Adopted fish... thought I saved him but the sickness is back..

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Destinzd

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Messages
4
So my girlfriend and I adopted this old goldfish (could be anywhere from 2-4) we assumed he had ich because it looked to be it so we treated him extensively.. he was in terrible shape. He was in a 10g. Approx 4 1/2” it was half full and as dirty as a mud puddle, it was a sin, she wanted 40 dollars I gave her 20 and him a better home.. but the sickness has taken over again. Now on the opposite side. His whole Gill is now white, he’s loosing pigmentations in some scales, starting to worry, should I pull him out and treat the whole system and treat him again in a bread er tank or something ??? Photos will be linked for more visuals to try to understandB02534D8-FF80-43E2-8435-9FCC9F7E2F42.jpg

AC9B1EBE-535B-45BB-8FF1-224C51D1138D.jpg

117413A4-0D55-4D24-9847-0D95CD086F23.jpg
 
Good for you for getting him out of that mud puddle! What tank is he in now? I assume it is cycled and you have tested water parameters? What were they at last check.

I’m not sure what I’m looking at in these photos, honestly, I don’t see lost scales. Could it just be he’s recovering from the poor conditions or maybe his coloration is just changing, some goldfish do change colors as they age.

Any behavioral issues? Lethargy etc?
 
He doesn’t act funny at all honestly, he’s the most greedy when it comes to feeding aswell, I’m new to the hobby but spend a lot of time reading and watching videos but it can only get me so far compared to facing these issues, everything says he’s fine, I’m just worried lol... as for water parameters I’m not the best with reading them but I can give you a photo of the current ppm of everything and oh etc, it’s a dip stick so I don’t know how effective it is, it les for my moms hot tub but it has everything that one needs to check I think, should it still give me a rough idea of parameters even though it isn’t for a aquarium ?image.jpg
 
The little white spots on his flap that covers his gills in the last photo, when I treated him a while back( heating the tank to kill anything) after that some of them popped so I figured he had some sort of worm, I forget the kind, or maybe a parasite or something
 
I suppose it’s good to know there is no chlorine in the tank etc but that really isn’t the parameters that you need to know for an aquarium. The most important water parameters that you need to know are ammonia nitrite and nitrate. You’ll want to get (ideally liquid) test kits that test for each of these things. The liquid kits are a little more expensive up front but they will last you many many tests and are usually more accurate than the dip sticks. Most fish stores will also test your water for you but they often use dip sticks which may or may not be accurate depending on brand and how they’ve been stored.

Goldfish are heavy waste producers and with this being a relatively new set up toxins can quickly get to dangerous levels with goldfish.

Heat, btw, is likely more stressful on the goldfish then on any parasites etc that the fish might have. Goldfish are cold water fish and many infectious agents love warm water.

If you could answer the questions in this thread : https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/before-posting-about-unhealthy-fish-read-this-32451.html it would help us help you give him his (or her I guess :p) best shot.
 
My local fish store only test for ammonia and ph. If I get my ammonia down should that mean that the nit cycle has started right ? If I have these two tests can I figure the rest out? I will be investing in a liquid test kit in the near future!
Thanks for the help with silly question����
Also its a old tank so I feel like the levels should be fine, old hob filter with media not filter carts.. a sponge filter aswell for surface area for bacteria to grow.. is there such thing as too much filtration?
 
There is such a thing as too much *flow* for some species of fish to be comfortable but aside from that you really can’t overfilter.

If your fish store will test ammonia without test strips you can use that but if they use strips it’s a gamble trusting those results. There’s someone else in one of these threads right now whose lfs told them ammonia was fine based on test strips and it turned out to be at very toxic levels. Most likely the strips got damp and are now useless.

At a bare minimum you must be able to test for ammonia and nitrite because these are the two toxic chemicals you can test for. Often by the time you buy those two tests you’ve paid for the whole test kit which includes nitrate and ph as well. I think it’s on sale on amazon right now for less than 25 plus a 15% off coupon so it’s really not a huge splurge ... (and less then you’ll spend on medicines and treatments if the fish gets sick)

Old does not necessarily mean cycled if it’s been run empty for a while the bacteria will have died off already.
 
Ich will be sprinkled around on the fish all over.

Look at the gills while the fish is hanging out and see what color they are. They should not be brownish, grey or tan. They should be clean bright darkish red and have definition, and a bit of separation.

This has a decent pic of the gills pic will be near the bottom of the article.
https://hanoverkoifarms.com/koi-symptom-diagnosis/
 
Back
Top Bottom