Goldfish White spots, red spots, veins, deteriorating fins

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geekboy

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Jul 1, 2009
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The developments continue.

I've moved both comets to my backup tank. I believe it's a 25 gallon. I took a good bit of gravel from the main tank, and filled it 3/4 with main tank water and the last 1/4 from the tap. The filter is a Marineland Emperor 400, which is excessive but all I had handy. After the water had settled, I got a face full of thrashing fish water and dropped them in.

After a while I noticed they looked even more sullen than usual, so I ran water tests. The nitrates were a bit high (around 60ppm), but then I expected that from the main tank water I transferred. The bigger surprise was that I have apparently picked up an ammonia spike of about 1.5ppm -- in an hour -- despite a (re-checked) zero reading in both the main tank and the tap water.

All I can say is it's hard to keep medication in the tank with all these water changes.
 

LeahK

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Jul 5, 2007
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Watch out for an ammonia spike in your main tank, too. Antibacterial meds can kill off good bacteria, as well.
 

geekboy

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I've had horrible problems with water quality in the hospital tank. I don't know if there was some residual waste in the spare filter or tank or it it is entirely from the tiny bit I've been feeding, but I've resorted to daily 50% water changes to try and keep cloudy, smelly water with simultaneous ammonia and nitrite spikes under control.

The antibiotics are probably playing havoc with the cycle, and the filter media is unseeded and will take time. I borrowed a bunch of gravel from the main tank at least. I've supplemented the water changes with some ammo-lock and salt where I thought the levels still were excessive.

The poor comets sit around like rocks on the bottom, and nearly unresponsive since they were moved. They don't appear to feed actively anymore, but I still see them making a mess so they must be sneaking a bit of food. My eyes may be playing tricks, but I think the infection on their fins looks improved. I just hope they can survive the other torments for a bit longer.

The Maracyn treatment runs out tomorrow. If they make it to the end of that, I'll run charcoal for a day and start a round of Kanaplex (as per suggestion earlier). I also found some Jungle fungus tabs, which are a backup plan.
 

geekboy

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Thanks for the link with the antibiotic information. It looks like they actually encourage combining the active ingredients in Kanaplex and the Fungus Tabs, so I may just do that.
 

geekboy

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The round of Maracyn/M2 ran a five day course. Both fish are starting to move around a little bit more. The water has been quite cloudy, but it cleared up enough in the last 50% change to get a good look at their fins. I'm afraid the septicemia has hardly improved at all. I have one or two more days worth of the Maracyn, but I decided to try plan B.

I ran charcoal overnight, followed by another large water change this morning. Both the Kanaplex and Jungle fungus tabs are dosed now.

There really should be some sort of warning about medications that change the water color. Those fungus tabs stain everything deep blue, which surprised me, and judging by the reaction of the fish, them too.
 

geekboy

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Jul 1, 2009
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The new meds seem promising. There goldies are increasingly active, and beginning to feed again. I may have been sabotaging my own efforts however -- I discovered yesterday that one of the plastic cartridges in my old Emperor filter (which always had bio-media in them before) had charcoal in it all this time, so I expect I'll see a sudden increase in treatment effectiveness now that I've got it out of there.
 
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