Help! My Black Moor has ick

[KarlaM]

About two days ago I noticed one of my black moors has his tail shredded. I separated him and started treating him with Melafix. I noticed he has been trying to scratch himself against the glass and some of the ornaments but he has no white dots. So this morning I cleaned the tank and started treating him with table salt and turned on the heater but my fish started swimming very fast as if it could not take the salt and the heat. So then I noticed it was at the bottom of the tank laying on one side and not moving. Out of desperation I scooped him out and put him in another tank with fresh water all he was doing was doing was kinda floating belly up. I decided to add some Melafix, it no longer looks like if it going to die but I still need help on treating his shredded tail, what should I do? Please give me suggestions.

[Ballyhoo]

1. what are your water parameters?
2. what temp did you increase to?
3. How much salt did you add?

[KarlaM]

The temp was aboy 80F and I added about 4 tea spoons of salt to the 4 gallon tank. I have no way to measure the water parameters.

[Ashes2ashes]

About two days ago I noticed one of my black moors has his tail shredded. I separated him and started treating him with Melafix. I noticed he has been trying to scratch himself against the glass and some of the ornaments but he has no white dots. So this morning I cleaned the tank and started treating him with table salt and turned on the heater but my fish started swimming very fast as if it could not take the salt and the heat. So then I noticed it was at the bottom of the tank laying on one side and not moving. Out of desperation I scooped him out and put him in another tank with fresh water all he was doing was doing was kinda floating belly up. I decided to add some Melafix, it no longer looks like if it going to die but I still need help on treating his shredded tail, what should I do? Please give me suggestions.


Do you have pictures? I am not that great with fish disease diagnosis, but I have never heard of ich without ich spots. I would think you could get a much better diagnosis from some of the people on the forum very knowledgable in fish illness if you post a picture and water params, and then get a treatment plan going from there. :) Good luck.

[Somervell]

I have never heard of ich without presenting spots, either. The tail shredding could certainly be a symptom of a problem with water parameters. If that is the case, the tail will heal with super clean water. Rather than try treatment after treatment, it would be a really good investment to get a water testing kit. If it is a water quality issue, you should see improvement very soon.

I am not sure how well melafix, which is just Tea trea oil extract in a base, works with salt. It might be counterindicated. If there is a coming infection, the salt would wipe it out, anyway, so the Melafix is probably overkill, and seems to help only anecdotally, anyway. Some people swear by it-- others just claim it is useless.

[Ballyhoo]

I agree tail shredding isn't a sign of Ich. Are there any other fish in the tank?
answering http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=180877 these questions will help in diagnosis.

[KarlaM]

I could not get any pictures downloaded I will most likely try tomorrow. But everything in his body is perfect exept for the tail it is deteriorating little by little you can already see the white strand and some of his black skin from the tail come off. All the other fish that where in the same tank with my black moor are fine. Is it posible that it is some kind of fungus?

[KarlaM]

if it is some kind of fungus what treatment would you recomend?

[Ballyhoo]

I'm not too familiar with fungus treatments. If you post in the freshwater illness and disease forum you will have better luck at getting a response.

[67chevelle]

if it is some kind of fungus what treatment would you recomend?
It sounds like fin rot to me. Get some Maracyn,and keep the water clean.

[KarlaM]

ok I wil try that

[thepandafactor]

It may be some kind of swimbladder disease, goldfish and moors in particular have huge susceptibility to this kind of thing. It could make it so it looks like he is scratching, or floating belly-up. If it still eats try feeding him some peas (take it out of the skin, just the inner bean part), they are like a laxative and may calm its problems. But just to be safe, I would keep it in the salty water and continue dosing with Melafix to treat the fin rot.

[KarlaM]

Since I changed his water yesterday with only less salt and melafix he has been doing fine but this tail does not seem to get any better or worst, he is also not swimming on his sides anymore but just in case I will start feeding him peas. H eis acting preety normal, the only thing that is out of the norm is his tail. But he does seem to be getting a little better.
thanks for the advice :)

[KarlaM]

My fish is getting a little better and is acting preety normal now. :)

[Somervell]

Glad to hear it. It may take several weeks for finrot to resolve. It is essential to do frequent water changes (like 30% every two days) until it clears up. The cleaner the water, the less of a chance of recurrence.

