# Problem W/ My Goldfish, Need Help & Advice



## LinTK (Aug 12, 2013)

Hi All:

I'm new here, & totally new to aquariums. I ended up w/ a 20gal aquarium cos of problems I had w/ my pond, & I had to bring my fish inside. I'll have to back up a little to give you the complete story, so bear w/ me. Basically, though, my goldfish is freaking out, swimming back & forth frantically.

Background: I have an outside pond, & this summer was my 2nd yr w/ it. Pond has a waterfall & an ionizer. Last fall, my goldfish developed bloat. I brought him inside briefly, treated him w/ Maracyn, & he recovered nicely. Back outside he went, after he was all better.

About 1.5 mos ago, same fish developed weird white, cottony looking stuff growing around his gills, & a few very small spots on his stomach. I treated the pond w/ an antibiotic made by AquaScape, & called EcoRx Fungus Control. Also in the pond at that time was my comet, who did not have the white stuff on him at all. Once again, the goldfish got better (he's still getting the color back in the formerly affected areas, but the suspected fungal infection cleared up very quickly).

Right about this same time, the comet started to lose the little bit or orange coloring he had on the back of his head. He basically ended up turning pinkish white all over. But he was acting normal for several wks, until I noticed one afternoon that he was very sluggish, hiding a lot under the plants & in the rocks. He'd seemed perfectly fine that morning. But now, I could put my hand around him, & he wouldn't even complain about it. I set up the inside tank again (the one I used to treat the goldfish for bloat), & brought him inside. I also ended up bringing the goldfish back in - the 2 of them really hang out together a lot, & after catching the comet, the goldfish almost willingly allowed himself to be caught as well. Again, I treated the tank w/ Maracyn, but to no avail - that evening, the comet died. The goldfish continued to seem fine. After a lot of asking around & research, I thought I figured out that perhaps the pond ionizer had been set too high, & the comet may have died from copper poisoning. The symptoms certainly seemed very similar. I'm still reading very conflicting info on exactly *what* a safe level of copper in the water is for fish. The test strip bottle says that anything under 1.3ppm is safe. I've read that anything under 1.2ppm is safe....but I've also read that 0.2ppm is too *high*! So I'm still not sure what happened to the comet.

Goldfish continued to be fine, until yesterday. I'd bought 2 new fish for the aquarium - another comet, & a sucker fish (I'm suddenly blanking out on the name - starts w/ a "p"). About 5 or 6 hrs later, the goldfish started going psycho - darting back & forth in the tank like a madman, opening & closing his mouth a lot, generally very agitated. He is *NOT* scraping against any rocks, the bottom of the tank, or anything....just going crazy darting back & forth, up & down, everything. The 2 new fish are acting normally.

Ok - first of all, I now know that I should have quarantined the new fish before putting them in the tank w/ the goldfish. But that horse has already escaped from the barn, so there's nothing I can do about that now. For future reference, I've learned that lesson.

At any rate, the first thing I wondered about is whether the goldfish is only *now* starting to display symptoms of copper poisoning from when it was in the pond....& whether I should expect the inevitable at any time.

But here's the other deal. I started wondering about my water quality. Even though the new fish are very small, I thought I'd better test the water since adding them. All my readings were normal for ammonia & phosphates. I didn't bother testing for pH, cos I know our water here has a very high pH level, & I know from the past w/ the pond, that I could dump pH-lowering chemicals in there from now until doomsday, & it wouldn't do a thing. However, when I tested for nitrites, it was off the chart - in a test where I was supposed to wait 5 min for the result, w/in 30 sec, I was getting a reading of 5.0. I did a 50% water change immediately. I waited several hrs & re-tested.....exact same result, no change at all. After another couple hrs, I did another 50% water change (so, all in all, I ended up changing about 75% of the water today). After another wait, the nitrites now read 2.0 - still too high, but better.

The only other thing I noticed was a VERY tiny little thread-like thingie sticking up off the back of the goldfish's head. So, on top of the water changes, I also started treating the tank w/ the Maracyn antibiotic.

Can anyone help me figure out what the Sam Heck is going on all of a sudden? Did the new fish bring in some sort of parasite? Is this copper poisoning? The result of too-high nitrites? And how did they suddenly get so high, & why are they so hard to get down to 0? Is it stress from having 2 new fish put into the tank w/ him? All/some/none of the above? Is there anything I can add to my tank to help w/ the nitrite levels? How could I have replaced about 75% of the water, & still have nitrite levels like this? (And, yes, just for the heck of it, I tested our water for nitrites, & it came back zero.)

Any & all help or suggestions are welcomed. I am seriously confused, & more than a little concerned as to what's happening to my goldfish.

*c/p*

Thanks in advance ~

Lin


----------



## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

The use of copper is diffacult if not just dangerous.I'm sure there are other products that can achieve the same effect.
According the bottle of Cupramine(seachems copper med) final copper concentration to be used is .5mg/l(which is the same as ppm).It also says although most fish will tolerate.8mg/l it is not advisable to exceed .6 mg/l.
As for the thread like thing check into fish lice,or anchor worms.You be able to see the lice(louse) move upon close inspection, where as the anchor worm will probly stay where it has attached.


----------



## LinTK (Aug 12, 2013)

It's hard to tell if it's moving or not, cos the goldfish is darting around so much. My *instinct* tells me it's not moving, cos the "movement" that I see corresponds w/ the fish's movement through the water (it's usually sort of trailing backwards). I'll try to look closer, though.

The other big problem is the nitrites......

Lin


----------

