Red spots on my goldfish

[Goldfishkeeper]

Hello, I think these 2 little red spots are new on this fish. I added some pictures. Can you help know if my fish is sick and what I should do? We added a new fish last week and it spiked our tank, crazy! The ammonia and nitrite went up to 1-1.5. We are down to 0.25 for ammonia and nitrite. My husband added some prime and stability. Then the fish store guy sold us a better version of stability. That seemed to help faster. We have been limiting their food a lot to help as well. All of the other fish look normal. Everyone acts normal. One of the black moors has been a little cranky and slightly aggressive about the lack of food, but I'm not sure that he caused the red spots. Any ideas?

 

[Andy Sager]

Those blood spots are usually a reaction to water quality. Once you fix that, they should go away on their own. It does take some time for this to happen so be patient. The thing to watch for is more spots developing when you have clean water. If this occurs, the fish should be treated in a separate hospital tank with clean water and salt. If this does not solve the issue, you will need to move to a more aggressive treatment with antibiotics. ( In order to suggest a proper antibiotic, we would need to know your water parameters regarding Ph, Gh and Kh as different meds work best under certain conditions. )

Hope this helps.

 

[Colin_T]

The fish has excess mucous too. This is the creamy white film over the body and fins and is caused by something in the water irritating the fish (most likely the ammonia and nitrite). Treatment is big daily water changes, gravel cleaning the substrate and maybe adding some salt.

You need to keep ammonia and nitrite on 0ppm at all times, and nitrate as close to 0ppm and under 20ppm at all times. If you get any readings above this, do a 75% water change every day until the levels are 0ppm.

To treat the fish for their current issue, do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

If the red dots don't improve after a few days of water changes, add some salt while continuing the water changes.

If there's no improvement after a week of salt and water changes, post more pictures.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres (5 gallons).

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with goldfish, livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.