help my goldfishes are dying

[giuliano]

Since the addition of a new goldfish all my goldfishes are slowly dying, these are the parameters of the water:

ammonia 2 ppm
ph 7
nitrate 5 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm

All the fishes developed a cotton coat around the fins and on some parts of the body, it does not look like ich....PLEASE HELP, the goldfish that I added developed instead a big black spot over his head so I brought the fish back to the store and they told me it is my fault because their fishes are healthy

 

[giuliano]

Forgot to add the the aquarium is 55 gal and has been set up for 3 years now!

 

[mgamer20o0]

how often do you do water changes? 2ppm ammonia could be weaking the fish right there and killing it off.

 

[Zagz]

It sounds like a fungus or a bacterial infection. First do a water change to get the ammonia down. Then treat with a broad spectrum antibacterial/fungal medication. Remove any active carbon from the filter and keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite.

 

[giuliano]

Is Pimafix going to work and could the new fish be the cause of this disease? Thank you

 

[giuliano]

Forgot again I do water changes every 20 days

 

[mgamer20o0]

how many are in there? sounds like you need to step up your water changes. i would be doing 50% or more weekly.

 

[giuliano]

there were 9, since the addition of the new goldfish last friday I have lost 5 of them..last night I lost them because of the wrong advice at the fish store

 

[mgamer20o0]

how big where they? seems like to many for a 55. they say 10-15 gallon per goldfish. they will live for years. i would water change right now first of all.

 

[giuliano]

this is what I am doing now, some of the dead fishes were with us for 4 years now

 

[giuliano]

The dead ones were like 4 inches

 

[Zagz]

The fact that you have ammonia is saying something is wrong. You should do 50% per week. Pimafix is not strong enough IMO to work.

 

[giuliano]

So what do you suggest to use instead of Pimafix?

 

[giuliano]

is Maracyn-Two a better one than pimafix?

 

[jsoong]

First, get the water parameters under control ... ie water changes (daily if need be). Keep ammonia level below 0.5 until the tank's cycle catches up. <I suspect the addition of new fish had overloaded the carrying capacity of the tank & caused a crash.>

Without clean water, no amount of med is going to help.

The fuzzy growth is likely columnaris (aka flexibacter). This is an opportunistic bacterial infection of the fish, secondary to the stress from poor water. The ideal treatment is medicated food. The current 1st choice is Kanamycin, followed by metronidazole & broad spectrum antibiotics like tetracyclines or sulfonamides. Erythromycin (Maracyn II) is no longer very effective due to developing bacterial resistence.

If you must, you can use Kanamycin (Kenaplex) in the water. However, using antibiotics in the water risk killing the biofilter, creating more ammonia/nitrite problems. It is much preferable to treat the fish with medicated food.

 

[giuliano]

Sorry for my ingorance but I never heard about medicated food, can you please be more specific and name some for goldfishes? Thank you!

 

[jsoong]

This is a good reference for medicated food:
The Goldfish and Aquarium Board (GAB) Articles - Medicated Food Explained and Explored

There are other brands. In my post, I listed the antibiotics (generic names) in order of preference. If you can find medicated food locally, look at the ingredient list & see what antibiotics are in the food.

I found Jungle anti-bacterial food at the local PetSmart. Our local BigAl's store has medicated food containing kanamycin, as well as other medicated foods for pond fish (which will work for goldfish). <BTW, Romet B is often recommended for pond goldfish in the boards.>

 

[giuliano]

Now that I got the parameters of the water in good standing one of the remaining goldfishes is developing black spots on body, I have never seen this disease, can somebody help please? Thank you

 

[jsoong]

Black is a sign of healing from tissue death. This is commonly seen with ammonia burns.

It is likely the fish had ammonia burns when you had high ammonia in the tank. As long as the spots are clean looking - not getting bigger, no fuzzy edges, pus, etc - you should be fine. Just maintain pristine water conditions until the fish heals. A small amount of salt may be helpful (~0.05%) in preventing secondary infections.

<I am assuming that the flex or cottonwool spots are all gone .... otherwise, you should still be continuing treatment for that.>