Spots on tail fin - with pictures

[avtanski]

Hello,

I posted this same question to a different forum but there was no response so far (more than 12 hours). I know that crossposting is not good, but since time might be of essence, I'm submitting my question here too. Sorry.

Anyway, back to the problem... Can you help me identifying the cause and proper treatment for this:

http://avtanski.net/images/var/tail1.jpg
http://avtanski.net/images/var/tail2.jpg

Two whitish spots on the tail fin, if looked from one side (the side shown on the pictures) under certain lighting it _seems_ that the spot has bumpy appearance, as if there is something that crawled under the skin (hard to say for sure because it changes with the light; might as well be concave instead of convex). Viewed from the other side, the spot is flat and seen just as a shadow through the fin.

The fish seems to act slightly more nervous than usual, but it is hard to tell, because he has always been the nervous and panicky one. I haven't noticed excessive scratching, or anything else too obvious.

Any clue what this might be, and what course of treatment should we take?

Thanks,

- Alex

 

[Tivaala]

in a human id say that looked like a ringworm type infection. in your fish id say it might possibly be a parasite of the wormy type, but its not something ive seen before so im definately not certain.
how does your water test?
have you changed anything recently?
how long have you had the fish?

 

[jsoong]

Nothing too specific from the looks of things. What are your tank parameters?

Chances are this is a virus thing. There had been reports of mysterious white spots like these in goldies that comes & goes, likely something similar to lymphocystis or one of the Koi herpetic viruses. It is fairly benign if that is what it is. People have noticed that increasing temp helps it to go away ... although they tend to come & go on its own.

The other possibility is a surface bacterial infection. It doesn't quite look like it (fins are usually ragged, with visible red veins). Even if it is bacterial, the infection would be on the surface. Apart from clean water (always the first thing to do!), a bit of salt is all I would use to start if the spots are spreading. (say 0.1%)

 

[Tivaala]

mmn. just been looking over the sites i normally check for infections/diseases/parasites and i cant find anything like this.
i'd say jsoong's advice is probably the best way forwards.

 

[avtanski]

Thanks a lot for the responses. We also googled around and did not find anything like this.

The aquarium is a 10 gallon one with two fishes in it. We had both of them from maybe three years. I think they are both goldfish, but not sure. (This may sound strange, so here is what happened - my daughter saved the gold one from being given as an award to some kids at a sport event; giving fish as awards should be outlawed, I think. Soon after we got first one home, it looked like he is quite lonely, so we got him/her a friend from a shop - supposedly also goldfish. He never was anything like gold color, and soon we noticed that the mouth looks slightly different than the first fishy. However, they seem to like each other a lot, and we left it at that.)

We'll try with 0.1% saltwater, unless you think we should wait and see first. So, I have two more questions:

a) 0.1% is by weight, right? (As opposed of percentage of saturated solution.) This is what, 38g NaCL for the 10 US gallon tank? Looks like a lot...

b) I treat the aquarium with the second (healthy) fish still in it, right? Long time ago when I had guppies they didn't look stressed by a bit of salt, but this is the first thing I have goldfish.

Thanks,

- Alex

 

[Tivaala]

guppies like brackish water and will go all the way up to full saltwater salinity if given time. goldfish also originally came from brackish waters (japan i believe) and can also stand a fair old whack of salt given time. amount is 1 teaspoon per 5 gallon(uk) on my box, some sites say 1 per gallon. check with jsoong on that.

 

[avtanski]

Situation update: I added 1 teaspoon salt (this should be 1/2 of the recommended dosage for the 10 gallons) and I think tomorrow to add the other 1 teaspoon for the full dose, unless you think there is a reason why not.

I noticed another spot, just where the tail fin merges into the body. It might have been there before, it is kind of hard to see.

Confirmed - the spot is bump on only one side of the fin. The bumpy side has fuzzy whitish appearance when looked at an angle. The other side looks smooth. If I look through the smooth side of the fin against the light, by the way it focuses the light it seems that the spot consists of a series of transparent spheres (eggs?). But it is really hard to tell, because this is one active fishy that doesn't stay long in one place.

