Sick goldfish

[helptoall]

Hi. ive rescued a goldfish about a week ago. he was very skinny and had a few patches with no scales and redness on his tail and the base of his hand fins
He wasent lethargic and ate and pooped well in the past week. yesterday ive noticed him flashing a few time and today he became super lethargic, sitting on the bottom sometimes even on his side moving only when i touched him and occasionly moving by himself to flash.
I have a few meds avilable:rid ich+ {malachite green and formalin} ,Prazi pro,Levamisole, methylene blue, Furanol and kanaplex
Im also considering salt baths. The red strikes can be septicemia or just another part of the parasitic infection..
I wanted to hear your opinion on what shuold i do and if you have other meds to reccomend on
Hes in a 120L tank with 3 internal filters, parameters are 0,0,5
Thank you

 

[FishGuest5123]

Hi. ive rescued a goldfish about a week ago. he was very skinny and had a few patches with no scales and redness on his tail and the base of his hand fins
He wasent lethargic and ate and pooped well in the past week. yesterday ive noticed him flashing a few time and today he became super lethargic, sitting on the bottom sometimes even on his side moving only when i touched him and occasionly moving by himself to flash.
I have a few meds avilable:rid ich+ {malachite green and formalin} ,Prazi pro,Levamisole, methylene blue, Furanol and kanaplex
Im also considering salt baths. The red strikes can be septicemia or just another part of the parasitic infection..
I wanted to hear your opinion on what shuold i do and if you have other meds to reccomend on
Hes in a 120L tank with 3 internal filters, parameters are 0,0,5
Thank you

Can you post a pic?

 

[Colin_T]

Any chance of a picture and short 20 second video of the fish?
If the pictures are too big for the website, set the camera's resolution to its lowest setting and take some more. The lower resolution will make the images smaller and they should fit on this website. Check the pictures on your pc and find a couple that are clear and show the problem, and post them here. Make sure you turn the camera's resolution back up after you have taken the pics otherwise all your pictures will be small.

If the video is too big for this website, post it on YouTube and copy & paste the link here. We can view it at YouTube. If you are using a mobile phone to take the video, have the phone horizontal so the video takes up the entire screen. If you have the phone vertical, you get video in the middle and black on either side.

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Red lines in the fins are usually caused by poor water quality.
Lethargy, sitting on the bottom and not moving unless touched is normally caused by poor water quality.
Rubbing on objects can be an external protozoan infection like whitespot, and it can be caused by poor water quality. Chilodonella, Costia & Trichodina are also external protozoan infections that occur in tanks with lots of gunk and poor water quality.

In fact 99% of fish health issues are caused by poor water quality.

The best thing to do right now is test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Then do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the problem is identified or resolved.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Increase aeration/ surface turbulence to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.

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You can add some salt after the water change, and that can help with some issues.

You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea 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.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 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, 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 but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

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.

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The following link has information about what to do if your fish get sick. It's long and boring but worth knowing. I recommend printing it out and reading it in bed to help fall asleep.
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/what-to-do-if-your-fish-gets-sick.450268/

 

[helptoall]

im uploading a vid.
Colin , water quality is of course a very importenet thing , however one should consider the situation and the big picure. This fish {like all of my fish} was rescued from bad conditions, which probebly what was the initial cause for the current situation. However since he was rescued he is in a 120L alone with proper filteration ,alot of oxigen in the water and clean clean water, with parameters of 0,0,5.
So as water quality probebly was the firat cause i dont think its relevant at the moment as the tank and water are super clean and it didnt stopped the progression of his condition.
Right now i think a proper and agressive treatment is critical in addition of course to maintaining good water quality
Btw salt has been added and i think that when adding salt it should be done in an accurate way and not based on spoons. For reducing stress and preserving osmoregulation energy salt should be added at a concentration of 0.5%{5 grams per liter} and should never exceed 0.9% for a prolong bath.The concentration should be achived slowly by adding the salt ideally over a few days and in urgent situations over a few hours.

