Goldfish tail breaking off in chunks? Dont look to good...

[nxumdon]

Hi
So I've been fighting with cycling my new 55gal with my fish (3 large fancy tail goldfish about 3 - 4" long, 2 tiny black moors, 1 lionhead, 1 bubble eye, 1 calico, and 1 pleco) in it and I made a few mistakes along the way (trying to medicate the injured tail with melafix while trying to cycle and I think the mela killed my biobugs) , but I've got things going in the right direction now (its only been up for about 10 days now) ...well, maybe...A few days ago (4 days) I noticed that one of my goldfish had begun to sit at the bottom of the tank and then the next day it was missing a 2" length of its tail and I found it sitting on the bottom of the tank (the missing piece)...so now this fish has a 2" by 1/4" chunk missing from its tail (from the top part of its rear tail to be exact)...the next day its missing the same thing, but from the bottom part of the rear tail... and again I found it on the bottom of the tank. Today I look at one of my other large goldies and I see a spot on his rear tail where it has started to crack, about 2" from the very tip, and it looks like it will also break off. What the heck is going on here? My ammonia is high, 3.0 - 4.0, but I've been doing daily 30% water changes and conditioning my water with Proquatics conditioner. I've used ammo-lock to help detoxify the ammonia. My [acronym:9810d2e2b1="power head or Measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions, depending on context"]ph[/acronym:9810d2e2b1] is 7.4, Nitrite is 0, nitrate is 5 - 10 (what is safe?). I've also recently put two airstones and some porus lava rock into the two filter baskets of my penguin330 to gain a bunch of extra bio-filtering capacity (and soaked the lavarocks in 'cycle' to help with the bio startup . Is this tail breaking related to the ammonia? I'm going to put these two fish into my 30gal once its cycled (tomorrow hopefully) and medicate them...what should I use...I've got pimafix and melafix...What about using both? Good idea or bad idea... The rest of the fish in my large 55 seem fine...there is one other large goldie sitting on the bottom, but he has a small tail to begin with....it seems that my large fish are kinda ill, but all the small ones are fine...hrmmm. Thanks for reading this novel...Cheers

jason

[Menagerie]

[center:95f5cb6d70] Welcome to AA, Jason! [/center:95f5cb6d70]

I've used ammo-lock to help detoxify the ammonia.

You need to stop using chemicals to control water parameters. The best and safest way is naturally with water changes.

I think the mela killed my biobugs

It shouldn't.

nitrate is 5 - 10 (what is safe?)

Most fish can handle up to 40 [acronym:95f5cb6d70="Parts per Million"]ppm[/acronym:95f5cb6d70].

soaked the lavarocks in 'cycle' to help with the bio startup

I know cycle is basically the only thing available up here, but [acronym:95f5cb6d70="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:95f5cb6d70], it is worthless. If you know someone with an established tank, get some bacteria from their filter.
As for the ill fish, I will contact someone with more goldie experience.

[nxumdon]

Hi there
So I should not medicate my sick fish? I will await your further advice...thanks again.

jason

[jsoong]

It seems strange to have high ammonia when your nitrate is 5-10 & nitrite is zero. You should have zero [acronym:c270c36fca="Ammonia"]NH3[/acronym:c270c36fca] when you see nitrate, signaling the end of the initial cycle.

Is the ammonia reading accurate? <ammolock may interfer with some [acronym:c270c36fca="Ammonia"]NH3[/acronym:c270c36fca] tests>. Is there nitrate in your tap water? Test your water & make sure ... if there is a reading of nitrate then you can't use that as indicator of your cycling process.

Shredding fin is most likely due to an Ammonia spike, although chronic high nitrates is said to cause this as well (but not in 5-10 range you have - more like 100-200). Is the torn edge black/ white/ fuzzy? Are the base of the fins injected (red streaks)? Do you see anything on the other golds? This might help in diagnosing the problem.

Also, any thing sharp in the tank - veil tails are prone to getting tails caught on sharp objects & tearing ... and with a bit of infection, getting finrot.

Personally, I am not too fond of using meds for injuries. Warm temp (70's) & a bit of salt (0.1-0.3%) PLUS pristine water condition (ie. zero [acronym:c270c36fca="Ammonia"]NH3[/acronym:c270c36fca]/[acronym:c270c36fca="Nitrite"]NO2[/acronym:c270c36fca]) will do wonders for any goldies ... & I generally start with that.

