EMERGENCY. Help my poisoned Goldie?

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Never thought I would see a day where fish cause me more stress than my exams. Hmm haven't tested lately actually. I don't think the readings would be zero though because even my tap water has an ammonia reading of 0.5

Wow that's crazy! I really think the only way you're going to be able to successfully keep fish is with a quality filter attached to your kitchen tap. Otherwise Prime will need to be dosed daily (dose for whole tank volume, but add to fresh water) in order to detoxify the ammonia in the water. I don't think it was the silicon that poisoned your fish. They just can't live in water that poisonous
:-(
 
Actually, I keep all sorts of fish and the rest are doing perfect. I have 2x bettas, a golden algae eater, a farlow catfish, a ropefish, 2x parrot cichilds, 2x pleco. Then my goldfish. All are doing okay except for the goldfish which leaves me to believe that it was the silicone and it's cursed mildrew resistant chemicals. It sucks though that I can't even have a clean start with my ammonia :( I'm measuring with the API kit though if that makes any difference? I heard that API just measures the ammonia in general and not the toxic ammonia?
 
I don't think the silicone poisoned your fish.

As someone else said, the black is probably ammonia burns.

From that, you can guess that the water quality is probably very poor. I've seen lots of sick goldfish with the combination of popeye, bloat and black patches and it's almost always been a result of very poor conditions.

I went out of town for 3 weeks not long ago and left my goldie tank in the care of a friend. He couldn't figure out how to change the water. When I got back, nitrates were off the charts and ammonia had started to build up - two of my three goldies were bloated, listless, and one of them had popeye on one side. There was a very large bump on the side of one of them as well. I immediately moved them to a hospital tank, put in 1tbs/10g magnesium sulfate + a single dose of metronidazole in case there was something else going on. Fed nothing but peas once every two days for a week. Daily 60% water changes. After two days they began to swim upright again, and by the end of the week their bloat was gone and the black was fading away. Unfortunately, one of them seemed to have permanent damage to their organs and was never able to swim right again, and later passed.

This is just my experience in dealing with goldies. Your mileage may vary.
 
All are doing okay except for the goldfish which leaves me to believe that it was the silicone and it's cursed mildrew resistant chemicals.

Who manufactured the tank? Mildew-resistant silicone is something that should never, ever be used to seal an aquarium.
 
Sounds very similar to what I'm going through too :/ It might be the ammonia, it might have been both. It was probably both :/ What am I going to do though? I doubt prime would last very long in my 90 gallon and eventually I'm going to go broke D: I do have ammo carb chips or something in my uncycled filters though if that helps?
 
Who manufactured the tank? Mildew-resistant silicone is something that should never, ever be used to seal an aquarium.

I don't know who manufactured it because i bought it second hand. Th Mildew resistant silicone came from me when I resealed the tank with the wrong stuff. Then I went back ripped it all off and did it again with the correct "doors and windows" kind. I didn't catch onto what was killing my fish for a while week though :/ half of the ones surviving now were hospitalized early on the other half were just super strong fish that managed to survive until I caught my mistake.
 
That is good news. Let me say though, whenever you have a fish that is acting or looks sick, your first course of action is always test everything. Goldfish should have no less than a 50% water change weekly. If you keep to that schedule your nitrates should stay under 20 ppm. I don't see a reason to "dose prime daily". As long as you use prime any time you get fresh water for the tank, you are eliminating the ammonia present.
 
That is good news. Let me say though, whenever you have a fish that is acting or looks sick, your first course of action is always test everything. Goldfish should have no less than a 50% water change weekly. If you keep to that schedule your nitrates should stay under 20 ppm. I don't see a reason to "dose prime daily". As long as you use prime any time you get fresh water for the tank, you are eliminating the ammonia present.

I suggested daily dosing of prime with fresh water because the OP has high ammonia levels straight from the tap. I should have have actually specified that it needs to be a larger dose than usual, as it is being used in this case for ammonia detox rather than just as a dechlorinator. (The instructions are on the bottle but I can't remember them as I now use the powdered form).
 
Thank you for your posts. I found out that the city had an ammonia leak to all the houses in the north end around that time. My poor fish D: I never had problems so I don't test after I change the water or immediately after I start up a new one. It's recently been declared safe but my readings are still 0.5 ppm I thought my kit was messed up so I tried it with some spring water and I got a perfect 0.0 ppm reading so guess it wasn't that. The ammonia leak must have been the reason as to why my mom's scalp was flaking off (like a sunburn) she said it hurt like crazy and it looked horrible too. I'm trying ammo-chips because that's what I have on hand. Does anyone know it well it works?
 
Thank you for your posts. I found out that the city had an ammonia leak to all the houses in the north end around that time. My poor fish D: I never had problems so I don't test after I change the water or immediately after I start up a new one. It's recently been declared safe but my readings are still 0.5 ppm I thought my kit was messed up so I tried it with some spring water and I got a perfect 0.0 ppm reading so guess it wasn't that. The ammonia leak must have been the reason as to why my mom's scalp was flaking off (like a sunburn) she said it hurt like crazy and it looked horrible too. I'm trying ammo-chips because that's what I have on hand. Does anyone know it well it works?

