Missing Scales On Goldfish

[3ndl3r]

i noticed a few of my goldfishes scales are missing. some on each side. the fish himself is in top condition, feeding, active etc etc....

is there any reason for this and is it a problem? what actions can i take?

Thanks

 

[three-fingers]

If there's other goldfish in with it there's probably just been a bit of rough play going on, or it's got a fright at some point and knocked itself against something.

I used to have a 5" common and 6" shub that would knock each other around from time to time, used to see quite a few missing scales on the common but no real harm was done .

I wouldn't worry about it if he's in otherwise good health .

 

[3ndl3r]

yes, he is with soem other goldfish. hes the biggest of the group. hes just pushing 7-8" the rest are sort of 2-3".


cheers three fingers

 

[Colin_T]

just monitor the site for fungus. It shouldn't occur but might.

 

[3ndl3r]

ok thanks, how can i prevent fungus, and how do i treat it?

cheers

 

[Colin_T]

if the fish is healthy and the damage minor then it shouldn't get fungus. The fish's immune system usually prevents it from getting in and infecting the site. However it can still affect any fish.
You can add some rock salt or swimming pool salt to help reduce the chances. Use 1 heaped tablespoon of salt per 20litres of tank water. Keep the salt level here for a week or so and then do small (10-20%) water changes to dilute it.
If the damaged area goes white and fluffy then fungus has gotten into the site and the salt should clear it up. If it doesn't you can double the amount of salt in the water or use a fungus remedy from the petshop.
But see how the fish does before you treat them. Quite often there won't be any problems.

 

[3ndl3r]

thanks colin!

 

[three-fingers]

if the fish is healthy and the damage minor then it shouldn't get fungus. The fish's immune system usually prevents it from getting in and infecting the site. However it can still affect any fish.
You can add some rock salt or swimming pool salt to help reduce the chances. Use 1 heaped tablespoon of salt per 20litres of tank water. Keep the salt level here for a week or so and then do small (10-20%) water changes to dilute it.
If the damaged area goes white and fluffy then fungus has gotten into the site and the salt should clear it up. If it doesn't you can double the amount of salt in the water or use a fungus remedy from the petshop.
But see how the fish does before you treat them. Quite often there won't be any problems.

I don't see how such a tiny concentration of salt is going to reduce the chances of fungus at all?
Over the short term it wont harm the fish, but then I don't see it doing anything at all in such small concentrations.
Over the long term it could potentially harm the fish though.
See this thread, and this site for info on using salt.
If there is no sign of fugus or anything, I would do nothing at all. If there is some, I'd add some pimafix to the tank, which is an all-natural medicine specifically for anti-fungal use - and it works very well.

 

[Colin_T]

I don't see how such a tiny concentration of salt is going to reduce the chances of fungus at all?
Over the short term it wont harm the fish, but then I don't see it doing anything at all in such small concentrations.
Over the long term it could potentially harm the fish though.
See this thread, and this site for info on using salt.
If there is no sign of fugus or anything, I would do nothing at all. If there is some, I'd add some pimafix to the tank, which is an all-natural medicine specifically for anti-fungal use - and it works very well.

1 heaped tablespoon per 20litres of tank water is the dose I have been using for years and it works fine for preventing fungus and also for killing lots of skin parasites on fish. If you want you can double the dose to 2 heaped tablespoons but I don't recommend that unless the lower concentration isn't working. And right now we are looking at preventing any fungus from appearing, not actually treating it.

three-fingers, you seem to be contradicting yourself. In one sentence you say the level of salt is so low it's not going to do anything, and in another you say it could harm the fish if used for prolonged periods of time.

 

[three-fingers]

I've used salt in the past in those sort of levels and even higher found it completely ineffective against fungus...I wouldn't recommend it.
In your case I'd just say it was just the fishes healthy immune systems that prevented fungus, nor did the disappearance of parasites have anything to do with such low salt levels - you would need much higher concentrations to treat most most parasites.

The thread I linked to is a very good read .
As explained there, it's a simple case of the salt just having so little difference that any problems caused by salt over the long term would be more easily explained by other factors anyway. But looking at the fish in questions physiology and natural environment suggests that it could be harming the fish.

Don't see how I'm contradicting myself, makes sense to me . It's like lot's of things. For example diet drinks containing certain carcinogenic sweeteners are hardly going to harm you if you only have one once, but if you drink the on a regular basis it would be an issue.

I guess it doesn't matter, since we're not talking about long term here, but at best it's doing the fish a tiny tiny bit of harm at a time when your wanting their immune systems to be at their best.
As an actual treatment for fungus, you can use salt in higher doses out of the tank, but it wont get rid of fungus or parasites at this dosage. If the dosage we're talking about here was high enough to kill fungus or parasites, it would cause other problems...

I'd recommend proper antifungus treatments (pimafix being my favourite), salt baths out of the tank or nothing at all .

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I'm going to agree with three-fingers here, salt treatment (especially in the long term) is unnecessary for fish, if you want to help prevent secondary infections setting into fishes wounds then you should use Melafix or Pimafix and regular small water changes, or no meds and just regular small water changes to help keep the water quality super clean.

