Sick fish?

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Reily

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Hey yā€™all Iā€™m new here but I have a couple of questions about what these fish could be infected with if at all? I think the black spots on the goldfish could be ammonia poisoning? Please let me know. And there is that weird spot on one of my angel fish, is it ick or what is it? Help!!!
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

The angelfish has a graze or wound on its side. It is not white spot and should heal up by itself if the water quality is good. However, you need to monitor the fish and see if any are attacking the angelfish.

What other fish are in the tank besides the angelfish and goldfish (possible koi carp)?

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The goldfish/ koi carp appears to have chemical burns. These appear as black patches over part or all of the body. it can be from ammonia, nitrite, overdosed medications, chemicals, etc.

Treatment is to check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. And do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate any day there is an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm.

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How long has the aquarium been set up for?
How long have you had the fish?

What sort of filter is on the aquarium?
How often and how do you clean the filter?

How often are you doing water changes?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the aquarium?

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How often are you feeding the fish?
Goldfish and angelfish require different types of food. Goldfish should have lots of plant matter in their diet, whereas angelfish are more meat eaters.

Temperature wise they should be ok together and seeing you are in California, there's not much you can do about the heat anyway so don't worry when people tell you to keep goldfish in cold water and the others in warm water. It ain't gonna happen where you live.

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Goldfish do prefer harder water with a higher pH than angelfish.

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, most tetras, barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.
 
Thanks for such a quick reply and warm welcome Colin!
First off I have 3 Cory cats, 3 plecos, 5 angels and the one goldfish. The goldfish is well over 8 years old at this point, Cory cats probably 4ish years old, and the plecos are also around 8 years old. Angelfish are newer (about 6 months) I did a bit of research before putting them with the goldfish but balancing the tank around 76 degrees seems to fit everyone in the tank pretty well.
This Aquarium is fairly new - about a month old or so
Filter is just an aqueon quiet flow 75 rated for 90gal tank
Havenā€™t cleaned the filter yet as Iā€™ve been trying to let some bacteria build up, would you recommend cleaning it? Same with gravel. Iā€™ve done several water changes already trying to keep water in decent condition. I always use water conditioner when I do water changes.
Feed all the fish once a day different foods for the different fish

Water round here where Iā€™m at is usually harder but Iā€™m on a soft water system so the water is always soft thatā€™s put into the tank and safe for fish.
 
A pleco might have latched onto the angelfish. Monitor the wound and if it goes white and fluffy (fungus) or red and inflamed (bacterial), it has an infection and will need something to treat it (either salt or chemical medications can be used).

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Don't clean filters for the first 6-8 weeks unless they absolutely need it. If you clean them too soon you can get rid of the good bacteria that is trying to develop in the filter. After the filter has finished cycling (around 6-8 weeks), you can clean the filter then and do it once a month after that. Wash the filter media/ materials in a bucket of aquarium water and re-use the media. tip the bucket of dirty water on the lawn.

Gravel can be cleaned any time.

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If you are doing a fish in cycle (fish in the tank while the filter develops the beneficial filter bacteria), and it sounds like you are, you probably have ammonia and nitrite in the water and big frequent water changes, and gravel cleaning, would help. If you have an ammonia, nitrite and nitrate test kit, you can test the water and do a 75% water change any day there is a reading above 0ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Because it's a cycling tank, I would do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week to help reduce the chance of an infection getting into the wound on the angelfish. The big daily water changes will dilute any nutrients that might be in the water, but more importantly they reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and that reduces the risk of infection.

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If the wound does become infected, you can treat it with salt, see directions below. If there's no improvement after a week with salt, stop using salt and post more pictures. then look for a broad spectrum fish medication that treats bacteria and fungus (preferably not an antibiotic).

SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 

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