Goldfish bacterial infection and fin rot

[Eratcliffejones]

Hi, I'm looking for some advice please. We've got two goldfish in a 60 litre biorb tank which we've had since the start of the year.

The black moor started to develop white spots that I thought looked like breeding spots rather than ick as then he started to try and mate with the oranda. Since then the oranda has a patch of missing scales as pictured. And the black moor seems to have a white fungus on his body, missing scales and it looks like fin rot? Water is testing ok, have added aquarium salt and started on melafix today. Any other ideas how to help please would be appreciated?

Looking to upgrade to a bigger tank to give them more room and have taken the objects out as was worried they were scraping themselves on it.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Andy Sager]

For starters, 60L is too small for gold fish in a rectangular tank so in a small circular tank, it's worse. I see in your picture a very small amount of gravel at the bottom but is there any other form of filtering?
The fish look rough and most likely from a water quality issue. Have you tested your water parameters?

 

[Aiken Drum]

On a biorb the filtration is provided by the amount of gravel at the bottom of the bowl. Thats it apart from a bit of sponge and carbon. The biorb comes with an amount of "biogravel" and that doesn't appear to have been used.

Those biorb aquariums have no place in the aquatics hobby. They provide essentially zero filtration and a very poor habitat to keep fish in. They know their product is poor, they have been advised on a simple cheap solution that can easily be incorporated at manufacture to improve the poor filtration to a very good filtration system. They are quite clear they don't want to implement it because it would reduce their aftersales. They are quite happy selling a rubbish product, with built in issues, because they then get to sell more product to fix it.

There will be all sorts of issues in that tank purely because of the environment. The only way to fix it is to improve the environment. Get a bigger tank with proper filtration system suitable for goldfish, or at least get one of the off brand kits to fix the filtration (they cost very little).

In my local government job i often go into peoples homes and see these biorbs. People love the look of them, my wife thinks they are amazing. When i see them, usually with 2 or 3 goldfish in them i have to bite my tongue and say nothing. Im not there to critisise their aquarium choice.

https://youtu.be/wouDZINgpq4

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

You don't need Melafix for this.

How much salt are you using?

The white patches on the fish is excess mucous, which the fish naturally produce to protect themselves. If they are injured or stressed from something in the water, they produce more mucous and it appears as a white patch (like on the orange fish). The best treatment is clean water and maybe salt.

Try doing a 50-75% water change every day for two weeks and see how they look after that. If there's no improvement, post more pictures and possibly increase the amount of salt you use.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank. You can contact your water supply company to find out if they use chlorine or chloramine.

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Goldfish need a lot of plant matter in their diet and adding some Duckweed (small floating plant) to the tank would offer them more variation in their diet. Other soft leaf aquarium plants are also eaten. You can also try feeding them on bits of cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin or spinach. Make sure it's free of chemicals. Some frozen foods like brineshrimp, daphnia and bloodworms are also suitable foods that can be fed to them every couple of days. You can use raw or cooked prawn too.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) 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.

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 salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, 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.

 

[Eratcliffejones]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice on the tank, will be looking to purchase a new bigger rectangle one in the next few days.

In the meantime whilst setting up a new tank in term of salt I've got aquarium salt and I've been putting in the advised amount 3 tablespoons for 60 litres. I've been adding this with recent water changes. How often is best to add it and if I start doing daily 50-75% water changes before I get the new tank should I continue to add the salt each time?

Water parameters are testing fine.

Thank you.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Can you tell us what the water parameters are? Saying they are fine doesnt tell us anything. It would be preferable to say what they were before all the water changes, now you have done water changes all you would really be telling us is the parameters of your tap water and not what they were like in the run up to your issues.

If you change water you will be removing the aquarium salt with the water. New water going in would need salt dosing back in proportion to what was removed. If you did a 50% water change you need to add back in half the salt you initially added to maintain that level. Dont add the full dose of salt every time you do a water change or you will be increasing the salt concentration with each water change. If you have been doing that you should probably do several back to back water changes to remove as much salt as you can, and then start over with your 3 tablespoons so you are sure you know how much is in there.

 

[Eratcliffejones]

Ok thanks.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Chlorine 0
Total hardness 75
Carbonate 40
Ph 6.8