EDIT - almost forgot - too MUCH salt can also cause fins to shred. Can happen if you added too much, have "salt creep" or use water from a water softener.

[Menagerie]

So I should not medicate my sick fish?

Continue medicating, but Melafix is one of the meds that does not harm the bacteria--unless I am completely wrong Although, I like jsoong's advice about heat and good water conditions. It's amazing water can be cured with water changes!

Is there nitrate in your tap water? Test your water & make sure

The best way to test tap water is to let it sit out overnight and allow the gases to equilibrate.

[nxumdon]

Hi there
Well, the other fish lost the piece of his tail last night...he went all spastic and was swimming around very quickly and I watched it fall off... There are not really any sharp objects in the tank...but his veiltail is/was quite nice and very fine at the ends...but now it looks all rough looking. My ammonia test should be correct although I recently went through a situation where I was using the Hagen 3 bottle ammonia test and it was showing 0 ammonia (i'd been using this test for about 4 months) and then I purchased the AquariumPharm test kit and when I tested for ammonia with that kit it showed ammonia readings through the roof (4.0). So since both test kits showed opposite results I brought a sample of my water to petsmart to have tested and they said the ammonia was high also. The edge of the torn tail looks kida fuzzy, but it could be just swelling. Should I salt the entire tank, or move them to the 30gal and salt to .3%? What is salt creep? Thanks again

Jason

[Menagerie]

The edge of the torn tail looks kida fuzzy, but it could be just swelling.

I believe that is a sign of fungus or bacteria.
Have you ever seen nitrites in the water? I believe the fish illnesses are caused by the environment. They are stressed having to deal with the cycle. For further information on how environment affects fish's health, click here.

[jsoong]

Originally Posted by nxumdon

What is salt creep?

Salt creep happens if you are adding salt to a tank without taking into account water evaporation. Let say you get your 50 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] to a particular salt concentration, and 10 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] evaporated. And you make up that lost water with 10 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] of water with salt added. Since salt doesn't evaporate, you have just increased the salt concentration by 20%.

Similar thing can happen if you are not careful when doing partial water change. If you take out water to the 10 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] mark, but there was 1 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] evaporation, you've only taken out 9 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] of water (with salt). If you then make up the water with 10 [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Gallon"]gal[/acronym:b9c7f1c469]'s worth of salt, you would have added too much salt, & the salt concentration will gradually creep up.

Anyway, salt creep is really a problem only if you are maintaining a certain level of salt from day 1 (say in a marine or brackish tank), but if you are just adding salt for treatment as temporary measure, then wash it out after treatment, you shouldn't run into that much problem.

As to whether to treat the whole tank or not. I would generally suggest only treating fish that is sick, in a [acronym:b9c7f1c469="quarantine or quart depending on context"]QT[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] ... so you won't mess up the main tank & the healthy occupants. [acronym:b9c7f1c469="On The Other Hand"]OTOH[/acronym:b9c7f1c469], some authorities I've read suggest keeping a low level of salt in goldies tank (0.1%) permanently to improve the health. I can't vouch for that position - and there are people who swears by low salt or no salt ... take your pick.

PS- I would suggest getting the [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Ammonia"]NH3[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] down to zero before you worry about salt. The high [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Ammonia"]NH3[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] is likely causing great deal of stress & reducing that is more important than whatever the benefit of salt will be (chiefly in preventing infections). With sky high ammonia, massive water changes is needed. In an uncycled [acronym:b9c7f1c469="quarantine or quart depending on context"]QT[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] with sick goldies, some have advocate the "tub-to tub" method. In this method, you move the fish to fresh water every day (essentially doing a 100% water change) to keep the ammonia at zero. If you try this, you have to make sure the water is matched in all parameters to minimize shock. See the puregold web site for more info:

http://puregold.aquaria.net/pg/home.html

Knowing if you have had a [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Nitrite"]NO2[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] spike will help in determining where you are at in the cycle. If you have never had [acronym:b9c7f1c469="Nitrite"]NO2[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] spike in this tank, then it is coming .... [acronym:b9c7f1c469="For your info"]FYI[/acronym:b9c7f1c469], the treatment for nitrite posioning is salt (at 0.05%).

Finally, if you decided to add salt ([acronym:b9c7f1c469="quarantine or quart depending on context"]QT[/acronym:b9c7f1c469] or main tank) do it slowly. I generally don't go up more than 0.1% every 24 Hrs. Don't add the whole lot at once!