my parents have a problem I've been unable to figure out. they recently bought some new fish for their pond outside. they added about 6 4" fish to about an 800-1000 gallon pond. recently they've started losing fish on a daily basis, some of them the new ones, some old. My father has not seen any external problems other than some of them have had their gill covers folded backwards. I havn't been able to go over and see the fish myself but he said he hasn't seen anything else. the pond's been set up many years and I don't think these additions would have spiked anything like ammonia or nitrites so we're suspecting a disease brought in by the new fish. I just can't find any parasites or diseases or anything with these characteristics. He also had one fish still alive swimming around with a gill cover flipped like this. I asked him if he saw any worms around the gills like gill-flukes and he said he hadn't although when he was cleaning the waterfall off the other day there were some type of worms under the algae and such but I'm not sure this is related or even a problem. any ideas what could cause this? Kyle
ATTN: goldfish experts
- Thread starter snakeskinner
- Start date
Spring is a common time for parasitic outbreaks e.g. Costia or Chilodonella. Both of these primarily attack the gills. Costia also often causes sudden loss without showing symtoms. Costia would be my first suspect. My second suspect would be contaminated water. Did anybody spray any pesticides or any other chemical that might have accidentally contaminated the pond? In what time span did the fish die. The worms he seen could have been several things. If he could see them with the naked eye they would be noticed affecting the goldfish. To determine if it is a parasite and which one you would need to do a scraping and put it under a microscope. If it is parasites it can be treated with salt. I hope that helps a little bit. Good luck.
I hadn't even thought about the pesticides. I'll ask him and see if he's done any spraying near the pond. only problem with salt is that they have lots of plants. He was supposed to contact the place he bought the last fish and see if they had any problems or ideas. I think he's been loosing 1-2 fish a day over the last 3 or 4 days but I'm not positive. you know any ways of testing the water for chemicals? I may run over this evening and take a look at things myself and see if I find anything. thanks for the tips, Kyle
I do not know of any ways to check the water for chemicals. With an outdoor pond though water contamination from run off or overspray is always a problem which is why I mentioned it. But, since the problem began with the introduction of new fish I would be looking for a disease. You should definiately look for and rule out parasites, however, because some fish will survive as carriers. The problem, if you have it, will just keep reoccuring unless treated.
I forgot to ask about the chemicals when I talked with my dad but I think he'd have mentioned it if he thought it could have been runoff from something. Anyway, I stopped by after work and netted a couple fish. I'm not so sure there aren't multiple problems. I found one orange fantail that was a little slower and appeared to have something on its lip so I netted it and found its lips were very rough, eaten off possibly. I flared his gills and found a lot of brown buildup on the gills themselves. I then tried catching one of the new fish. They were shbunkin comets or however that's spelled. I caught a fish that looked similar to this, about 6" long, whitish grey body with black and orange speckles. I don't know that it was acting wierd or anything but it just happened to be the unlucky sucker I netted. its mouth and gills looked normal but its tail was partially eaten off in the middle. The best I can describe how it looked was if you were to take a leaf and use a lighter to burn part of the leaf back. It looked as though the tail had been burned back and had red flesh showing at the base of the wound. It didn't really look like a bite from a snake or anything that had grasped it and ripped but something much much smaller, maybe even bacteria small. The last time my parents purchased fish from this supplier they got a flesh eating disease of some type that killed lots of fish but I'm not sure this is the same symptoms since my parents had to leave town for a couple days. I called them and they said they'd found 4 more dead fish before they left this morning but didn't notice any external damage other than the gill flaps folded backwards on a couple of them. I'm not sure whether there is a parasite on the gills plus some type of flesh eating bacteria or something or whether this could be a common problem for both symptoms. I'm going to call the fish farm tomorrow and speak with them. my parents had called but they just wanted a water sample and a dead fish. Maybe since I have found this new information they might be able to help on the phone since they're an hour away from me and I don't have a dead fish yet. Hopefully you guys have seen such a problem? Most of their fish are common goldfish, fantails and such with a couple comets and 3 koi a little over a foot long. the koi don't show any symptoms that I know of (no way to catch them) but the goldfish and comets seem to be sharing the problem. I didn't notice any visible worms, flukes, ich, abnormal slime or scale problems and externally the gills looked fine on these two. thanks for any help, KYle
There probably are multiple problems. My guess would still be that a parasite started the problems. Mouth rot isn't usually caused by bacteria except in instances where overcrowding is an issue. It is likely that the fish developed a secondary bacterial infection as a result of being weakened by a parasite.
Last edited: