Sick oranda from petstore

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SandyCheeks

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 6, 2013
Messages
216
Location
Rural Nevada, USA
Well maybe I did a stupid thing. Went to the pet store to pickup a few things yesterday and brought home a sick fish. Felt bad and couldn't walk out the door and leave her, so asked and they gave her to me. This is why I don't go to animal shelters, I would take home every darn one if I could.

She is in a 10 gal plastic hospital tub. Gradually added a tsp of salt, some melafix, and she ate a few pieces of medi gold. Am I doing this right? What else can I do? I have some api furan-2, would that help?

She just wants to lie on the bottom. She's not gasping but looks very undernourished.

What could be wrong with her?

The ladies working there were very nice and they felt bad for her, But doesn't a big chain store like that have a policy or something?
 

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Awww. That poor fish! It's dorsal fin is completely gone!

One of the big chain stores in the city near me has a terribly sick goldfish wall. The black moores are almost white with ich. I sent a complaint and was told they have been treating the wall for a month. Went back a couple weeks later and it was still terrible. They are still bringing in new fish and selling the sick ones though. Anything for the buck!
 
Poor thing! :(. She is severely starved and in very poor condition. In addition to the MG, offer her bits of different types of fresh protein to see what she may be interested in. Defrosted bloodworms, bits of human shrimp/fish, even canned salmon or mackerel. Also offer bits of veggies, too. Do not add other meds while using the MG- just lots of healthy water. Bit of salt is fine. Do you only have MG or do you also have Metromeds?
 
Awww. That poor fish! It's dorsal fin is completely gone!

One of the big chain stores in the city near me has a terribly sick goldfish wall. The black moores are almost white with ich. I sent a complaint and was told they have been treating the wall for a month. Went back a couple weeks later and it was still terrible. They are still bringing in new fish and selling the sick ones though. Anything for the buck!

That's just awful! A whole wall. There should be laws to protect fish sold as pets, just like laws that protect dogs and cats. If stores care only about money, then they should be fined for cruelty. I wonder who at the store makes the decisions what to do with a wall of sick fish?
 
That's just awful! A whole wall. There should be laws to protect fish sold as pets, just like laws that protect dogs and cats. If stores care only about money, then they should be fined for cruelty. I wonder who at the store makes the decisions what to do with a wall of sick fish?

The first time I noticed it I asked one of the kids working there. He said that the head office didn't allow them to use medicine on the fish since it wasn't cost effective. When I went back months later and saw it was much worse I sent an email to the head office about it. They forwarded it to the store manager and she emailed me about it. Said they had been treating the wall for a month and thinking about changing the way the wall is filtered. I think all the tanks are filtered together so if one gets infected, they all get infected. Last time I was in it wasn't any better. Needless to say I don't ever buy from that store as I don't want to support them.

Here is the picture I took of one of their moores that I sent to the head office when I sent the complaint.
 

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Poor thing! :(. She is severely starved and in very poor condition. In addition to the MG, offer her bits of different types of fresh protein to see what she may be interested in. Defrosted bloodworms, bits of human shrimp/fish, even canned salmon or mackerel. Also offer bits of veggies, too. Do not add other meds while using the MG- just lots of healthy water. Bit of salt is fine. Do you only have MG or do you also have Metromeds?

Ok, I'll try entice her to eat more. She ate a couple peas earlier but not much.

Yes, have Metromeds, and Prazi, anti-bac bath, Pro Gold and JumpStart.

Thanks again for you help!

2nd day and she's still alive! :)

Is there some way to set up a filter so it doesn't blow her all over? She gets swished around, poor thing.
 
Lets hope for the best! She has quite a bit of infection on her fins so lets try to get this under control with the MG and healthy water first. Then we can address other possible issues. Do your best to try and get her to eat. She may start to feel better once she has some decent nutrition. Have you tried covered the intake tube with a large piece of filter foam (aq sponge)? Also make sure the tank is as full as possible as this will lessen the outflow, too. Keep us posted!
 
Poor fish! I think your letters and effort will make a difference but it often takes awhile. When they loose business it might get through to them if they understand why.
 
Lets hope for the best! She has quite a bit of infection on her fins so lets try to get this under control with the MG and healthy water first. Then we can address other possible issues. Do your best to try and get her to eat. She may start to feel better once she has some decent nutrition. Have you tried covered the intake tube with a large piece of filter foam (aq sponge)? Also make sure the tank is as full as possible as this will lessen the outflow, too. Keep us posted!