 

[helptoall]

Heres the vid. He is sitting on the bottom in a U shape most of the time. when making some noise or pounding on the tank wall near him he "wakes up" and starting to swim like kinda normal, then after a few seconds stops and returning to the same position. He reacts the same when i put food near hi, waking up , swimming, eating the food then going back

 

[helptoall]

Update:He is still eating.overall hes the same, maybe theres some improvement that he "wakes up" for longer peroids and more often. He started to have ragged fins that might be the start of fin rot..
The tank is treated at the moment with praziquantel,ektol fluid{contains benzalkium and methylene blue} Furanol and kanaplex,4 days into treatment.
Ive checked for drug to drug interaction and everything seems fine but if you know of any please say
How is this that im seeing fin rot? both furanol and ektol fluid are claiming to treat that. also the temp and salinity{around 0.4%} should fight that as well.. any suggestions/ treatments for fin rot? or any suggestions what to do next?
thank you

 

[helptoall]

He is continue to imrove, spending more and more time active and less time "sleeping"

The fin rot is still present , not progressing much and another thing is the flashing, that never went away but now as he regaining energy he is doing it more. Im assuming that he had a few external parasites that also caused infection and septicemia, and the antibitic treatment improved the septecimia{also no more bloody patches on him} and probebly some of the parasite ,but theres still someone there who isnt responding to salt or prazi, maybe costia.. tommorow im finishing the current treatment of the antibitics and im thinking wether i should stop with them and start a malachite green+formalin treatment, continue with antibiotics and wait with the parasitic treatment

Theres also an option to treat with mthylene blue insteade of malchit+formalin, which i know is ok to use with those antibiotics and then to continue with them as well.

What do you think?

 

[FishGuest5123]

You can do methylene blue baths even with the antibiotics. Put a teaspoon in a gallon if treated water and let him sit in it for 3 minutes. You can do this a couple of times a day. A few dips should treat any external parasItes. Most hate methylene blue.

 

[helptoall]

The thing is that i dont have pure methylene blue, just Ektol Fluid which contains methylene blue and benzalkonium. The concentration f the MB in it is very low, around 4 times less then the reccomended dosage for ex parasites.. Iv ordered pure MB but it wont arrive for another 4 days so im thinking of treating with the med i have "kordon rid ich" which is malachite green and formalin.. but i didnt find any info about using it together with the antib , perhaps someone has any info on using it with nitrofuranol and kanamycin?

 

[FishGuest5123]

I wouldn’t do it at the same time. Finish the first treatment, do a big water change and then do the Rid Ich.

 

[Colin_T]

You could just stop adding chemicals and keep the water clean with a bit of salt in. The more medications/ chemicals you expose the fish to, the more damage you do to it. Most fish medications are poisonous and prolonged exposure to chemicals, or overdosing with them, will weaken and possibly kill the fish you are trying to treat.

The fish was sick when you got it, feed it a good varied diet with lots of plant matter, keep the water clean, add a bit of salt and cross your fingers.

 

[helptoall]

You could just stop adding chemicals and keep the water clean with a bit of salt in. The more medications/ chemicals you expose the fish to, the more damage you do to it. Most fish medications are poisonous and prolonged exposure to chemicals, or overdosing with them, will weaken and possibly kill the fish you are trying to treat.

The fish was sick when you got it, feed it a good varied diet with lots of plant matter, keep the water clean, add a bit of salt and cross your fingers.

Colin once again- writing big statments isnt always relevant and helping..Yes medications should be used with caution, yes they put some amount of stress in the body. But in severe cases where there are multipilepathogen attcking the fish a smart combit=nation of relevant meds can save his life. Like i said a few times clean water and good food arent always helping and in this case it didnt help.

 

[helptoall]

Hi, so after the improvment ive finished the treatment with the prazi,levamisole,methylene blue , kanaplex and furanol. He was active and eating, starting to gain weight, still had fin rt and a very big open wound under one of his fins,and he was still flashing. On saturday i started a treatment with Kordon rid ick containing malachit green and formalin. During the first 24 hours the flashing was gone and the next day the wound atrated to look better. The medication directions are to treat every 24 hours ,and repeat as needed so i treated it 3 times untill tuesday. on tuesday night {the med is still in the water} ive noticed white poop coming out and a bit of fast breathing. the next day the breathing got worse and he was less in to food and today he is gasping on the surface, not interested in food and had a really long and nasty white stringy poop.
In the last few days i did WC every day and parameters was always 0,0,5.
I dont know if i should restart with the rid ick again perhaps in higer dose option or to switch to an internal parasite treatment{prazi/levamisole} or maybe and antibiotics again.. What do you think?
also i read in some article tat formalin and malacite green can cause demage to the gills, cn this be what happened with him?

 

[FishGuest5123]

I would do a big water change and let him rest. He has been exposed to a lot of chemicals. If he has internal parasites, they won’t kill him in the next few days. Continue the daily water changes and watch his poop. If it’s still white after several days then treat with Prazi. Too many meds can damage his kidneys.

 

[helptoall]

his super skinny.. i dont understand based on what your saying that it wont kill him...