Eye disorder - goldfish(?)

[mybrotherjohn]

Hi,

Anyone know what this whitish patch is on the back of the eye and what I need to do to get rid of it?

The other eye has it too and I want to get rid of it before it goes to our pond in the garden in the spring.

Many thanks in advance for any responses

 

[Mmathis]

Wow, amazing picture!

The first thing that comes to mind…..poor water quality. There might be a “disease” process going on (maybe bacterial, etc.), but in most cases, water quality is the underlying problem.

Please give us more information…..about this fish and about the environment it lives in (pond, tank, whatever……since you mention going into the pond in the spring). How much water is this fish living in, how many other fish are there, what kind of filtration do you have?

 

[WaterGardener]

Most problems are a result of water quality issues. So the first thing to look at are the water test results. Please test your water with liquid type tests, not strips, for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH and KH and post the results here. That will give us all a better idea of the health of the environment your fish are living in. Thanks.

 

[mybrotherjohn]

Thanks both for your replies.

Fish is in a tank at the moment - 128l. Fish is about 15-20cm long. Wife changes the water 1 per month or more frequently using neat tap water . Pump/filter is a Cristalprofi e700 and we have a UV filter which off the top of my head has an 11w bulb in it. Fish is in the tank alone. Wife replaces Elodea in the tank which the fish eats.

Ok. For the nitrates and stuff I have done one of those colour strip dips (actually 2)
NO3: 100 mg/l
NO2: 0mg/l
GH ºd <3
KH ºd 15
PH 7.6
Cl2 0mg/l

Wife put some cerpofor bactyfec to kill all the bacteria last week, this week she has a carbon filter in the pump and next week she is going to replace the bacteria.

Hope this helps!

Thanks once again!

 

[WaterGardener]

Test strips are not reliable so they are not recommended here. They start to degrade as soon as air hits them when the package is opened.

They also have no test for ammonia which can often be the cause of problems. A test for ammonia would be helpful.

From what you posted, the nitrate is pretty high. More frequent water changes would help to lower that.

What do you mean by neat tap water? Not familiar with that expression. It's generally not a good idea to change all the water at once. Too much stress on the fish. It's better to change 25% or so each week and more often if there are problems, like the high nitrate.

 

[mybrotherjohn]

Neat tap water: tap water as it comes out of the tap.

Strips are pretty new - about a week old. Trouble is: our tap water is showing high in nitrates as well. We have a water softener in our system as water here is super hard. I wonder if that is bumping up the nitrates

 

[WaterGardener]

Is there chlorine in your tap water?

Still need a reading for ammonia.

I don't think that hard water would increase nitrate. Can't see a relationship there.

 

[Sorta]

Have a few out of many goldfish with the same, large well water pond. It looks off putting but not sure if there is anything wrong with them.