You guys are going to get tired of hearing it but here we goes... :)

Nugget (again) has a streak on the back of his head right before his top fin. It looks like he scraped it on something. I didn't see it the other day when I took the other pics. There is some white fuzzy stuff coming from it or hanging on the streak. I tried to get a pic of it so we will see how that goes.

I hope Nugget is ok.

White fuzzy stuff is not good, but if everybody else is okay then it must be an infection. Wait till what Robyn says, but I'd isolate him. Hope he's okay.

It looks slightly infected maybe with bacteria or fungus (it can be hard to tell) or even both. Nugget may have scraped himself (trying to jam into a crevice for example) and then got an infection. It doesn't look too bad and may heal itself. If it gets worse, then you may want to take him out for treatment.

My biggest fish, my koi Maggie, I just noticed has a glob of algae on her dorsal fin. That usually means she had an injury, fungus latched on to it, and then algae grew on the fungus. Aside from maybe adding more salt or trying MelaFix or PimaFix, I can't really do anything since she's too big to go anywhere else and would be stressed if she could be moved.

is that Nugget/nemo? poor guy little fins now this. I was having problems with my channel cat with a fungus/ or something on his fin I seperated him doesed him salted him turned him hugged him everything but fillet him..................... and nothing................... I put him back in my main tank and he has cleared himself up.

Is he acting strange? is he eating? is he isolating himself from the others?

Dont stress yourself about it I think Robyn is right though. Good luck keep us posted.


C2

Yep he eats. He seems normal to me. Today I haven't seen him but that is normal for him to. He roots around at the bottom looking for whatever they look for. :rolleyes: Tonight I will go out with food and I will be sure to see him then. I just feed a little tiny bit to get them swimming so I can see how they are. They are like sharks swarming aren't they when it comes to food?
I am not too worried yet though. I just wanted to get a jumpstart on what could be wrong. I think just waiting is the right thing to do too. Seems like that is the course of action for him these days..
He is a pain in the hiney sometimes. :rolleyes:
Tia

But he is very cute :)

I've seen those in-pond isolation tanks ( think fostersmith has one )..just wondering if they were worth the money for an emergency backup.

Just went out and fed the fish and sure enough there he was begging for food.
I don't see any change in his wound if that is what it is. I am taking that as a "good thing" as Martha Stewart would say. It still has the fuzzies but no change on that too. :) Overall I am happy with what I see.
We have had a bunch of rain (imagine that) since I put in the salt and I also did a small water change last weekend. Should I add more salt or just wait till I do the big Spring Cleaning thing?

ColdGold, I will tell him that you think he is cute. :)

I haven't seen those but I do happen to have a "few" D&S catalogs sitting around. :o
Yeah I wonder too if they would/do work....

TLC, I'm not very good at maintaining salt in my ponds. I just add some here, add some there! If your fish need the treatment, then add in the right amount with water changes. Also, if it rains, that dilutes out the salt. Do you have the pond salt test kit? If not, you won't know how much is already in there. It won't be more than you added but could be less due to rain and water changes.

The test kit is on my buy list as I can't find one around here.
I think I may have figured out how he scuffed up the back of his head. He sleeps under a rock out cropping that the spitter sits on top of. I saw him there a couple of times not moving and curled in the... well... dead fish (curled over floating at the top) position. He uses the rock out cropping to keep him in place and from floating to the top of the water is my guess. The first time I saw him there I thought he was dead forsure. I think as he is sleeping he floats around and rubbed the back of his head against the rock. That is what I am hoping anyway. Time will tell.
I think I am going to get rid of the stack of rocks and replace with something else. If he heals and I remove them I/he shouldn't have the problem again. :rolleyes:

Ahhh - that reminds me...

One of mine got scrapes like that - down both sides of his face and on to her body on one side. I figured he had jambed himself between one of the pots and the side of the pond so I used smooth river stones to build up the floor in those areas so the space they could get into was wider.

Mine like to sleep in covered places too - it could be so they feel safe from predators. I made them a "house" to hide in and sleep in with a large new polyethylene flower pot. Cut 2 arched doorways ,with carefully smoothed edges, opposite each other and put it in the pond upside down with a smaller pot with river stones and a water plant in it on top to hold it in place.

Mine didn't have any trouble with its scrapes. It took quite a while for them to disappear and of course I worried the whole time but they disappeared completely.

Nugget will probably get better faster because you have some salt in the water and I didn't.

My big koi, Maggie, got stuck in the feeding ring line (like curtain line) last summer. She still has the scar across her neck!

I wish you guys could hear what I'm hearing right now. A chorus of spring peeper males (sound like crickets) and a couple of American toad males calling. It was 72 degrees F here today! The goldfish went mad and had a major spawn fest. My pond went from totally clear to a disaster zone!

hahaha....I'm just happy not to hear the snow plow going here!! :D

I was thinking earlier if the rocks in TLC's pond are rough and it is a small pond maybe they should go before her fish are big enough to spawn in case one of them is a female.

I have 3 too and one is a female (I actually have 7 now - 4 babies). she really got knocked around when mine spawned.

We had just had a thunderstorm and I went out to clean filters, check pH and do a partial water change etc and right in the middle of the water change they just went crazy.

I had to Google snow plow! :lol:



Is that what they look like?
:D

PG

Yea, good point CG.
I think that Tia's 3 amigos are getting to the age where they are going to start thinking about rubbin'.

It sounds as though the rocks in question are on their way out...

