Goldfish with possible spinal injury

[Jim Sinclair]

One of my 4 month old goldfish got its tail sucked into the filter intake tube. (I have left an unhappy message with a manufacturer of the filter.) Since being freed from the tube the fish has been trying heroically to swim by twisting its body and fluttering its pectoral fins, but I am not seeing any movement of the tail or the dorsal fin.

I called the nearest university veterinary teaching hospital and spoke with a student, who discussed the case with their on-call exotics doctor. He called me back and said the exotics vet agreed with my concern that there might be spinal cord injury. He said I could bring it in through the emergency service, which would cost $150, and they could examine it and tell me what they think and euthanize it for me.

I asked a few questions about what kind of diagnostics they could do with a fish this small, and what treatment or support options there might be. He wasn't sure, and told me that the prognosis was probably pretty grim.

Then I went online and Googled goldfish with spinal cord injuries, and saw a bunch of articles about spinal cord regeneration in goldfish.

I'm not able to read those articles tonight. Does anyone happen to already be familiar with the subject? I would like to know if there is anything that can be done to maximize the potential for recovery following such an injury.

 

[Colin_T]

If fish are sick on unable to swim well, they can be drawn into the filter intake of most power filters. Putting a sponge from an internal power filter over the intake strainer will prevent fish being drawn into the screen, but sick or injured fish will still be drawn towards the filter intake. That is simply due to the currents caused by the filter circulating the water around the tank. However, with a sponge over the intake strainer the fish will simply rest on the sponge and not get drawn into the strainer. It's not a manufacturing issue, it just happens sometimes with sick or injured fish or fish that are unable to swim away from the current. It can also happen at night when fish are resting but it's normally only an issue with sick fish that can't swim well.

If the vertebrate weren't broken and the spinal cord wasn't damaged then there is a chance the problem is swelling around the spine, which is preventing the nerves from receiving electrical signals from the brain.

Does the fish's spine look straight?
If yes it might just be swelling.

If the spinal cord is broken there is nothing you can do and the best thing for the fish is to euthanize it. However, if there is nothing broken and it is just swelling, you can give the fish a few days and it might start to get movement back once the inflammation goes down. If there is no improvement after 1 week then euthanize the fish.

Don't waste your money taking it to a vet. They can't do anything for it.

 

[Jim Sinclair]

Why is it "not a manufacturing issue" if filters aren't manufactured with safeguards to prevent them from killing the fish they're supposed to be keeping alive?

I understand water currents. That's how debris gets drawn in to be filtered out of the water. I understand how fish that have already died, or are weak swimmers for some reason, can get sucked up *against* the outside of the intake tube. (My convalescent tank, for the fish who got their tails chewed up by the adult fish in the pond, has only a sponge filter for this reason.) But it seems obvious to me that a filter should be designed in such a way as to prevent any fish from being pulled *into* it.

What I don't understand, after googling "fish caught in filter intake" and seeing how common an occurrence this is--after losing three fish to mishaps with three different filters in the past week (the one yesterday sucked partly into the intake tube of an Aqueon filter, one a few days earlier sucked the same way into the tube of an Aqua Clear filter and already dead when I found it, and about 2/3 of a fish found inside the chamber of a Penguin Bio Wheel filter)--is why manufacturers don't build in safeguards to keep their filters from killing fish!

Yesterday's victim died late last night, so treatment questions for that fish are now moot.

But I am still interested in learning more about regeneration in injured fish. I understand, from the little I picked up last night, that sometimes they *can* regain function even after higher spinal cord injuries than my fish had. It seems this research was done by deliberately injuring fish in laboratories, which is both horrific and unnecessary. Based on the number of horror stories I found about fish getting caught in filters, it seems they could just do clinical studies of fish brought to aquatic veterinarians following accidental injuries. Maybe they could even combine such clinical research with design research on how to make safer filters.

I also saw a program on public television a few years ago about surgical treatment of fish. One patient was a huge koi whose spine had been broken in two different places. The fish had both an orthopedic surgeon and a neurosurgeon working on it, and after surgery was shown swimming normally in its pond and being hugged by its happy owner. (That's how big a fish it was--big enough for a grown man to get into the pond and play with as if it were a dog.)

That fish was much, much, much bigger than mine, and clearly its owner had much, much, much more money than I do. I couldn't have afforded such surgery, and even if I could, surgery would have been more difficult with such a tiny and fragile patient.

Still, it shows that veterinary treatment is *possible* for fish. There *are* veterinarians who treat fish, and there *are* people who seek treatment for sick or injured fish instead of viewing euthanasia as the only recourse. And the more people who seek veterinary care for fish, the more veterinarians will be drawn to aquatic specialties.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

But I am still interested in learning more about regeneration in injured fish. I understand, from the little I picked up last night, that sometimes they *can* regain function even after higher spinal cord injuries than my fish had.

Many of these situations a fish species and even individual specific. You hear stories about people regaining feeling in their legs after spinal injuries. Doesn't mean everyone can.
Because research has said they can do this, does not mean you can replicate this in a home aquarium. In most cases spinal injuries are a huge problem in fish especially those which rely on spinal movement for swimming. Even if they regain function, there can still be prolonged pain and physiological issues for them

It seems this research was done by deliberately injuring fish in laboratories, which is both horrific and unnecessary.

