fish can not swim HELP!!!!

Question
HI NICOLE
MY NAME IS MYA SMITH AND I HAVE A BLACKMOORE GOLDFISH
HE HAS A 10 GALLON TANK FILLTER LIGHT EVERYTHING WATER TEST ARE FINE HE WILL BE 2 YEARS OLD ON THE 22 OF DEC .
WELL ABOUT 2 WEEKS AGO I STARTED A SALT TREATMENT API
FOR 2 WATER BLISTER BUBLES GROWIN ON THE BACK OF HIS EYES
I TRYED EVERYTHING FROM MELAFIX TO PIMA TO ANTIBIOTIC
NOTHNIG WORKED SO I TRYED THE SALT AFTER A FEW DAYS ON THE SALT FISH WAS BREATHIN HEAVY FLIPIN HAVING A HARD TIME ACTING LIKE HE WAS ABOUT TO PASS AWAY SO I TOOK HIM OUT OF THE TANK AND PUT HIM IN A BUCKERT WITH CLEAN WATER HE HAS BEEN IN THE BUCKET FOR 5 DAYS IN SHALLOW WATER SO HE CAN REACH THE TOP OF THE TO GET AIR WITH DAILY WATER CHANGES AND A AIR PUMP FISH IS DOING MUCH BETTER NOW BUT HE IS UNABLE TO SWIM TO THE TOP OF THE TANK TO GET AIR, HIS BACK TAIL HAS ALL RED STREAKS STARTING AT HE BODY OF THE FISH AND TAIL LOOKS LIMP MY QUESTION TO YOU IS DO YOU THINK HIS TAIL WILL GET BETTER?? IF NOT WHAT CAN I DO 4 HIM??? AND IF I PUT HIM BACK IN HIS TANK AND SINCE HE CAN NOT MAKE IT TO THE TOP TO GET AIR IS THAT OK??? PLEASE HELP P.S. I KNOW THAT A WEEK ON SALT IS WAY TO LONG BUT SOMEONE ONLINE TOLD ME TO DO IT FOR 2 WEEKS!!


Answer
Good evening, Mya, thank you for your question - but please, in the future, do not use all caps when writing in. The answers we post get a lot of readership. I have seen my own answers come up on Google, a major search engine used by millions of people around the world! Most people consider it rude to type in all capital letters. It reads like yelling! So if you post a follow up, please keep this in mind.

I am reviewing the sequence of events in your email. This is what I am gathering: your black moor started with blisters on the back of his eyes, which you treated with Melafix and Pimafix. While this in itself is not bad, it would not be good if you followed the instructions on the package, which say to dose every day for 7 days and not change the water. I use these medicines myself on occasion, but only at half doses and I do not stop doing my regular water changes, which are your fish's best friend! So after adding the Melafix and Pimafix, you added medication directly to the main tank, then salt, and here is when the real problems begin. Let's start here...

Aquarium salt is an effective and safe treatment and general tonic when used properly. Did you use aquarium salt from a pet department or pet store? Because table salt contains iodine which is not good for fish. Salt does not evaporate, so adding salt every day to your tank without doing water changes will poison your fish. As it stands, you were only supposed to add one tablespoon to your tank. One tablespoon of aquarium salt per 10 gallons is all you need. If the next day, you do a 25% water change, then you would add 1/4 tablespoon to make up for what was lost during the water change. How long did you leave the antibiotic in the water before you added salt? The antibiotic could be the real problem if you dosed the [proper] salt properly, since antibiotics added directly to your tank harm the beneficial bacteria in your biofilter, which cause ammonia and nitrite spikes, which cause your fish to gasp at the top, just one of a few symptoms of ammonia poisoning...

Did you monitor the water quality while you were medicating? If your water tested fine (fine would be 0 ppm of nitrites and ammonia, under 20 ppm of nitrates) why did you not just leave your goldfish in there? If you accidentally added too much salt to the water, you could have changed the water out and vacuumed the gravel until the salt was gone. Whichever one of these was the cause of the additional distress, I just can't understand why your solution to the situation was to put your sick pet in a bucket of shallow water...

If the water in your main tank is showing detectable nitrites or ammonia, you could use an instant cycling product such as BioSpira. Or you could just perform water changes daily to keep the levels safe for your fish until your tank restablishes cycling. Do put him in a proper tank ASAP, since a larger volume of water is much more stable.

You see, what you have been doing for these 5 days - keeping him in the bucket and replacing the water with new water out of your tap (adding dechlorinator I hope) - has worked out to be essentially the same as putting your fish through the stress of being in an uncycled bowl. Your treatment regimen has been the reason for the deterioration of your fish...

If you stop and think about it, what you did was much the same as the stress of transportation. Minus the air pump, fish go through this very trauma of being in a shallow pool of water when they are shipped from overseas to us. What makes you think your fish looked "much better" during all of this? It sounds like he got much worse, since he is now having trouble staying afloat and has blood-streaked fins.

I am sorry to have to say this, Mya, but the only way that your black moor can get better is if you read up on how to care for him properly and implement some changes immediately. You will have to learn the proper way to treat him when he is sick. A rubbermaid container can be used as a hospital tank, but not a bucket of shallow water. Your concern about him drowning or not getting enough air is not the real concern at all. I do understand that what you did was what you thought was best, albeit misguided. But if this ever happens again, with this or with another goldfish, you should be prepared to handle the situation in the right way:

a) By using the right kind of salt and dosing it properly,
b) By treating in a hospital tank of five gallons or more, with aeration and biological filtration and much of the tank's own water, so that the tank remains cycled,
c) By monitoring water quality when medicating,
d) By medicating in a hospital tank, not the main tank,
e) By reading up or writing in for help as soon as you see a sign of trouble, not waiting until your fish is moribund.

I am going to give you some reading material now. Please look over the information carefully, there is much knowledge to be gained here. These are sites on goldfish diseases:

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/disease.html
http://www.goldfishinfo.com/diagram.htm
http://www.petlibrary.com/goldfish/symptoms.htm
http://www.thegab.org/Articles/GoldfishIllness.html

These are sites on general goldfish care:

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/care.html
http://www.firsttankguide.net/goldfish.php
http://www.petlibrary.com/goldfish/fishcare.htm
http://www.goldfishconnection.com/articles/listing.php?parentId=10

Please look them over to get a better understanding of what is affecting your fish and you will see for yourself what it is that you have to do next... Which is simply to stop medicating him, put him in a real tank with the best water quality you can provide, feeding nutritious and highly palatable foods, soaked in vitamins or garlic to help him fight his illnesses naturally. If you fix his environment, then he will have a shot at being healthy again.   

I am sorry that your black moor of two years is in such bad shape right now. I know how much one gets attached to their pet fish, and we all have made mistakes in our provision of care. We all want to do the right thing and keep our pets healthy. Educating yourself is the first step!

Feel free to write back for clarification on anything I said. If not, happy holidays to you and your family.

Nicole