PG

HAHAHA...not exactly PG but close enough so you know what I mean. :P

Derrick

Well I am afraid that Nugget isn't going to make it. I am expecting to find him dead tomorrow :( He has been hanging out at the bottom of the pond the last couple of days. I had to check this evening to see if he was still alive b/c he didn't come up for food. I nudged him with a stick and he didn't move. I repeated a couple of times and he finally moved. He eventually made it to the top of the water so I managed to get some pics. I though maybe someone else could benefit from them. I wish I knew what is wrong. I may never know. :(
You can see the white fuzzy on his back behind his head. It stands up about 3/16 of an inch. The fuzz that you see in the pic is exactly what it looks like. It is translucent.








Sorry this pic isn't very good.

Oh my gosh that breaks my heart for your fishy and for you
:(
Thinkin of you guys

Thank you Christina. :)

tia,
Sorry to see Nugget is not doing too well.
Hopefully he'll be able to recover from this.
:(

PG

TLC, I'm sorry about Nugget. It looks like he now has a full blown fungal infection on this back. Plus, there is some fin and tail rot and/or bacterial problems too. I'm afraid that he probably won't make it unless you remove him for treatment in say a 10 gallon tank. He would need strong medications at this point. I hope the other fish are doing okay!

Robyn, the white on his tail is the tail rot correct?
If I can get a 10 gallon tank, what do you think I should put in (medication wise) to help if it even will at this point?

I am looking again at the picture and I see a lighter orangeish color along his back. Are you seeing that as one of the problems too?
The other fish "seem" fine but I am concerned.

I guess you're talking about that yellowing down his body? That does seem strange. I would treat him with aquarium salt (1 tablespoon per 2 gallons, a higher dose), Maracyn I by Mardel, and MarOxy by Mardel for the fungus. If you want to go the more natural route, you could try MelaFix and PimaFix by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals (you can use both at the same time) but they will cause the tank to foam and lower the oxygen levels so aerate well.

This is heartbreaking. I do hope he recovers. Poor little thing.

That's a nasty infection of Saprolegnia. If the fish hasn't died yet, you need to act quickly and drastically. Remove the fish to a wet net and rub a paste of potassium permanganate or malachite green solution directly to the area and surrounding area with a Q-Tip. Water molds are also affected by temperature. Though it wasn't with Saprolegnia but several other species of water mold, I did one of my master's degree projects with water molds and found that growth of specific species was temperature dependent. Some grow better in warm water, others in cold water. I would get that little fish into much warmer water. The warmer water will probably affect the ability of the fungus to reproduce and also increase the fish's immune system response. Water molds can grow VERY quickly and are difficult to kill off in a system. They are usually secondary infections that take advantage of injuries. What is happening is the fungus is producing digestive enzymes and dissolving the fish's tissues (he is being eaten alive). Good luck.

Don

Don,
Are those two solutions something one could find at the fish or pet store?

PG

I don't know about availability in pet stores. Malachite green is commonly used for parasite and fungus infections in fish, particularly with Koi. It is also one of the most common bacteriological stains used to stain (color) bacteria for microscopic examination. I have always gotten it from biological supply houses, such as Carolina Biological Supply, Freys, Ward Biological Supply, etc. It is quite toxic and has been under attack as being a potential carcinogen. It can be ordered from some pond/fish suppliers. An easily available alternative would be mercurochrome, available at drug stores, although it is not as effective as malachite green.

Potassium permanganate is commonly used as a flocculant for cloudy water. It is available from pond suppliers and is also available at some Home Depot stores for use in water well maintenance. I also used to get it from science supply houses. It is a powerful oxidant and you do have to be careful using it to not throw it into trash containers as it can cause spontaneous combustion of organic substances.

I don't know how effective some of the medications available at pet shops are for treating fungus infections. My guess is that none of them would be very powerful to keep people from poisoning themselves. In the case of "Nugget" the infection appears to be really advanced and requires something drastic and powerful or the little thing will not make it.

Ordering these materials through online sources would be the easiest way to get them, but not the quickest, and time is of the essence in "Nugget's" case. That's why mercurochrome might be the quickest to obtain until one of the others could be gotten. Even tincture of iodine would be worth trying at this stage.

Don

Don, I hope you have helped Tia but at the same time you have educated the rest of us on a fish infection that us fellow ponders in the future should be able to identify, since Tia posted pics of her sick fish. Thanks

FM3

He didn't make it. :(
I will post more later.
Tia

Sorry tia :(

We were all pulling for him ...

So sorry to hear that Tia. You really did do everything you, or any of us, could have done for him.

Measure life in quality, not quantity, and being raised by someone who loves him and cares for him is the greatest quality of life he could have ever had.

Derrick

Sorry Tia

I'm so sorry about little Nugget.

For future reference, one web site that sells the stronger chemicals for treating fish is http://www.pondrx.com
They have a malachite green with formalin mix and potassium permanganate in a few forms. Both are nasty. The first is blue when concentrated and green dilute. The second is purple. As a chemist, needlesstosay, I've seen spots of those dyes that have stained basically for ever on floors, walls, etc. A single dot of very dilute standard has stayed colored on my hands until the skin is shed (a few weeks). So, you don't want to get them on anything (but what is being treated). They are nasty oxidizing chemicals but worth trying in severe cases.

Thanks all for your sympathies. They are very much appreciated. :)

I ended up (with the help from KK) having to put him to sleep. It was hard for me to do but I couldn't stand to see him suffering anymore with no hope for recovery. :( I do feel better though knowing that it was the right thing to do.
Tia

I think it was the right thing to do as well Tia. A very hard decision, but I think the right one.

Derrick

I am so very, very sorry to hear about Nugget, tlc.