No and no.
If you understood how and why these things are done in Science it is not the case.
There are strict rules regarding what you can do, long ethical review processes in which the Scientist has to prove that the amount of pain and or suffering caused in justifiable. They need to show how they can work to reduce the numbers of animals used ( and still be an effective study) Refine the methods used to reduce suffering or Replace the use of animals all together where possible. Animals are monitored by vets, inspectors, scientists and technicians during the experiments and if the agreed upon level of "suffering" is exceeded the experiment is terminated immediately. These processes ensure that work conducted on animals is neither horrific or unnecessary.

 

[Jim Sinclair]

References on spinal injuries specifically in goldfish please?

I do understand how science works in theory, and how all too often it does not work the way it's supposed to in practice. I have developed and carried out research on human subjects, and gone through the whole process of application and review by institutional review boards. As an animal rescue volunteer I have developed adoption contracts that, instead of the usual "adopted animals may never be used in any kind of animal research" clause, spelled out in detail what types of "research" would and would not be acceptable under the contract.

It isn't that I don't understand how science works. It's that I question the ethical foundation of some individuals, committees, or species making decisions about how much suffering is "justifiable" to inflict on other individuals who do not (and in the case of non-human animals, who *cannot*) give informed consent.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

References on spinal injuries specifically in goldfish please?

If you look at many of the papers which are experimenting on goldfish spine regeneration they are making precise cuts into the nerves. I am not saying that your goldfish would not recover. what I am saying is what happens in a lab, being a clean cut through a nerve. Is not necessarily what happens in ponds or aquaria and healing of these injuries are not as simple as these experiments.
Something might move and heal wrong, you might have damage to muscle tissue which shifts the spine during recovery, the act which caused the injury in the first place caused more widespread internal and external damage... and the list goes on.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0006899370901514
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014488616300449
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0014488664900147
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612308611383

It's that I question the ethical foundation of some individuals, committees, or species making decisions about how much suffering is "justifiable" to inflict on other individuals who do not (and in the case of non-human animals, who *cannot*) give informed consent.

I can see and appreciate your ethical standpoint, while not necessarily agreeing with it. I don't want to get into an argument about the ethics of animal use in experimentation. But I will say this there are a lot of things that benefit both us, and animals that have come from research using animals, just using this goldfish example which is now working to find ways to translate nerve healing into people, and could be used in non human animals (vet medicine).

 

[Colin_T]

What I don't understand, after googling "fish caught in filter intake" and seeing how common an occurrence this is--after losing three fish to mishaps with three different filters in the past week (the one yesterday sucked partly into the intake tube of an Aqueon filter, one a few days earlier sucked the same way into the tube of an Aqua Clear filter and already dead when I found it, and about 2/3 of a fish found inside the chamber of a Penguin Bio Wheel filter)--is why manufacturers don't build in safeguards to keep their filters from killing fish!

It is extremely uncommon for healthy fish to be drawn into a power filter's intake strainer.
Sick or Dead fish regularly get drawn onto or into the intake strainers.

In two of your situations the fish were probably dead when the currents drew the bodies to the filter intake and you found them the following morning. The same deal with most of the reports online and when customers come into the shop and say their fish was found dead on the filter intake. The fish usually dies and is sucked onto the intake strainer.

If you want to prevent this from happening, put sponges over the intake strainer and encourage other people to do the same. However, the more things that cover the intake strainers, the less water that will flow through the filter and the less effective the filter will be. But a basic course cylindrical sponge with a hole through the centre (from an internal power filter), will work very effectively at stopping things being sucked into the filter and still allow good water flow.

The intake strainers are a compromise that allows good water flow and some basic physical screening to limit or prevent course/ large objects being drawn into the filter where they can damage the impellor or block up the motor.

---------------------------
As for surgery on fish, 99% of fish that get operated on by vets will die during the procedure. The large Koi that was treated probably only had broken vertebrate and was lucky because most fish die shortly after they get anaesthetic.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

As for surgery on fish, 99% of fish that get operated on by vets will die during the procedure. The large Koi that was treated probably only had broken vertebrate and was lucky because most fish die shortly after they get anaesthetic.

This comes from a Lac of knowledge about anaesthesia in fish from the vet's part. being able to chose the right anaesthetic which suitably effects the fish, but the dose which anaesthetises is far enough away from the lethal dose. As this varies on so many different things it can mean making a correct choice required lots of options and lots of knowledge. A lot of times vets do not have this, but surgery on fish does happen regularly and from what I have seen ( all from a science background) all fish have recovered and lived well past the surgery date with no ill effects. I can be done, but regular vets I would probably agree with your 99% statement.

 

[Jeremy180]

As stated earlier, it looks like surgery to repair spinal cord injury in fish is in the experimental stages.

Your fish would need a tank with no tank mates, spot feeding, and virtually zero current from filters to have a shot at survival due to only having it's pectoral fins usable for movement.
Even then, it's chances for long term survival don't look good.

On another note, I am wondering if the root cause of the original injury in your previous thread was also due to the filter?
https://www.fishforums.net/threads/goldfish-with-tail-rot-or-injury.450358/page-2#post-3805946
The explanation for the injury being the other fish never did really satisfy me, as goldfish are not particularly aggressive, nor skilled hunters, even assuming that the mood strikes to them to do so.