Possible ulcer on Goldfish

[MrKielbasa]

Hi
Over the last 4 weeks or so I have lost around 3 goldfish , the last one and the one in the pic have some sort of ulcer or wound , looks like a burn . The pic is poor as I had to zoom in, you can see the white ring near the goldfish's tail there, I am worried now that the other fish will catch this.

The only thing I have done in the past month is I treated the pond for blanket weed by adding an additive and I changed the UV bulb in the filter (Oase 30000 Filto Clear)

Any ideas what this might be and suggestions to supress ?

Thanks
Martin

 

[MrKielbasa]

Here's a better image , I have isolated the fish in a salty solution for the moment .

 

[JohnHuff]

Dang, I was just going to post a thread on this too. A few days ago, I noticed an ulcer or tumor on Oscar, my koi. Just today I noticed another one on Goldie, another koi. They look pretty much the same as yours. I don't know if they contagious are not. But if I see this on another fish, I will be pulling all my infected fish out and into a hospital tank.

I have not put any additives into the pond. Oscar was the last fish I put in (until today) and that was at least a year ago. Goldie is from 3-4 years back. The only thing I've added to the pond are duckweed and those are from my indoor tanks and my indoor fish are ok.

 

[Dave 54]

What you are seeing here is most probably caused by an areomonas infection which is a bacterial problem normally brought about by poor water conditions. temperature fluctuations, over crowding plus other stress related things going on in your pond.
Swabs are needed here and need to be tested by a vet to identify which treatment to proceed with either a gram negative or gram Positive anti bacterial drugs to combat this.
You will also have to address the problems that may be causing this to stop them from happening again.
Go it alone if you wish but if you get the wrong treatment this can only get worse i;e which is why the swabs need to go to a vet first .

rgrds

Dave

 

[MrKielbasa]

Hi Dave

Thanks , great advice and information. Problem is I dont know if our vets here ( Ireland) would even look at this sort of thing but it happens I am bringing my dogs into get vaccinations today so I will run it past them .

Temperature has been fluctuating here lately and I also brought some new plants from another pond and introduced them into mine but I am pretty sure this was after a few of the fish died some weeks ago. The pond is quite large so I dont think its overcrowding , I only have around 25 goldfish and probably 2500 US gallons of water . Water conditions should be fine , everything running through a UV lamp (OASE Filtoclear 30000) but I can check PH and other things when I get home .

I just hope it doesn't spread as I have some lovely fish in there - be sad to see them die... What kind of stress related things could I look out for ?

Thanks again
Martin

 

[JohnHuff]

I did some reading on this and it reminded me it's the same thing they say for tank fish. Bacteria is always there and it's an opportunistic infection that happens when the fish are stressed, so it's a problem of low water quality, etc.

It's been raining off and on the last month so the water has actually been pretty clean, being replenished from the skies, but I'll do some more water changes.

 

[MrKielbasa]

NIce one John . I just tested the pH value in my pond and its coming in at 8.4 - I think that is about typical? . Will do some more testing maybe tomorrow as I have another kit here for testing KH/GH values . Spotted another goldfish with same symptoms today but couldn't catch the bugger . I am assuming this is not contagious rather its 'in the water' so to speak ..