Dry common goldfish revived; now with mucopurulent discharge

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metalhalide

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Mar 4, 2008
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I felt sick Sunday.

Our common 5 inch goldfish resides in a 75 gal planted tank at about 69-70 fahrenheit. Water changes done every 1-2 weeks. powerhead in one back corner, Penguin HOB filter on other end of tank. NH3 and Nitrites undetectable since the tank was cycled 18 to 24 mos ago. Nitrates 5mg/L. Fish has been healthy and vigorous. Learned how to swim through a hoop with the R2 fish school (featured at my son's schools holiday party) Hears us coming down the stairs and swims to the end of the tank. Watches when I work on the "bug" tank, a planted tank that has snails and a damselfly nymph that hitched a ride.

I did a water change four days ago and "topped off" the tank. Then, the next morning I found it on the carpet, dry and stiff. What the heck! I thought that goldfish don't jump out of the tank. The fish wasn't flashing or acting strangely before this happened. Against common sense I placed it back in the tank and revived it! After 15, 20 min, it could move the left pectoral fin and tail fin. Denuded skin on right side. After 3 hours, it was swimming fairly well and filtering gravel, but not moving the right pectoral. Kept filtering gravel and bumping into things after the tank light went out. Seemed practically "cheerful."

Day 2, barely moving, and making poor efforts to move, swimming on side, but righting self. I managed to feed it 3 bloodworms with the feeding wand. 30% water change and salt added to 1 tbs per 10gal.

Day 3, moving better, but didn't eat or show much interest in food presented either by wand or dropped into tank. Now with white patches on denuded right side. Another 30% water change with salt added to new water. Vacuumed all of the uneaten food.

Today, more active, but still not eating (though it swam to the wand). Moving right pectoral fin more. Now with thick mucus layer. Looks white in head-on photos, but lateral photos are more representative. This thick layer seems to be sloughing off at the borders. Scales appear to be intact. I looked at the carpet again for evidence of ripped off scales, but all I see is dried mucus on the floor, so I wonder if the abrasion is pretty superficial. Usually his dorsal fin stands up, but occasionally I see clamping. I tested the water again, Nitrates 5mg/L, pH 7.6, nitrites and NH3 undetectable. I don't have water hardness tests.

Did another 30% water change and replaced the salt.

Wonder if there is anything else I should do? I am concerned that the exudate might be fungal, therefore the repeated water changes. I don't have any way to do micro on it, but may check with some local vets to see if they can do smears and stains. A dip in medicine would probably be painful and might do more harm than good if this is just healing. We are pretty attached to this fish and would like to see it recover. But I would consider euthanizing it with clove oil, though, if it doesn't seem to be turning around, or declines. Looking at these photos, you may say "my god, just put it out of its misery," but it looked more energetic today and at least looked at food. Definitely looked to be in less distress today than on day 2. IMG_1219.jpgIMG_1225.jpgIMG_1226.jpgWhat do you think?

IMG_1219.jpg IMG_1225.jpg IMG_1226.jpg
 

dixienut

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Jun 15, 2006
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if it feed more each day and acts better the dried skin will heal you just need to keep it clean and keep any infection down,.. salt will increase slime coat,.. may help , but may hinder if bacteria is growing under slime,.. keep up water changes,.. and keep and eye out on the affected side,..
 

metalhalide

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Mar 4, 2008
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Update

Thanks, dixienut

Take home lesson: Goldfish jump out of tanks, even when the water is good and they are the only ones in the tank. I have since read of other owners having this same problem. This fish is pretty big and jumped out of a barely-body-sized hole in the top.

Update day 5. Still scary looking mucus coat. Fish ate like crazy, but had to be fed from the wand. Doing some gravel sifting, but mostly being hand fed. Overall, swimming better and doing less clamping. Did a 20% water change and vacuumed uneaten food. Replaced salt.
 

Jannika

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Mar 17, 2010
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This is amazing. Another lesson could be: just because your fish appears to be dead, maybe it isn't. Here's hoping he makes a full recovery and will swim through hoops once again!
 

Kashta

Always Niko's fault.....
Jun 24, 2008
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You're doing a great job from what I've just read, metalhalide. And it sounds like the fish is recovering well. Keep us updated on it's progress.
 

