Fantail Goldfish Question

[lonesome]

I have a fantail goldfish who has the following symptoms:

white sploches on tail

scales falling out on his sides

Can anyone point me in the right direction???

He lives in a 120 gallon outdoor pond with 3 other fantails. I first noticed the white spots on his tail about 2 weeks ago.....3 days ago we found him losing his scales.

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[GoldLenny]

The opaque/white spots on the fins are likely Pox or KHV (Koi Herpes Virus) which are viruses and can't really be cured. Often, they will show up on a fish that is stressed out. I kind of compare them to fever blisters / cold sores that some people get on their lips when they get stressed or their lips get chapped or sunburned. From all I've read, and experienced, it seems to affect male goldfish more often than females. The stress that causes these outbreaks can come from water quality issues or many other issues. Eliminate the stressor and the outbreak will usually subside in a few weeks.

Scales falling out could be from a number of things. The fish could be running into things or be getting chased (which would also be a stressor). It could be a female and is getting chased but there could also be a predator that is stalking your pond when you are not around and this would lead to the scale loss from running into things and the stress causing the fin marking outbreak.

 

[black angel]

I agree the white marks could be a viral infection, do they look like drops of wax? Knowing the ammonia etc would help too and when you did a water change

 

[fishlover301]

ooo scales poping out...uh oh ....that could be from dropsy..does it look consitapated??

 

[black angel]

No mention of scales being out just falling off, which could be myxobacteriosis but need a pic of the fish or at least the time frame and if any others are affected. May be nothing more than breeding behaviour.

 

[GoldLenny]

I'm not sure if myxobacteriosis would cause scale loss without showing many other symptoms first. It's actually from the flexibacter sp. like columnaris and it causes black spot disease and in some cases, a darker fuzzy growth whereas columnaris causes a lighter fuzzy growth. I think with any kind of bacterial issue, scale loss is always a possibility. Most fish diseases are a result of the fish first being exposed to some kind of stressor which affects it's immune system. There's no point in throwing meds at a problem until we try to figure out what is causing the problem and fix that first... otherwised the health issue will likely return.