White discoloration on goldfish

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Flaringshutter

Befriend a feeder!
Oct 17, 2006
1,870
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Southern California
It could be the wen growing, but it's unusual for it to be only in one spot. I would keep up with your water changes, as you have been. Keeping that ammonia down will be critical.

You could be looking at a bacterial infection. Hard to say at this point. What are you feeding, how much & how often? Spend a few minutes observing him, and especially take a good look at his behavior during feeding. Is he swimming erratically? Gasping for air? Sitting on the bottom? These kind of details will help us pinpoint the problem.
 

mattsfishtank

AC Members
Jan 1, 2008
21
0
0
Minnesota
I take it the wen is the puffy part of the fish's forehead? If so then I think you are right about that. While I was doing my water change today I noticed that the "patch" has subsided, but there is still subtle veining going on over all of it. Leads me to believe that it was just the start of more growth.

To answer your other questions I feed them twice a day. Once at 5:30 am, and then again in the evening (time varying). I feed them Omega One medium sinking goldfish pellets. I also drop in a Hikari Algae Eaters wafer for my plecostomus. I stand there and feed them the pellets a couple at a time, making sure each fish is getting some. Each fish typically grabs 6-7 pellets in about a 1-2 minute time frame. I'm sure that once in awhile they eat a bit of the wafers as well.

As I watched the fish these past couple of days, everything seems to be fine. They are active, move to the front of the tank whenever I am around, and when I was filling the tank on Sunday the oranda even skimmed along the top of the water 3 times. I had never seen a goldfish do that before. It was like the fish was playing, hoping up and down in the water.
 
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mattsfishtank

AC Members
Jan 1, 2008
21
0
0
Minnesota
Why peas? I read that they need to be skinned, but do I need to cook them? Any preparation needed like cutting them up or can I drop a couple whole peas in there and let the fish pick at them?

I also had a question about filtration. I was reading the goldfish guide stickied at the top of the forum and it said a canister filter is better than a hob for goldfish. When my tank gets settled back down I might actually like to get a canister filter established instead for a couple different reasons. What should I look for? What brand model is comparable to my Penquin 150?
 

Flaringshutter

Befriend a feeder!
Oct 17, 2006
1,870
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Southern California
Every time someone asks about canister filters I recommend the Rena XP line. I have two XP3s on my tank and I adore them. However, any quality brand is good - Fluvals are popular here, Eheim, Magnum... they're all fantastic. Just be sure you get a canister rated for at least twice the capacity of your tank. Goldfish are such dirty fish, plus they require a high oxygen content, so it's important to overfilter.
 

mattsfishtank

AC Members
Jan 1, 2008
21
0
0
Minnesota
This past week I lost the goldfish that this post was originally about. The fish got what I can only describe as white, stringy (almost silky?) fungus/bacteria on its eyes/gills/tips of tail. It looked like the fish swam through a cobweb, honestly. Found it dead early last week. I got it out of the tank immediately. Did an 80% water change, looked closely at my other two fish (another goldfish and plecostomus), they seemed to be unaffected. I didn't take a water reading because I figured the results were irrelevant since a dead fish was contaminating my water.

A couple days later ( believe it was Wednesday), the white goldfish developed a swim bladder issue and then overnight had developed the same type of stuff on it. It also at that point had developed tail rot, and I could see the veins in his tail. They were red under the skin. I really at that point thought I had lost another fish. I vacuumed the gravel out again and did roughly a 60% water change. The plecostomus during this time was fine. It was going about his normal glass sucking/cleaning routine. Water readings were all ok, except my ammonia was a little high at ~ .25 ppm.

Thursday my white goldfish was able to swim upright again, and did not have any more signs of the white stuff on it. Again, plecostomus looked normal.

However, on Friday my plecostomus was over in the corner of my tank laying with its side on the gravel, and leaning its back against one of the rocks. It was not sucking on the glass. At first I thought it was dead, but I watched and it was breathing. There are not any visible signs of the same thing that affected the goldfish, but I'm sure there is a possibility that it would show the same signs in a different kind of fish.

Today, my white goldfish is swimming around normally. It's eating and I cannot see the veins in its tail anymore. It also looks like its tail might be healing (it is looking better than it did the other days). The plecostomus is still laying in roughly the same area, still breathing, but I doubt it has eaten much at all over the weekend. I did another water change, this time of 50%. I still had ammonia levels of ~ .25 ppm.

Could the plecostomus have eaten something bad that was kicked up from when I cleaned out the gravel? I'm not sure what could be wrong with him.
 
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ITHURTZ

BIG BOSS
Apr 19, 2007
765
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16
39
Lake County IL (north of cook)
Do multiple water changes a day and find out WHY that ammonia is so high. What are your nitrites and nitrates? Are you using tap water, and if so are you using prime or other conditioners before you add it to the tank?
 
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