My Goldfish's Bum

[rgrling]

Huzzah! My goldfish has been pooping normally since the weekend!

So that takes care of the potential food blockage, but the red sore remains. I'm feeding it a medicated gel food with Kanaplex and Metro. Fingers crossed that the medication will be effective on the infection.

Behavior-wise, the fish is slightly less active than before. It's often sitting on the bottom of the tank. I've checked the water and the parameters are fine. The septecemia from before is pretty much gone too. Perhaps it's saving its energy to battle the infection?

[hp10BII]

That's good to hear! Poop "looks" normal?

[rgrling]

the poop is the same color as the food, which is a good sign. However, there's still the occasional thin white poop here and there.

So the red sore has developed into a full blown ulcer. Along with feeding the medicated food, I think I need to medicate the water to fight the infection both internally and externally. Here's what I have on hand:

- Bifuran
- Metro
- Kanaplex
- Polyguard
- Paraguard
- Salt (regular and Epsom)

Does anyone know which one is most effective against ulcers? This website says Paraguard is good enough for ulcers, but is it necessary/safe to combine medications?

And can I assume that the beneficial bacteria in my hospital tank's filter is wiped out by the meds by now? I should do daily water changes, right?

[Elle]

I don't even bother cycling my QT tank. I break it down and completely disinfect between uses and store the tank and components dry - less chance of cross-contamination that way.

A lot of meds will kill your biofilter, so daily water changes may be a better option depending on the meds you're using. Just ensure that there is nothing like carbon or purigen in the filter. You need to be careful that you're not changing the water so much that it's removing the meds as well - some meds tell you not to change the water while dosing. As a compromise, you could just vacuum out any waste on a daily or 2x/daily basis.

I'd use salt and Paraguard, but some of the other members will be able to give more advice.

[rgrling]

update: the ulcer is slowly healing. It's not as bloody red as before and I'm seeing more light pink and white (which should mean that it's improving...)

I'm gonna have to do a happy dance once all this is over

[djamm]

Glad it is on the mend!

[rgrling]

Bad news: the goldfish died yesterday. Things were looking better for a while, but then the ulcer came back with a vengeance. We also had two long power outages in richmond recently, which cut the filtration and probably stressed out the weakened fish.

Thanks to everyone for your help, here's a short clip of the little guy during better days:

http://youtu.be/wt0OwzI2fzw

[djamm]

Very sorry to hear of your loss. I was hoping it had pulled though. Very nice looking fish!

Cheers

Drew

[gklaw]

Sorry about your loss. My goldfish and discus, well and my SW, are the only fish I got attached to. They got so much personality.

[Elle]

Sorry for your loss. He looked like a gorgeous fish, and it really sucks to lose them.