Deep Redness appearing on two fish

Question
Hi Chris,
        Please HELP me. My fantail rainbow fish's gills have turned bright RED. My huge white goldfish"s fins, as well as the entire trim of the tail, and complete top fiin trimming

has also turned RED. I have 5 goldfish in a 29 gallon tank. Two are fine. Two have suddenly gotten this RED
and the small baby Oranda appears to have some white spots on one of his fantails. I isolated them in a
smaller tank, with an airstone only, and put a tblet of
clout. Astore bought remidy in the tank, until I could speak with you. I am trying to act fast so I don't lose a fish because of waiting to long. However this ailiment is
so much different than the fish I lost to swim sladder.
Please help Chris. I will be checking my email throughtout the day waiting for a reply.  THANK YOU
ONCE AGAIN........BARBARA

Answer
Hi Barbara;

Clout is very irritiating to the fish, so be careful with it. Avoid a second dose if possible.

For the 29, make a 25% water change immediately. Add aquarium salt, or any uniodized pure salt with no other additives to both tanks. You need a dosage of 1/2 teaspoon per gallon today and then another 1/2 teaspoon per gallon tomorrow. This will slowly build up to the one teaspoon per gallon your fish need without stressing them further. Also pick up a product called Melafix at your local fish store to combat the bacterial infection and/or irritation causing the redness. The salt weakens the parasites if they are present and helps the fish with stress. It increases the fishes' slime coating to help suffocate the parasites too.

Make sure there is plenty of aeration in the 29 gallon too. Get an air pump to hooked to an airstone if you need to. Their gills are probably affected by whatever this is and can't absorb as much oxygen as they should be able to.

On Saturday, make another 25% water change for both tanks. Add back salt for the water replaced. For instance, a 25% water change in your 29 gallon tank removes about 7 gallons. This means you will add back 7 teaspoons of salt. Keep up with the Melafix too.

Forgive me if you already told me the following info about your tank, I just don't remember;

How long has the tank been set up?
How often do you usually make water changes?
Have you changed the filter recently?
Has anything changed that could have caused stress for them to get sick?

Let me know so we can hopefully figure out what happened and straighten it out.....

Chris Robbins