[GoldLenny]

Since I changed his water yesterday with only less salt and melafix he has been doing fine but this tail does not seem to get any better or worst, he is also not swimming on his sides anymore but just in case I will start feeding him peas. H eis acting preety normal, the only thing that is out of the norm is his tail. But he does seem to be getting a little better.
thanks for the advice :)

Karla,

What size tank do you keep BM in and what other fish?

The number one cause of goldfish health problems are related to water quality issues. If you keep their water quality in good shape, they will usually stay healthier but if their water is regularly getting too dirty, high nitrates (or ammonia/nitrites), etc., they will be more sickly.

You should have at least 30G of water volume for each fancy goldfish and even that would need to be filtered well and partial water changes done at least weekly to keep them healthy long term. Vacuuming the gravel at least weekly and doing filter cleaning at least weekly is also needed.

Here's my Fancy Goldfish Care Sheet since I haven't found any other Goldfish Care Sheets that are really that good. http://goldlenny.blogspot.com/2007/03/goldfish-care-sheet-fancy-goldfish.html

Depending on how bad the fin got, it could take a couple of weeks to grow back. If the fin rotted all the way down to the peduncle (the flesh at the base of the fin) then that area may not grow back.

Keep up the PWC's (partial water changes), DAILY if possible, and keep treating with Melafix.

The swimbladder issue is likely due to bacterial infection in the digestive tract which is causing swelling of one or more organs and then those organs put pressure on one of the two swim bladders or on the tubes/valves controlling the swim bladder and then the fish can't regulate the swim bladders properly so they go lopsided.

Feed green pea *meat* (pinch the green peas to and discard the skin) daily as they love it and it's kind of a laxative for them so it will flush out any constipation issues that can also cause swim bladder issues.

[KarlaM]

The tank size that I keep my two black moors is a 30 gallon tank. Along with five baby goldfish. Yea I know that is bad I have been meaning to give away the gold fish to the local green house since they have about 3 ponds. In fact I do clean their tank every week along with the filter and the gravel. The reason why I heva so many gold fish is because my causin used to bring me bags of baby goldfish.
But thanks for the advice,I will keep that in mind. And I will send the other fish to the ponds. I trully don't think it had swim bladder, I think it was just an affect of the salt and heat. It was just for that moment that it whent on its side, but after I put him in fresh water, with melafix and a little bit of salt the fish looks a lot better.

[GoldLenny]

Well, if you get rid of the five baby common goldfish and just keep the two Black Moor goldfish in a 30G tank, you should increase your PWC's to twice a week if the BM goldfish are more than couple of inches long. If your BM goldfish are closer to adult size (5" to 6" bodies or larger... with 8" being a full grown, non-stunted size), then you will have to increase your PWC frequency, filter maintenance and gravel vacuuming to twice a week or more to keep their water quality in decent shape.

Just to let you know the math, a single 8" adult sized fancy goldfish is equal in body mass to over 500 1" goldfish.... so imagine having 500 baby goldfish in your 30G tank. Well, that's one one adult sized is equal to which is why goldfish need so much water volume. For each time a goldfish doubles it's length, it increases it's body mass by EIGHT TIMES... so a 2" goldfish is equal to eight 1" goldfish. A 4" goldfish is equal to eight 2" goldfish or 64 1" goldfish. An 8" goldfish is equal to 64 2" or over 500 1" goldfish. While I haven't done the math, a 5" or 6" would still be equal to an estimated 200-300 1" goldfish. I have the math and supporting references on my Goldfish Care Sheet page on my blog.

[KarlaM]

Wow I did not know that, thank yopu for telling me all that information. I always wondered why they need so much space. I will keep that in mind, and don't worry I will get rid of them by the end of this week.

[GoldLenny]

Another thing I didn't mention is that it's VERY important to keep goldfish in adequate sized tanks from the time they are small to keep them from being permanently stunted.

Goldfish have very small stomachs compared to other fish so they put out waste (poop) at a fast rate. Pretty much, what goes in, comes out, so they like to eat all the time to get enough sustinence to support their larger body sizes. They also have very active osmoregulatory systems and gill function (they need LOTS of O2 which is why they are cool/cold water fish) so they also put out lots of urine. With these two levels being put out at a much higher rate compared to comparable fish, they likely also excrete a lot more hormones/pheromones in their waste.

While having adequate filtration will help to suck up visible poop and handle the ammonia put out by goldfish and covert it through the nitrogen cycle, doing frequent PWC's is the best and probably the ONLY way to remove these unseen and/or visible waste products. The PWC's also remove the hormone levels or at least dilute them down to non-harmful or less harmful levels.