Bloody white spot!

"El Roberto" wrote in message
...
Hey all,

as I'd expected, my continuing foray into goldfish keeping is still
proving to be a learning curve - I didn't realise that as well as my
Tetratest strips (which test for KH, pH, NO3 and NO2 levels), I needed an
ammonia test kit too... my goldfish was getting poisoned by the ammonia
and did NOT look happy, and had contracted whitespot on his tail.

So I changed 50% of the water, and started dosing him with white spot
treatment... this has certainly helped, but I have a couple of questions:

1) How long does it usually take a goldfish to recover and how long should
I be giving him the treatment every 48 hours?

2) He's been hiding all day, only emerging to get food, and I'm not sure
whether this is a side-effect of the medication or not. His movements
certainly aren't as violent as before, he doesn't look stressed, but I'm
always worried when I don't see him for most of the day. Could this be
related to my KH problem? Other water tests are fine: nitrite at 0,
nitrate at 25 mg/l, GH at 12 degrees, pH at 7.... but KH is still arouind
1 degree.

3) I'm thinking of putting a heater in to stabilise the temperature as my
room often gets quite warm them quite cold: I'm also thinking of putting
tropical fish in too (it's only 21 litres so probably tetras and / or a
zebra)... I assume the goldfish will be more than happy in warmer water?

4) Could it be that the fish is just lonely? He's in there on his own...

And to think that I thought goldfish keeping would be easy! 2 golds and 4
fantails dead already, and I'm damned if I'm adding to that total this
time!

best

R


ok if ammonia is killing your fish take stock
only clean filter sponges with water drawn from the aquarium
if you have a heater put it in
turn the temp up to 28 deg C
increase surface agitation to improve oxygenation by optimizing filter
output
remove carbon or charcoal from filter
use correct dose
water change in 3 days and repeat
don't water change more than 50% if you are not going to heat and pH match
replacement water before adding it
tell us the filters history
how long has it been running?
how long since cleaned?
If the fish is in serious trouble, gill blushing, gasping at surface
perform more partial water changes to dilute ammonia
re-add a percentage of meds
addition of salt and melafix can speed healing on goldfish
if water quality is ****e with ammonia or nitrite.... DON'T feed!
If you have to feed, only a small amount of good quality food, or maybe a
bit of pea or something that isn't going to produce more ammonia.
if in doubt don't feed for a day or so
unless it's a few days old it can handle a day of just picking at stuff
water quality is the number one priority
no buying more fish until everything is good on that front

good on ya for giving a **** too btw
ya passed the attitude test
but your tank is way too small for a goldfish to be happy in
get it well.
get rid of it
and get those tetra and danios!!
much more suitable
small fish, small poo = diluted very well even in a small tank like that
(5gal?)
if ya got white clouds and zebra danios ya wouldn't need a heater
with a heater neon tetra and harliquin rasbora are a nice combo
a little otocinclus catfish for algae control and maybe a siamese fighter?
just a suggestion, goldfish will be a pain in the arse to look after in that
small a tank
they just **** so much the logistics of frequent water changes would suck.
but your tank, your experiment
good luck my friend!

"swarvegorilla" wrote in message
...

ok if ammonia is killing your fish take stock
only clean filter sponges with water drawn from the aquarium
if you have a heater put it in
turn the temp up to 28 deg C
increase surface agitation to improve oxygenation by optimizing filter
output
remove carbon or charcoal from filter
use correct dose
water change in 3 days and repeat
don't water change more than 50% if you are not going to heat and pH match
replacement water before adding it

Ace, thank you SO much for the advice. Put a heater in and all of a sudden
the little guy's doing barrel rolls and looks happier than ever. Most of the
white spot has disappeared now too, so I'll keep treating him for another
few days then think about restocking the aquarium.

Thing is - what am I going to do with him? If the aquarium won't take him
back, I don't know what to do... don't like the idea of having to throw the
critter in the pond, but as you said in the long run this is not the
aquarium for him. I assume that he can co-exist peacefully with tetras while
he's still so small? (he's about 2 inches)... that said, I don't really want
a messy fish like that poisoning the water for all the others....

Ta

Rob

"El Roberto" wrote in message
...

"swarvegorilla" wrote in message
...

ok if ammonia is killing your fish take stock
only clean filter sponges with water drawn from the aquarium
if you have a heater put it in
turn the temp up to 28 deg C
increase surface agitation to improve oxygenation by optimizing filter
output
remove carbon or charcoal from filter
use correct dose
water change in 3 days and repeat
don't water change more than 50% if you are not going to heat and pH
match replacement water before adding it

Ace, thank you SO much for the advice. Put a heater in and all of a sudden
the little guy's doing barrel rolls and looks happier than ever. Most of
the white spot has disappeared now too, so I'll keep treating him for
another few days then think about restocking the aquarium.

Thing is - what am I going to do with him? If the aquarium won't take him
back, I don't know what to do... don't like the idea of having to throw
the critter in the pond, but as you said in the long run this is not the
aquarium for him. I assume that he can co-exist peacefully with tetras
while he's still so small? (he's about 2 inches)... that said, I don't
really want a messy fish like that poisoning the water for all the
others....

Ta

Rob


Iv'e never really had too many problems with goldys eating other fish until
they get to about 4 inches or so.
And by nature they are herbivores so only eat other fish when starving!
occasional rogue psycho but in general should be good.
the heater works by speeding up the life cycle of the parasite.
Because you can only kill the swimmer stage of the parasite with malachite
green meds, and because malachite green only stays in the water about 3 days
at decent strength.
The temperature of 28 to 30 deg C seems to be the magic temp
but keep the water surface aggitated as warm water holds hardly any oxygen
good to hear he's doing well.
Goldfish LOVE ponds, lots of bugs and plants and algae to munch on.
truely tis shangree-la to them!
w0000t