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A friend of mine has a sick goldfish, and I was after some advice on treatment. I'm afraid that I only have the info that I was told, so it is pretty basic, so I appreciate that it will be difficult to give a precise treatment. I recommended that they go to their LFS and speak to the staff their, however if anyone can give me some pointers to pass on it may help them decide if the staff know what they're talking about.

Apparently the tail has become shredded, the only other tankmate is another goldfish and they have been together for 4-5 years with no previous problems - sounds like fin rot to me.

Also it seems to have a swim bladder problem as it is swimming lop-sided, but I'm not sure how you would cure this problem? They also thought that the fish had lost it's sight as it kept bumping into things (mainly the side of the tank), but could this just be an additional symptom of the swim bladder problem rather than any eye sight issue?

Hi there,
couple things that are important to know is
the tank size and what fish are in it.
I realize you may have trouble getting any other info.

It sounds to me like the fish has fin rot or a wounded fin due to fighting or catching it on something.

Goldfish need a lot of space, and poor water conditions can lead to such things as fin rot.
Id recommend 30 gallons for 1 goldfish and add 10-15g per additional goldfish.
Any less is likely to result in ammonia and/or nitrIte levels rising very high and causing sickness.

Best treatment is to increase water change schedule to 2x weekly 30%.
Increase tank size if needed.
Treat with an antibiotic like Maracyn 2 or Furan 2 (furazolidone and nitrofurazone), Kanamycin, or Triple Sulfa. Any of those should work.


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