very fortunate yesterday to find a place that specialized in Ponds. The guy gave us lots of advice (which I wrote down) and we got a test kit. We will have this pond back up and running in no time. We are going back with the pond and filter dimensions and we need to purchase a new flouresant light setup and the water test results today.

Should I give Goldie a "normal" indoor fish tank setup for his recovery? He doesn't seem so bloated today and thankfully made it through the night!!

I don't understand what Cycling means...

This post has been edited by 2BlackCats: Jun 15 2008, 01:57 PM

What cycling is (click on links);

<a href="http://www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...-tank-syndrome/" target="_blank">http://www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...-tank-syndrome/</a>

<a href="http://www.fishforums.net/content/Coldwate...-Turning-Pale-/" target="_blank">http://www.fishforums.net/content/Coldwate...-Turning-Pale-/</a>


If the goldfish is looking a little better and you are currently medicating it then it probably is an internal infection, you should avoid feeding it much (and if you do feed it, just give it chopped up de-shelled pea's) just in case it is constipation-related though. If you have the goldfish in a bucket, you change the water daily in it as ammonia will build up otherwise in the tank and cause the fish harm/stress.

Dropsy isn't generally an infectious condition, so you could treat the goldfish in the pond with the other fish, but if you do you will need to treat the pond with a full dose of medication.
If you treat the goldfish in a tank set up though, you will obviously use less meds however even a second hand tank set up could be quite expensive- however on the bright side you can always re-use such a tank if you ever run into future health problems with your fish, and there are certainly some fish diseases where its very important to remove the fish from the rest of the fish. If you get a tank set up, lighting is not really necessary- heating is only necessary if the temp in the tank fluctuates a lot night and daily. Its very important though to get filtration, otherwise the water quality in the tank will be very unstable throughout the course of the fishes medication. When you buy a quarantine/hospital tank, the size of the tank should reflect the size of the fish- if you are only putting small fish in it (i.e. 1-4inches), then a 5gallon-10gallon tank should suffice. If you are putting fish 5-7inches you should get a 15gallon tank at least etc; even though its just a temporary residence for the fish, you don't want to stress it unnecessarily by putting it in a tank thats far too small for it.

You say you are getting fluorescent bulbs for the pond, by this i assume you mean UV lighting? Does the pond have a green water algae problem? If it doesn't then UV lighting is unnecessary as this is what it is primarily used for in ponds.

Some pet shop staff are quite good, but pet shop staff in general receive very basic training on fishkeeping (quite often it doesn't go any further than how to catch a fish and what the basic pieces of fish tank equipment are for) and tend not to be that knowledgeable on fishkeeping and can be quite misinformed on many matters even though they may want to help (you also have to remember that many stuff staff are under much pressure to make as many sales to customers as they can) etc. Taking this into consideration, i would advise that you do as much of your own research as possible, and to check up everything pet shop staff advise you, as this way you will avoid running into problems through trusting poor advice- i've seen so many people come on this forum and end up with fishkeeping problems because they have believed poor pet shop advice, its unbelievable.
At the end of the day, pet shop staff are no more obliged to tell you how to be a good fishkeeper than a car salesman or garage worker is to tell you how to be a good driver etc- so the more sources you use to research and check up your information, the better . There's absolutely nothing wrong in asking pet shop staff for advice, but its definitely worth checking up anything they tell you using up-to-date fishkeeping books or good internet forums and websites etc just to make sure that you aren't been sold anything you don't need or aren't putting your fishes wellbeing at risk through poor advice info/advice etc .

This post has been edited by Tokis-Phoenix: Jun 16 2008, 05:59 AM

Thanks for your help Tokis!

Unfortunately, Goldie died the next day.

Our pond is doing quite well. As I said previously, we found a small business that specialized in Ponds (http://www.watergardenandkoi.com/index.html). They taught us about how to care for our pond, maintaining water quality, explained our bio-filter set up, and how to care for our fish (we only had lava rocks up to this point as the rest wasn't working). They explained in detail how to maintain our filter so it keeps working effectively and explained the different types of filter medium to catch all the gunk. They calculated our pond measurments for us and we have approximately a 2000-2200 gallon pond.

We were surprised to find that the water tested perfectly (at least the lava rocks were working and the pond doesn't seem to be overstocked). We had to replace the entire UV setup, but they also took the time to walked DH through the process and explained how it functioned. This is taking care of the "greenish" water and after 3 days, we can actually see the fish much better now. Feeding time is much more enjoyable.

Over the course of 2 days, they spent almost 3 fulls hours with us. It's such a relief to know that things are ok and that Goldie's illness is most likely an isolated incident. I made sure to take lots of notes!!!

Just have to add, even if you're using well water, it's still a good idea to use a dechlorinator b/c it also gets rid of heavy metals in the water.


And that is a great looking pond!! The previous owners obviously cared for it very well, wow.
It's sad to hear that the dropsy fish died though, but looks like you have a ton of others to worry about... WOW

This post has been edited by Amunet: Jun 23 2008, 04:43 AM