Goldfish with red/pink streaks and dot around his face

[Fish4Heather]

My goldfish, Topaz, has developed these marks on his face. I immediately googled the problem and saw maybe ammonia poisoning so I checked the levels and it was nil for ammonia and ph is good. I did a 50% water change last night as well. I have had him for a couple of years and he does have a tankmate whom I have had about a year. His tankmate, Quartz, has no marks at all and even Topaz seems to be eating and swimming around just fine but I am wondering about these marks, obviously something is going on.
All advice welcome!

 

[Archerfish]

Have you tested your other water parameters? Nitrite and nitrate? regardless if the other fish seems ok, I would take a water sample to a reliable pet shop for testing if you can’t do it at home. Is your ammonia test kit a strip or liquid type? Has it expired?

 

[Fish4Heather]

My testing kit is not expired and all of the numbers look good. I am using the Master Freshwater Test Kit from API.

 

[Ram419]

The gills def look like they are having issues due to the color. Perhaps a salt treatment would help.

Colin_T often posted this advice for many issues like this, which is also availble in the pinnted thread What to do if your fish gets sick.

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Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues.
For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

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 (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate (1-2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will not affect 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.

 

[Fish4Heather]

Thank you! I did as you suggested and added 2 tbs of aquarium salt to the tank and this morning he looks 75% clearer. I was so worried! I hope he continues to heal tomorrow I am going to do a 30% water change.