 

[jsoong]

Those are single tailed goldfish. They are porb commons (or mixed breed). Goldfish do come in various colors, & not just gold. That black/gray is actually a very common variant. <The original wild color is olive green/black, gold is the first mutation. Nowadays, you can have white, black, orange or a mixture of the 3 (calicos, chocolate, blue, etc)>

EDIT - looked at the pic again, and the black has one barbel on the mouth that I can see ... hm, might even have some koi blood - koi should have 2 pairs of barbels, fancy goldfish none - although the wild carp ancestor will have barbels ... if this is a koi, or even a more wild type common, it will grow big!!

10 gal is a very small setup for commons. They grow big (like 18-24 inches) and are really pond fish. There is a possibility that those are shubunkins (or have some shubinkin blood) and be smaller (but still 8-12" full grown). To live out their normal lifespan (of 30+ years) you will have to look for bigger accommodations ....

Meanwhile, you need lots of water change to keep them healthy. Even if the ammonia, nitrites or nitrates levels are fine, there are prob a lot of accumulated MULM or other debris in the tank. The high organic load in the small tank often cause goldies to have problems. keeping commons in a small setup, 50% weekly pwc with a good gravel vac is absolutely necessary. Often, minor aliments like yours will be fixed with just clean water.

Salt is a good first treatment choice. It can certainly help if the spots are bacterial in nature. The % is weight based. So 0.1% = 0.1 grams per 100 ml of water or 1 g per liter. So yes, the 10 gal will need 38 grams of salt. (Somewhere around 6 teaspoons, depending on what salt you use.)

That is much higher than the box direction. The box direction uses very low doses as a "tonic". We are working with treatment, and much higher levels are needed. Goldfish can tolerate very high level of salt (up to full marine for short periods). I routinely use 0.3% for treating parasites (although the level is brought up over several days), 0.1% is actually a low treatment range for goldies. <For salt dips, much higher concentrations 1% up to 3% are used for short periods - minutes .... and you do have to watch the fish closely at those levels.>

Some reading on salt & goldfish (from a vet):
Salt Treatments: Chicken Soup for Your Fish by Myron Kebus

 

[avtanski]

Hello again. Just wanted to thank you for the help and update you on the situation. (The other reason I'm posting: There is this thing that I don't like - searching the net for a solution of a problem, seeing a thread where somebody is proposing a solution, and then the guy says "I'll try" and never comes back to report did it work or not. So, I try to always come back and post the results.)

The results are encouraging. I slowly brought the saline solution up to the full concentration - it took me 3-4 days to get there, but I didn't want to stress the fish with fast changes in salinity. After a week or so, the spots became whitish and looked slightly fuzzy. Then, the fuzziness disappeared and the spots seemed a bit smaller. They did not disappear, but no new spots appeared.

I kept the salinity at this level for a few weeks with no new spots at all, then brought slowly the salinity back to normal levels and everything seemed fine.

Yesterday I noticed a single fresh-looking spot, so I started bringing the salinity up again.

In short, it seems to work to keep the disease (parasite?) in check, but at least with a single round of treatment it wasn't a complete cure.

I plan to take salinity up to the same level as before - 6 teaspoons per 10 gallons. Do you think it is needed/wise/safe/good/stressful for the fish/etc. to go higher?

Thanks,

- Alex

 

[jsoong]

Thanks for posting your results. It seems to be common for those "mystery white spots" to come & go. No treatment will get rid of them forever .... that is why the suspicion that the spots are from viruses that is in the fish.

As for the salt ... 6tsp/10 gal is ~0.08%. That is a low level of salt for goldfish, and some people maintain that indefinitely. <Personally I don't think that salt is needed unless treating something.> Goldfish can tolerate quite a lot of salt without being stressed. I have gone as high as 0.3% for up to 3-4 weeks (bring the level up over at least 2 days), and short dips (10-15min) at up to 1.0%. That is for treating ich & other surface parasites. For those mystery white spots, there is prob no benefit going higher than 0.1%.