How did they manage to contaminate the water supply with ammonia??? And they didn't notify residents immediately? Sounds like a law suit in the making.
How frustrating for you- trying to work this out and save your fish when all along it was something you couldn't possibly have foreseen!
I haven't used ammo chips so not sure if it removes ammonia (so your test will read lower) or whether it detoxifies like prime (so your test still shows the ammonia, its just not in a toxic form)
 
I think my cousin said he'll be calling to see what's going on tomorrow. This is really irritating! I'm so sad that my fish had to suffer for this though...and my mom's scalp. I've been running the filter with the ammo-chips for a few days now so I did a test but there was no change.

Two of my goldfish died last night. I had to move them downstairs to hide them from people coming over to visit my grandma for mothers day. I came down and found them rotting away. Now they're sitting in my freezer until I can go home and bury them. :( One of them had suffered an eye injury back last summer and got a infection which I managed to fix but it's eyes were forever lopsided and it was fragile and weak; so I hope they got to pass painlessly. My mom was upset that I didn't take them over to listen to buddhist prayers a few days ago like I did with my sick goldie. (It's too heavy to carry the whole tank over there :eek: ) It's kinda funny how my mom's first course of treatment is prayers haha. Now I only have two goldfish left.

In better news, that very sick goldie I've been hand feeding can now turn himself over all on his own.
 
Wow, that is terrible. I am so sorry for your loss, and your mom's troubles. Is it possible to do a 100% wc with fresh water?
 
I just did the change a few hours ago for that surviving goldfish but it's really late so I couldn't do it for the other one that I've been hand feeding but he's okay, he;s been in spring water for a few days now. ( actually, I got startled by something so bad that I'm afraid to go downstairs right now....I'll feed them as soon as I wake up in the morning and change their water...stupid flickering lights.)
 
I am so sorry!! :(

Hopefully your remaining guys can make a full recovery! I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!
 
I cried less at a funeral than in my basement today.:bawl:

I came downstairs today and burst into tears for a good half an hour. Even my hamsters wouldn't console me. Poor Godzilla (the fish this post has mostly been about) has died. The stupid air stone had gotten clogged or something and air wouldn't flow through it. I feel so bad because I know he probably suffocated and there was no way that it was a peaceful way to leave this world. He was getting better, so much better. From flipping himself over to being alert and scuttling away from movements and noises to happily eating what I fed him in under 10 minutes! (The first time I fed him it took me about an half an hour to get him to eat 2 pieces of food.) His black back was fading nicely too. I'm so sad, I can't believe this happened. He was trying so hard to live and he didn't even get to go peacefully. Ugggh stupid air stone! I had checked it to make sure everything was okay last night before going upstairs. Something happened with it over night and it costed a life.

R.I.P Godzilla, Teley, Baldy,"white fish", Nemo (2011-2013), and the other 17 fish who didn't have names. 2005-2013 and some were from 2012-2013.
Also, R.I.P my other gold fish that died over the summer from a freak hail storm.

(sorry I just wanted to archive my fish somewhere)

I still have one Goldfish left. He is doing very good. It's like nothing was ever wrong with him. I'm going to treat him with General Cure anyways for the rest of the 10 days and then I'm going to give him a 30 gallon (Which he would have originally shared with Godzilla :( )

Thanks for your support it was helpful until a stroke of bad luck brought down my scaley friend. I'll keep you updated on this last fish and hopefully he'll get to make it to the 30 gallon.
 
so sorry to hear that they didn't make it. Maybe they'll meet up with my old goldies lil Kagura and Koko in fishie heaven and have some good times.

I know its a hard thing to go through but don't let it discourage you. All we can do is try our hardest to give our fish the best lives we can and it seems like you spared no effort for them.
 
Thanks guys. I hope he has a good time in fishy heaven. Hope he meets up with all his old buddies and makes some new friends too.

I feel like I didn't do enough. I certainly regret not taking him up stairs that night. His sling would have been very cute too. At least he's not suffering anymore. I don't want to let it discourage me but I think I'm not going to buy any fish for awhile now. It's going to be hard resisting but it doesn't really feel right to get fish right now. Even though I now have lots of empty tanks....

I found out something funny when I was caring for him though. I recently moved to my grandmas house to take care of her and in the mornings we have a nurse come over to help give grandma a bath. I had Godzilla in my grandmas room and so the nurse saw it and asked me some questions about it. I told her a general story about him " He was poisoned and now he's sick" and so she asked me what I was going to do about it. So I told her that I'm treating him with meds. She was like "oh fish can take medicine? What kind?" I told her that it was medicine for fish and she kinda just laughed. It was totally beyond her that fish had their own medicine.I thought it was really weird that she found it so strange but then I realized that I'm the strange one and that normal people would have no idea about the existence of fish medicine.

Sorry, random story. I just found it interesting.
 
Just an update on the last fish. It's tank needs some more decorations and some clean up on the outside hehe. Also he didn't get the 30 gallon after all...but 20 is okay too.

Also, about the water, the government changed the water main (So our street has had the blessing of clanking and construction everyday for the last few weeks). I'm not surprised at what was happening to our poor fish after I saw the pipes that they pulled up. D: They're replacing them with plastic ones and my house basically ran stinky rust coloured water for a day BLEHHHHH.
 
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