Also i have to warn people that salt is not some magical cure-all, it can only treat a limited array of parasites/diseases (mostly external parasites though), and a lot of parasites/diseases it cannot treat (for example there are certain strains of bacterial diseases which are not negatively affected by salt), and in some cases will even make them more lethal (like dropsy- adding salt to the water makes this 10times more lethal to the fish affected). Salt treatment in the long term on freshwater fish will inevitably have a negative impact on the fishes osmotic processes and wear the fish out in the long time (reducing its natural maximum life expectancy), making it more vulnerable to conditions like kidney failure, so salt should only ever be used for treating very specific diseases/parasites and preferably only on very salt-tolerant species of fish (since there are many types of fish which are not very tolerant of salt at all, and which you could do more harm to them by treating them with the stuff etc) .

 

[Colin_T]

I would rather be exposed to salt than any of the chemicals in fish medications. Salt will do minor damage by comparison to fish medications containing malachite green, formaldehyde and all those other nasty ingredients.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I would rather be exposed to salt than any of the chemicals in fish medications. Salt will do minor damage by comparison to fish medications containing malachite green, formaldehyde and all those other nasty ingredients.

Nobody is suggesting using such strong medications on the fish, and while such medications are designed to be fish safe, salt is not.
Perhaps next time you should consider not getting vaccinated because formaldehyde is used in vaccinations. Simply put, Formaldehyde preserves or fixes tissue or cells by irreversibly cross-linking primary amino groups in proteins with other nearby nitrogen atoms in protein or DNA through a -CH2- linkage. Used in the correct doses and used for the right reasons, it is not dangerous to fish and is better at treating certain fish ills than what salt is.
Malachite green is toxic to human beings, but it is safe (in the right doses of course) for fish and it can be used as a topical antiseptic or to treat parasites, fungal infections, and bacterial infections in fish and fish eggs. While salt would kill off your batch of cory eggs off, malachite green will not. Salt can be easily lethal to fish like corys, but malachite green is not easily lethal to them etc.

The fact of the matter, is that these "nasty chemicals" are not bad for fish when used properly and are often a lot better/more effective and a lot safer than salt. Just because salt is a natural mineral, does not mean that its great for all freshwater fish. I don't know if you actually know this or not, but Pimafix and Melafix are made out of all-natural ingredients- Melafix is extract of Tea Tree and Pimafix is extract of West Indian Bay Tree- not so nasty sounding now are they now? And thats all we're advising this person to use (if anything at all).

 

[Colin_T]

I don't get vaccinated so that arguement doesn'texist.

Malachite green is carcingenic to any and all creatures, people & fish included. It has been banned in several countries and will be banned in more over the next few years.

There is no point bringing corydoras into this because we are talking about goldfish and not corys. And corys can tolerate this level of salt as I have used it in tanks with them and had no losses from it.
Malachite should be used at a low dose rate for corys otherwise it kills them. The same applies to all scaleless fishes.

Melafix contains tea tree oil and that is extremely toxic. That is why it is heavily diluted before bottling and being sold as a fish remedy.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I don't get vaccinated so that arguement doesn'texist.

Malachite green is carcingenic to any and all creatures, people & fish included. It has been banned in several countries and will be banned in more over the next few years.

There is no point bringing corydoras into this because we are talking about goldfish and not corys. And corys can tolerate this level of salt as I have used it in tanks with them and had no losses from it.
Malachite should be used at a low dose rate for corys otherwise it kills them. The same applies to all scaleless fishes.

Melafix contains tea tree oil and that is extremely toxic. That is why it is heavily diluted before bottling and being sold as a fish remedy.

The only reason why Malachite green was banned in certain countries was because its particularly bad for people to eat fish that have been dosed with the stuff. It is only a suspected (not proven) carcinogen (Lab tests revealed that rats fed malachite green at the concentration of 100 ppb for longer than 2 years showed signs of tumors), malachite green is rather bad for certain types of fish but not all types (the same goes for salt). I don't know why you have to bring this argument into this thread though since no one is advising using the stuff in this thread. Overall, although malachite green is an extremely effective weapon against fungus and parasitic infections in fish.
With the cory thing, corys come from a pretty much saltless habitat and so have a low tolerance of the stuff and considering the levels of salt you use are pretty ineffective at treating anything anyway, its pretty pointless treating them with salt (which will be doing nothing positive for them internally).

At the end of the day, there are many chemicals which are used in medicines (both fish and human medicines), which in large amounts are lethal, but in the right diluted amounts are beneficial to treating the ailment in question. I find your argument hypocritical, since like malachite green, salt in large enough amounts is lethal/highly toxic to fish but in the right amounts it can be beneficial on certain types of fish for treating certain ills- as far as i am aware though there have been no accepted studies showing that salt is better for goldfish than meds like Pimafix, so your argument on a factual ground is pretty flawed since you are only working on personal feeling alone and not facts/studies etc. Goldfish are not designed to cope with lots of salt in their water anymore than they are with stuff like diluted tea tree oil etc.