Needs help/opinions on an ill fish.

[Chris90]

Hi, I'm new to this forum so apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I've a pond in my garden, 12 foot by 4 foot and about a foot deep. It's pretty wild, by that I mean the local frogs use it to spawn, water snails and other wildlife live in there too, birds come and use it etc but we do keep a few fish in there.

Most of them are Orfes and they seem happy enough zooming about and hiding under the lilies. We also have a Sarassa Comet in there too and it too spent a good few months being elusive and staying hidden.

However we've seen a lot of it lately and while it seems to be alert and able to dart off under cover when it's spotted I have noticed it's looking rather the worse for wear and spending more of it's times resting in the shallows.

There's black blotches on it's orange scales and an unsightly brown on some of it's white scales and tail and they certainly weren't there when we got it eight months ago.

Is the wee thing doomed? Or is there something we can do to help it?

I've tested the pond for the usual things (nitrate, ammonia, hardness etc) and they've come up as fine and we routinely change a small percentage of the water to keep it reasonably clear. We also use a pump to keep the water well oxygenated as well as use a variety of oxygenating plants in the pond.

[Crepe]

Try to catch it and get a closer examination. It could be a fungus or parasite. Do it because it could be pathological.

[Chris90]

I caught it last night, before posting on here. I couldn't see any evidence of a fungus or parasite at work, just the blotches I described earlier.

The wee thing seems to have taken up the habit of playing dead in the shallows. I found it resting in the rocky area of the pond this morning. i had to physically touch it to get any reaction or sign of life from it. Mind, it took off like a bolt of lightning when I did.

[CA_BroncoFan]

It may just have scraped itself against something in the pond and with all the natural wildlife i wouldnt doubt it.

[Crepe]

Yep could be a scrape. Spot treat with Potassium Permaganate or mass treat with Melafix and you will be good.

[Chris90]

Thanks. I'll give that a go .... if I can catch the wee thing. It still looks a beat up mess of a fish but it is at least quickly swimming off under cover when it spots me now, unlike this morning where I had to prod it to make sure it hadn't died.

[Chris90]

Well, whatever it was, it's dead now

No idea what happened. Wednesday it was reasonably perky, yesterday I couldn't get out because the weather was rotten but when I went out to the pond today it was dead and being feasted on my the tadpoles.