Saltwater & Reef

SkewedSpirit · 07-12-2011, 01:11 PM

Hi All,

We are having an issue with our goldfish. We have a 20 gallon tank with 1 Calico Veiltail and one Red Oranda and 3 small "mystery" snails. My daughter had a small comet in there as well until this morning. We have a hanging power filter and no live plant material. All in all it is a basic kids tank. I have no idea what the levels are because I have never tested the water. About a week ago we started noticing that the comet had a fine layer of white "fuzz" over him, it was not concentrated in one area, just generally covering him, he was also lethargic and spent most of the morning at the bottom of the tank, the other 2 fish seemed fine. I did a 50% water change and thoroughly cleaned the gravel that afternoon and by the evening the comet was almost completely free of the fuzz and was swimming and eating normally. A few days went by and I fed them sparingly, thinking that the fuzz could have been caused by leftover food rotting in the gravel (which was embarrassingly dirty when I cleaned it)...however, even though I was feeding them about half of normal, I noticed the comet (now completely free of fuzz) was defecating a lot, not some much in volume as in frequency, far more than I would expect from the small amount of food being fed. Now this morning I found the comet floating, very dead. He was fine and swimming and acting normally last night at midnight when I went to bed and now this morning he is stone dead. Also, my beautiful big Oranda is starting to get the white fuzz. Please, any advice would help a lot. We really don't want to lose anymore of our fish. Thanks

**HUKIT** · 07-12-2011, 01:32 PM

The most important thing we can do when keeping fish is maintaining good water conditions, so that's the first step is purchasing a quality testing kit like the API master kit. The fuzzy stuff sounds like a fungus of some sort but can be a secondary infection from poor water conditions. The treatment is a medication like Fungus Clear by Jungle but after that the water condtions must be maintained to prevent further illness.

**Rutrag** · 07-12-2011, 01:42 PM

What Hukit said. It sounds as though your fish developed a fungal infection, probably as a side effect of poor water quality. About the only time you see this is as the result of a wound. Goldfish are notoriously messy in terms of the volume of waste they produce and that equates to frequent water changes. I'd also double check to make sure all of your snails are still alive as well, as a dead and rotting snail could foul your tank pretty quickly.

How large are your goldfish? If they have much size at all, I'd seriously make it routine to vacuum the gravel and change 50% of the water weekly. You might want to do this anyway if you're prone to feeding heavily.

SkewedSpirit · 07-12-2011, 02:12 PM

I have been doing pwc on the tank weekly, usually about 10 - 15% .. how does one check if a snail is dead? I know that is a silly question, but I really don't know.

**HUKIT** · 07-12-2011, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkewedSpirit

I have been doing pwc on the tank weekly, usually about 10 - 15%

That's a good thing but without knowing what the actual conditions are you may need to up that to 50-60% per week.

**mfdrookie516** · 07-12-2011, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkewedSpirit

how does one check if a snail is dead? I know that is a silly question, but I really don't know.

If it's not moving, smell it. They wont smell like roses when they're alive, but they will really stink if they're dead.

**Rutrag** · 07-12-2011, 02:26 PM

You can also look to see if the bottom part of the shell (normally a brownish-yellowish circle) is in place. It's like a trapdoor that seals the snail in when he closes up. If you can't see it, that's a dead snail for sure. Of course, if you move the snail and some dark grey goop comes out, those are the snail's remains.

Somethingclever · 07-12-2011, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mfdrookie516

If it's not moving, smell it. They wont smell like roses when they're alive, but they will really stink if they're dead.

I'm sure this wasn't meant to be comical but it made me lol.

Anyway yea i had a pleco that developed this crazy fungus, but it wasn't fuzz, it looked like he had this crazy ecto plasm stuff surrounding his body.

**jetajockey** · 07-12-2011, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Somethingclever

I'm sure this wasn't meant to be comical but it made me lol.

Anyway yea i had a pleco that developed this crazy fungus, but it wasn't fuzz, it looked like he had this crazy ecto plasm stuff surrounding his body.

sounds like excess body slime.