Very ill fish

[Ruth1976]

Sorry not tropical but couldn’t work out where to post.

I have a very ill samsara comet. I treated him for fin rot (NT Labs then Waterlife - used carbon in between meds for 24 hours). Just finished day 6 of Waterlife White Spot treatment, and I even bought him a bigger 240 litre tank and transferred him to that tonight.

He is still not better and not sure what to do. He swam around a bit and then went back to sitting at the bottom of the tank. He hasn’t eaten for a few days and as you can see his fins are red and rotting.

What temperature should I have the water at - it is currently 23 and I have another shubunkin in there with him. Should I do more White Spot treatment (they seem to have turned red now - not sure what that means) or try the Fin Rot treatment again?

He is over 12 years old and part of the family! I feel like I should have spotted the issues earlier but I was dealing with his friend who recently died of swim bladder

I have tested the water a few times and parameters are all okay.

 

[Colin_T]

What are the ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH levels in the water (in numbers)?

Why did you treat them for white spot?

How long has the fish been like that?
How long have you been treating the tank for?

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23C is fine. Goldfish will be fine in any water temperature ranging from 2-3C up to 30C, but they prefer temps around 15-25C.

Because the fish is sick, keep it at 23C until it recovers.

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The red in the fins is blood and is usually caused by poor water quality. If it becomes severe, and this is starting to look that way, the fish can get septicemia (bacterial blood poisoning) and die.


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WHAT TO DO NOW?
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 them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

If there's no improvement after a couple of days with daily water changes and salt, you will need something to treat bacteria (anti-biotics) and this will probably involve seeing a vet to get a prescription.


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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 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, 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 lower dose rate of salt (2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) 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.

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.

 

[itiwhetu]

How old do you think this fish is and has it always lived in a tank?