This is Little Fry…he is a SURVIVOR and has been living his best life successfully for 7 years. He would have normally been a cull do to his deformed mouth and unformed gills idk. 4 months ago I grabbed another egg and raised Uno. I just put Uno in the big boy tank 4 days ago and thought all was well. It wasn't. I noticed him gently "kissing" Little Fry while he slept in his odd vertical pose like normal and didn't think it was a big thing. However Little fry is not eating today, or reacting, fins down, and pale, he is clearly not well. I just moved him to a very small quarantine tank because that's all I have tonight. I put some general cure in the small tank but I don't know what to treat him for. Any suggestions? 😭 2 pics are of his bright red deformed falanged up normal for him gills, and 2 are them pale and him not well gasping 😭😭😭
Posted by Longjumping_Device60
2 Comments
Uno was taking bites out of his gills, can’t imagine that makes breathing easier, I’m so sorry. Goldfish aren’t very nice to others who are generally weaker or ill, they can be quite mean unfortunately.
General Cure won’t do much cause that’s more for parasites and not open wounds. It also has the drug metronidazole which is known to cause appetite loss as a side effect. Likely why he isn’t eating anymore (and that’s not great when he needs food to help grow new tissue and recover quicker).
I would do a 25% water change on the quarantine tank daily instead (cleanest water is best for wound healing) and add some aquarium salt to slow down/reduce chance of infection while he heals. 1 Tbsp of aquarium salt per 2 gallons is what I’d do for this severity. (Remember to dose any volume of new water by the same dosage when doing water changes, ex: you take out 2 gallons add 1 Tbsp salt back in with the new water) The salt also helps will gill function too and may be beneficial in that way as well with his condition.
Add some activated charcoal to the filter on the quarantine tank to remove the rest of the medicine, and try feeding him 24 hours later once he’s calmed down a bit and adjusted to the water changes and meds have been removed. If you can add an airstone I would also do that for supplemental oxygen.
If he’s getting worse over the next 3 days consider trying Seachem StressGuard (it’s like liquid bandaid antiseptic for fish), but idk if that’d be best for open gill damage. I would email Seachem tonight and ask, see if you get a response on their discussion forums on their website and go from there.
This should have a NSFW warning. 🤢