Fozzybear

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Mar 16, 2011
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Hey there, i had this experience with a 2-3 year old Goldie I had, I also managed to revive mine as well, they're tough fish. Anyways, what you've got is necrosis (dead/dying tissue) very similar to what would happen with severe frost bite. Basically the tissue in the areas that are pealing etc. got deoxygenated when he suffocated and the tissue has died. The main concern I'd have is that skin is the first line of defense for our immune system (and a very important one) and with massive die-off he is going to be immune compromised. Therefor it would be important to not overfeed the fish and keep the water extremely clean, salt IMHO is a wise choice (a UV purifier may be nice as well). As it is it sounds like yours is on the mend, so just help him fight off infection (no stress, no change of diet etc.) and cross your fingers.
 

metalhalide

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Mar 4, 2008
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Thanks everyone for the support. Today the fish fed well in the morning and afternoon. It is still swimming ok and seems to prefer the gentle current from the powerhead. Again i vacuumed the uneaten food, but didnt do another water change.

The fish's skin or, I should say, the mucus layer is another story. It looks worse. I think it looks like a carpet of very fine white hairs with a gelatinous border. They are all parallel, not bunched or balled. There are no hemorrhages. The lesions are about the same area, no bigger. But the layer looks thicker. Yet you can still see the scales through it. So i went into panic mode. I went to petsmart and bought Pimafix and maracyn. No, i dont have a gram stain or fungal stain. So if I use these, I am using them blind. It is 10:00 PM, the tank light is now off and I dont want to stress the fish by moving it to a treatment tank tonight. I may start the Pimafix tomorrow. True antifungals may be warranted, but they may be a bit harsh. I have to weigh the stress of moving the fish against the possibility that I am just seeing a normal recovery.

Another thing I noticed was stringy mucus in its feces today. Still eating well, though. I have told my eight year old son that we are doing our best, but to be prepared for the fish to maybe get worse, or even die. The stringy feces preceded the demise of another fish we owned for about two weeks. That fish never made it out of the quarantine tank to join this fish and is long gone (about a year ago).

Thanks again. I hope that this account will be helpful for others who are trying to manage the same problem in the future.

Will keep posting.
 
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Big Mike

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Sound like you are doing a great job. I really hope he makes it. Best of luck.
 

metalhalide

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Mar 4, 2008
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Update, day 8.

The cottony carpet persisted, so I moved the goldfish to a 10gal quarantine tank with a filter and a weak powerhead. Doubled the salt to 1 tablespoon per 5 gal. Added Pimafix and some homebrew tea tree oil. Fish still fed and active. During transfer, some fungus/skin sloughed off and looked actually pretty good, but started to develop fungus again later in the day (I think; maybe the slough was incomplete.). Added a packet of API "fungus cure." The ingredients are Victoria green B and Acriflavine. Victoria green B is a euphemism for Malachite Green, a nasty and possibly mutagenic substance. It kills plants and beneficial bacteria, but the directions say to wait 48 hrs to do a water change. I also added a packet of erythromycin (Maracyn). No, I don't really have a good basis for doing that except that I've seen no improvement in the fish's appearance and thought that I might be wrong about the diagnosis.

Today, seeing no change, I decided to try to debride the "carpet" off the side of the fish. So, I put a gallon of tank water in one of my buckets. I put five drops of clove oil in a ziploc bag with some more tank water, and shook it to try to suspend it in the water, then added it to the water in the bucket. I put on long latex gloves to protect myself from the Malachite Green in the tank. Then I turned the power head off, got the fish cornered with the ziploc and transferred it to the bucket, letting the clove oil water mix into the bag. Sloshed the fish into the bucket and watched. Once the fish seemed to tip over I picked it up and used cotton balls to debride the filaments off its side. At first, I thought that I was doing a pretty good job, until I put it back into the water. Much of that stuff still was there, so I used a combination of cotton ball abrasion and manual picking to remove more. I probably removed 4-6 scales in the process and got most of the stuff off, but definitely not all. After about 3-5 minutes of this I transferred the fish back to the treatment tank and moved it back and forth until it could right itself. After about 10 minutes it was swimming fine. I took advantage of the still water to get some feces out of the water with a turkey baster. Tomorrow, I plan to do a water change with salt and another dose of "fungus cure."

There is some real imprecision in all this. I just went off a formula on a webpage for the clove oil. But for those of you who try this, I warn you to be conservative with dosage. Five drops may be 200 or 300 or 500 microliters the way I did it, but it could be a lot more if you use a different dropper, so watch the fish carefully because this stuff really knocks them out. If they stop moving their gills, put them back in normal water!
 

Fozzybear

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Mar 16, 2011
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wow, you really are working hard with this fish. Sounds like you're doing all the right stuff...I'd just keep on trying to keep him in a clean antiseptic environment, and as relaxed as possible. Thanks for the updates
 
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