Goldfish lesions on both sides!

[Martin King]

Hello, I am after some help to find out what the issue is with one of my mums goldfish. And if it is contagious to other fish, and if it can be cured.

Any help much appreciated!
Thanks
Martin

 

[Tula]

Welcome to the forum. I'm afraid your mum's goldfish is seriously sick. It looks like it has Dropsy, and also some bad ulcers. It's possible it's a female and is egg bound, but in my opinion, it has Dropsy.

Are you able to put this fish in a separate tank?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Appears to be early stages of a tumor. If so, surgical removal is the only option to save the fish. It would be more humanitarian to euthanize it.

 

[Martin King]

Thankyou for the quick reply. Yes I have asked her to take it out. We did have koi carp in the pond up until a few months back but then one of them was pine coning, I understood this was a symptom of dropsy? Anyway I went to my local fish store in February and they calculated that I needed to put 25 kilos of PDV salt in as couldn't give antibiotics until the weather warmed up. Anyway within days of the salt going in all the koi were dead and I had to empty the pond, clean it all out and bury them... Found two dead frogs aswell. 25 kilos did seem like a lot for the pond size but I took there word for it....the pond is about 14 foot long, 5 foot wide and 3 foot deep in the middle? The goldfish in there now were given to us by a neighbour. Is it likely the pond that has an issue, or can any fish get dropsy? Apologies for the essay, but not had a lot of joy with the pond this year!!

 

[Faebinder]

I'm more likely to call this a fungal infection causing an ulcer and dropsy.

I dont think the fish will make it either. Nothing short of injections of antifungal, which is a far stretch attempt since you wont be sure its fungal. Agree with Myer, euthanize.

 

[Tula]

If you decide to euthanize this fish, do you know how? Many of us use Clove Oil, you put some drops of it, into water, place the fish in. It'll go to "sleep" and not wake up.

Clove oil is available in the US, behind the pharmacy counter, or often in a health food section of a store. It's often used in humans, for tooth pain.

Sorry, the news isn't better.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Is it likely the pond that has an issue, or can any fish get dropsy?

The pond does apparently have an issue.
Dropsy in fish is a symptom of kidney failure. The kidney failure may be attributed to either a bacterial or a viral infection. Either of these can be caused by poor water quality.
Do you have sufficient water flow coupled with adequate mechanical and bio-filtration?

 

[Martin King]

There is a pump which filters water out of the pond into a big bucket of gravel and then out of that into a waterfall and back into the pond. There was some oxygenating weed in the pond but that seems to have disappeared which can't be a good sign?! There is also water lily, marsh marigold and some other grass type marginal plants which are all healthy. Is all that what you mean by bio - filtration?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

How large (capacity) is your Mum's pond? How many fish does she have? When was the last time it was cleaned either partially or completely.