black spots on goldfish

[pisceanbliss]

I just moved through a successful treating of ich and now have a goldfish with dark spots on his lips and fin tips. He seems fine in all other respects just looks a little strange.

The 10 gallon tank has 8 small goldfish. While looking for alternate set up to give them more room I've been doing regular (1x a week) 30-40% waterchanges.

Last check was clear on both the ammonia and nitrites.

Any thoughts on the spots and what should be done? The salt level had been raised to deal with the ich but after the last change I didn't add more.

Thanks all

[ChileRelleno]

First thing I think of is Ammonia burns, especially with alot of Goldies in a small tank. Double check your Ammonia reading, ASAP.
I'd also switch from 30-40% PWC's once a week, to 20-25% PWC twice per week
Next I think about lesions from where the ICH parasite had been, watch closely and perhaps they'll fade. But I'm not really sure about that one.
Then comes the salt treatments, Goldies handle salt well and I've not seen or heard of salt causing any symptom such as these. Check this link for Goldie salt info,http://www.goldfishinfo.com/salt.htm.
You could also inquire there about your problem and at other Goldie specific forums.

[pisceanbliss]

I'd considered ich scars as a possiblity. The spots are getting less as opposed to more so I'm not too concerned just want to know what is going on in there.

Is the reason for the less but more frequent water changes to keep the ammonia from building up without disturbing their balances?

I see you have a uv sterilizer chilerelleno. How does it work in the fish world? I use one for purification of my drinking water but have been curious of it in the fish aquarium. What is your experience with it?

[ChileRelleno]

Ok, I read on another site that salt can cause burns/discoloration on fish when either too much is used or when not dissolving salt before use.
But the ICH lesions is still a possibility...
Did you dissolve the salt first? Glad to hear that the marks are fading.
Hmmmm... Something to ponder.

Is the reason for the less but more frequent water changes to keep the ammonia from building up without disturbing their balances?

Yes, multiple smaller are IMO better than larger one-time PWC's, except in emergency cases.

I see you have a uv sterilizer chilerelleno. How does it work in the fish world? I use one for purification of my drinking water but have been curious of it in the fish aquarium. What is your experience with it?

A UV Sterelizer does just what the name says, it uses UV light to sterelize the water of free-floating algae, micro-organisms, pathogens and the like.
It doesn't affect your tanks bio-bacteria becuase they are attached to everything, not free-floating.
I've two dirty/wasteful fish that I dearly love in my 75g, and all their poop/leftovers was putting alot of nutrients for algae to grow off of, and I wanted to cut the chances of disease as much as possible.
Since I put the UV sterelizer in there I haven't seen a hint of algae.
There is a good article about UV sterelizers here at AA in the Freshwater Articles section, just look on the homepage under articles.

[jsoong]

Black is a sign of healing ... usually. After any injury - ammonia burns, salt burns (if you just throw the salt in, some golds will try to eat it & burn their mouths), finrot, etc., the tissue turns black before getting better. I am not sure if ich will give the black spots, however. Certainly I have not read nor seen this with just ich. I would suspect that there is a secondary infetction with the ich, or posssibly an NH3 spike that you missed. No matter what, if it is black & fading, it is getting better. Just keep up with pristine water conditions & a close watch & all should be fine.

Re: frequency of water change - with that many golds in a small space, you would be wise to do more frequent changes. Large infrequent changes allows the levels to get higher & there is also bigger changes in water chemistry with each change. It is not unusual for people to do DAILY water changes with golds in crowded quarters.

[pisceanbliss]

So far so good.

The spots are mostly all gone now.

It's possible there were some pieces of the salt undissolved when I poured in the water mix and that's what burned him. It would make sense too because none of the others were affected.

We just changed water again, and will keep up more frequent changes. It works any how for watering my greenhouse. The plants like the fish water.

I'd forgotten how much I love keeping fish. As you get to know them you can see their different personalities, and how they interact with one another. Somehow just having a tank going makes the whole room so much more peaceful. I sit my 1 year old in front of it to help calm him when he gets going too fast. Works wonders.