To often, those of us with bleeding hearts walk into a pet store, department store, or we may just happen upon them by random chance but we find goldfish that are in dire need of help. We want to help them but some of us don’t even know where to begin.
Its important to realize that no matter how badly we may want to help there are just some fish that you can’t save. If it’s drifting listlessly on its side, for instance, then it’s either dead or it will be very soon. If you’d like to rescue a fish then choose one that is at least swimming.
First, I would recommend that the hospital tank be no smaller than 10 gallons for fancy goldfish (two tails) and 20 gallons for common type goldfish (one tail). Not every one has room to keep a bunch of spare empty tanks around so it’s perfectly acceptable to use a clear plastic rubber maid tub or storage tote. Just be sure to use one with clear plastic as some of the colored ones have dyes that can harm the fish.
Secondly, know that if you take a sick fish home and put it in an uncycled hospital tank then it’s much more likely the fish will die. The constant changes in the water quality of an uncycled tank are extremely stressful for a healthy fish and may push a sick fish over the edge. If you’re are like me and have other established aquariums you can stay prepared by keeping extra bio media in the filters of your regular, healthy tanks. This way when you do set up a hospital tank all you have to do is pull that bio media from the “clean” filter and put it into the QT filter. It’s almost an instant cycle for that tank. You should still test the water quality at least once a day if not twice though. Also remember to keep an eye on the water quality of your healthy tank. Since you removed some of the beneficial bacteria (or BB) from that system it may experience a slight bump in it’s own cycle for about day.
If you can't use the bio media from another tank you would be wise to perform water changes twice daily and to use a BB supplement like
Cycle or
NitroMax.
Now that you have this fish home and in a tank that’s suitable for its rehabilitation what do you do with it? First of all don’t feed it for 12 to 24hrs. It’s stressed out from traveling and being introduced to a new environment. Keep him in a quiet place (sometimes keeping the lights of the tank off is helpful too). After this fasting period it’s wise to feed the fish an antibiotic food which you will continue to do for the next 10 to 14 days.
Next assume that EVERYTHING is wrong with it. You have no way of knowing what this fish has previously been exposed to. To combat this treat it for every common fish illness. I like to start with salt. It’s a cheap and easy way to treat a wide variety of problems, it’s minimally stressful for the fish, and it won’t kill the BB in the filter. To kill off little nasties like ich you’ll need to raise the salinity to .3% and keep it there for at least 5-7 days. Raise the salinity slowly to give the fish time to adjust. Add one teaspoon (5ml) of salt per gallon to raise the salinity to .1% and then wait 12hrs. After 12hrs repeat the dosage to raise the salinity to .2% and then wait another 12hrs. Afterwards you can dose again to achieve the .3%.
If the fish has problems like fin rot, fungal infection, eye cloud, pop eye, open sores/wounds, or bloody looking patches on it’s body/fins I like to use melafix and pimafix together. These are very mild but effective medications that have always given me good results and will not harm the BB in the filter.
The last thing I usually treat for (unless there’s a severe infestation in which case it will be the first thing treated) is for parasites both internal and external. Most will be killed by the salt but some (like flukes and intestinal worms) will survive salt doses that would kill the fish they live in. Prazi Pro is my favorite fluke killer. It also kills tapeworms, flat worms, and turbellarians with out killing the BB in the filter. Perhaps the best part though is that it’s even safe to use on very delicate fish like scaleless and marine fish.
My final piece of advice is to BE PATIENT! With good water quality the meds will work but it’s not an over night thing. Your average rescue will take about two weeks to recover from its various ailments. A fish that is really bad off can take much longer to complete rehabilitation. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see immediate results in the first couple of days.
Good luck and Happy Fish Keeping!!!
An example of what this treatment regime is capable of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNONOAPdVxg&feature=channel_page (The video's owner prevents external embedding)
This fish was taken from wal-mart where an employee was removing fish that were dead and dying. This was one of the fish that was written off. Effective treatment of general disease in fish does not have to be harsh and expensive.
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