pixi wrote:
Wish I had never bought those goldfish!!! They have been doing well. Still
had a bit of fin rot but no sign of ich. I had the water up to 80 for
several days and I used malachite green. This morning I changed about five
gallons of water. It's a 10 gallon tank.

Now the goldfish are shimmying like crazy and one of them has a black border
on it's tail where the fin rot was (or is).

Anyone got any ideas?

I've got perfectly goldfish down in the pond by my woods. But only one
fantail. Wanted more and bought these. Trouble ever since.

Pixi


Hey - something I can actually help with!

If they're like tropicals, nitrite poisoning will make them shimmy. You
only changed to the bigger filter a week ago so the tank is probably
still cycling. Test your ammonia and nitrites. If nitrite is high,
aerate heavily and add 1 tsp/gallon salt to the water. It will help a
bit because nitrite stresses the gills.

High nitrites will also cause finrot and the black border is likely a
bacterium called columnaris. The best cure for it is clean water, which
means to keep changing water and siphoning out any uneaten food. Even
if you have no ammonia or nitrite, most likely something in the water is
stressing the fish. I'd personally change 25% of the water every two or
three days until the fish look better and not medicate yet.

Potassium permanganate is fine, but use it as a dip. If you treat your
whole tank you'll lose all the bacteria in your filter and things will
get worse, not better. Another option do if you want to medicate is to
net the fish, gently hold him out of the water, and treat the fin edge
with a Q-tip dipped in some drugstore mercurichrome. This works well if
only the fin is affected.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__