White film over eyes of goldfish. What do I do?

Goldsmomanddad

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Hello, we are a pair of concerned fish parents as our fish child has developed a white film over his eyes. After a couple days one burst and then regrew. There seems to be a little blood in one eye now. He had fin rot but after a few days of using medication it went away and his energy returned to normal. He was lethargic for about 3 days prior. His energy now is a lot closer to normal. We’ve been testing our water for nitrates and to make sure everything else measures well, and it does. The water levels have been perfect for the last 5 days or so. I am concerned as to what is wrong and what needs to be done. Our son needs your help
 

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Eeekk! I have no idea what it is, but I can certainly see why you're worried... :eek:

For the best chance that someone will be able to help, the more info we have, the better. If you could copy/paste the template below and fill out what you can, then hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I will be able to help!

Saying the water is perfect is understandable, but we need numbers if possible please. And what test kit are using?

You may cut and paste the template below and submit in your post:

Request Help

Tank size:
tank age:
pH:
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:


Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):

Volume and Frequency of water changes:

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:

Tank inhabitants:

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):

Exposure to chemicals:

Digital photo (include if possible):
 
The red stuff is blood coming from the eye. That is normally from a physical injury. The fish will probably be blind in that eye.
Make sure there is nothing sharp in the tank that can damage the fish.

If you have a young child, make sure they don't try to catch the fish.

Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

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

Add some salt, (see directions below).

----------------------

SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) 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.

When 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.
 
.The water levels have been perfect for the last 5 days or so.

What were they like before that? My hunch is that the water has been very acidic.
You’ll need to give us as much info as possible for us to be able to help.

Also... goldfish should never be kept on their own.

:)
 

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