Well so far so good. She is doing better and she was wiggling around so fast I couldn't get a photo of her. :) Amazing how she can go so quick with no fins!

Had a hard time getting her to eat at first, but she is now eating really well, loves the MG and peas. She watches me while I'm in the kitchen, then skittles away when I come close. When we first brought her home she was to weak and terrified to move.

Should I keep feeding her the MG for another week? She's been on them for about 10 days now.

I'll upload a photo soon as she takes a nap. I think her fins look better, but I need someone else to look at them.
 
Well so far so good. She is doing better and she was wiggling around so fast I couldn't get a photo of her. :) Amazing how she can go so quick with no fins!

Had a hard time getting her to eat at first, but she is now eating really well, loves the MG and peas. She watches me while I'm in the kitchen, then skittles away when I come close. When we first brought her home she was to weak and terrified to move.

Should I keep feeding her the MG for another week? She's been on them for about 10 days now.

I'll upload a photo soon as she takes a nap. I think her fins look better, but I need someone else to look at them.

I'm happy to hear she is doing well. I find it easier to get video of my boys than it is to get good pics. Why don't you try that?
 
I'm happy to hear she is doing well. I find it easier to get video of my boys than it is to get good pics. Why don't you try that?

Yup and if you are using an iPhone you can get a free app that let's you extract single frames from the video! It's called 'video 2 photo'
 
Let's see how she looks once you are able to get a pic before deciding if the MG needs to be used beyond 14days. It sounds like her behavior and appetite have improved alot! I am very glad to hear this! :)
 
Thanks guys, it worked great pulling a photo from a video. The side photos are looking through the plastic tub so looks more blurry. The top photo shows how much she went poo just today alone, I cleaned her tub and changed her water this morning!

How does she look? Do you see any infection? She gets really winded after swimming away from the camera and gulps rapidly for awhile. Maybe just gets tired easy from being sick.
 

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Well swimming pooping and eating is a good sign. It's too bad some chain stores are so terrible. The pet smart in my town is top notch always healthy fish and nice people. It's ten times better than the family owned store down the road. Just depends on who manages it.
 
Well swimming pooping and eating is a good sign. It's too bad some chain stores are so terrible. The pet smart in my town is top notch always healthy fish and nice people. It's ten times better than the family owned store down the road. Just depends on who manages it.

Same here on the pet smart stores. (This was another big chain store where we saw the bad conditions.) Felt bad for the two employees who helped us because they were so nice and they felt sorry for the fish. I could be wrong but i think the store rules say don't spend money on sick livestock.

Is it true that fish don't feel pain or is that just an old wives' tale? Either way it's not cool to let anything suffer.
 
That's an old wives tale. Any creature with a nervous system (including things such as worms) can feel pain.

She looks so much better! Shes starting to gain weight and fill out, her dorsal appears to be regrowing, her tail is not ragged and the ammonia burns on the tips of her fins are almost all gone! Great job!!! Just be aware that her dorsal fin may not completely regrow but she seems to doing fine even with the damage to it. I would continue the meds for a few more days than work on transitioning her to regular food (non-medicated). She may not take to regular food immediately but hopefully will switch over quickly as she needs her nutrition to heal. I suspect her becoming winded easily is due to gill damage from living in horrific conditions. Keep us posted! :)
 
That's an old wives tale. Any creature with a nervous system (including things such as worms) can feel pain.

She looks so much better! Shes starting to gain weight and fill out, her dorsal appears to be regrowing, her tail is not ragged and the ammonia burns on the tips of her fins are almost all gone! Great job!!! Just be aware that her dorsal fin may not completely regrow but she seems to doing fine even with the damage to it. :)


Thank you again for your help! (seriously you should write a book on goldfish care, I would buy it) I'm so happy to hear that you think she looks better! With no dorsal fin, how will she be able to show me how "tough" she is by puffing up at me? It's so cute when they do that. My big orange girl is the boss of the tank, so hope she accepts the new girl (later when I know all is well) because she keeps the peace and tries to protect the others from any conceived danger. She puts herself in front with her dorsal straight up. The first time I saw this was amazed. Doubly amazed when I saw the big girl quietly putting one of the new guys in his place as he tried to bully everyone. Now they all get along! ;)

P.s. O.T. My husband calls our place an animal sanctuary, have saved birds and a baby fox from an eagle, we feed the wild animals if the winter is hard, adopted pets from no-kill shelters . . .we do what we can to help, it's all we can do. :)
 
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