Is this finrot?

Hi, I joined this group as I started a 150L planted tropical tank in November and I found so much useful information here. I’m letting it do it’s thing and will get a couple of Otos to start with eventually.
The problem I need help with is actually a cold water goldfish. I’m trying to work out what’s wrong with him, if it’s finrot or something else.

He was given to us by a friend of a friend as we have outdoor goldfish in a couple of ponds. Didn’t think he would survive out there though so we put him in an unused 90L tank we had. (He was in a 20L tank and had been in there for 9 years).

He used to just sit at the bottom of the tank but now he swims around all day, so he seems much happier but his fins and tail are really raggedy. On one of the photos, there’s an arrow pointing to the little back tail fin on the left that’s completely gone, it’s just a stump. And also a black spot.

I’ve been doing weekly, or every 4 or 5 days, 30 to 40% water change but from today I’ll do 25% daily. I use seachem stability each time and the water’s from barrels that feed the ponds.

Can you tell from the photos, what’s wrong and how can I treat it? He eats well and seems fine otherwise but I’m worried he’ll lose more of his fins and tail.

What is your water parameters ?

Hardening your water and adding salt will help a lot.

But consider 9 and probably a lot more years, is a pretty good age for a "tanked" goldfish.

You see the humph on his back behind his head and how crooked down his tail is....

That's a sign of ripping old age my friend

Oh
water parameters are
PH - 7.6
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10ppm
Not sure about water hardness, I need to get a proper test kit before I get fish for my new tank. Only have strips atm and my tap water and snail tank water all had suspiciously close results except the tap water showed chlorine. Poor old fish. I’ll look up how to do salt treatment

Don't feel bad, Your buddy has a great life with you... You took great care of him. Keeping goldfishes in good health in small aquariums is an achievement in itself. Now he is getting older and his defence system is growing weaker.

If the other tank mates are able to tolerate aquarium salt, start with a low dose, It will still ampere any kind of fungus development on the short term. Test the water hardness in your tank and test your tap water after de-chlorination. If your tap water is harder than the one in the tank. simply go ahead with growing water changes.

25% first day, 2 days later 50% next if no stress is visible, two days later 75% and another 75% 2 days later.

Even only one goldfish in an aquarium will get the water very acidic with time. And basically they thrive in hard water.

Really hard. 500-600 ppm GH and a PH of 8.2-8.6 with elevated KH are welcome for them.

But you have to take in consideration your other tank mates too.

The red streaks in the tail fin are probably either septicaemia (blood poisoning), or congested arteries which are a common precursor to finrot. There also seems to be some greying of the edges to the fins(?) which is a sign of finrot.

Otos need to be in a group, at least 10-12.

MaloK said:

Don't feel bad, Your buddy has a great life with you... You took great care of him. Keeping goldfishes in good health in small aquariums is an achievement in itself. Now he is getting older and his defence system is growing weaker.

If the other tank mates are able to tolerate aquarium salt, start with a low dose, It will still ampere any kind of fungus development on the short term. Test the water hardness in your tank and test your tap water after de-chlorination. If your tap water is harder than the one in the tank. simply go ahead with growing water changes.

25% first day, 2 days later 50% next if no stress is visible, two days later 75% and another 75% 2 days later.

Even only one goldfish in an aquarium will get the water very acidic with time. And basically they thrive in hard water.

Really hard. 500-600 ppm GH and a PH of 8.2-8.6 with elevated KH are welcome for them.

But you have to take in consideration your other tank mates too.

Click to expand...

Great, thanks for the info. He’s the only inhabitant (apart from a couple of pond snails that must’ve hitched a ride in on the mouse ear plant) so that simplifies things a bit.

Ichthys said:

The red streaks in the tail fin are probably either septicaemia (blood poisoning), or congested arteries which are a common precursor to finrot. There also seems to be some greying of the edges to the fins(?) which is a sign of finrot.

Otos need to be in a group, at least 10-12.

Click to expand...

Thank you, I’ll remember that when I get the otos.
Hopefully the salt treatment will help the goldfish. In NZ, we can’t buy antibiotics for pets. Only treatments like melafix or pimafix etc, reviews of them aren’t great

Don't put Otocinclus catfish in a new tank. They need an established tank with algae and biofilm (slime on the glass). They need driftwood too. They are normally starving or malnourished when you see them in the shops. If you buy some, wait until the tank has been running for at least 3 months and look for fish that don't have sunken bellies. If you see an Otocinclus catfish at a shop with a sunken belly, it is going to die. Avoid fish with sunken bellies and only get fish with little round bellies.

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re: Goldfish with fin rot.
You don't need antibiotics for this case. Clean water and salt will fix fin rot, especially at this stage.

As Ichthys mentioned, look for red lines in the fins. The red lines are a sure indicator that there is a problem. This combined with the tattered fins suggest fin rot.

Big (75%) daily water changes until the water is clean, and add some salt.

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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 (5 gallons) 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.