Injured Goldfish!

Question
Hello, I feel awfully guilty because I made a basic mistake of not removing my fish from the aquarium while vacuuming it from dirt. I have a beautiful 30gallon aquarium with goldfish. Most of them are about 5 inches long I have 2 which are about 3 inches. One of smaller goldfish got injured because it got partially sucked in to the hose that I was vacuuming with. It got stuck with its head in so I immediately lifted the other end of the hose that it can flush back into tank. The problem is that it got injured, probably it expanded its gills while falling out the hose and they got injured! Moreover, in the beginning it was bleeding for 10 mins and later it stopped. I'm really concerned because gills are disconnected from the rest of the body. The bottom part that was shielding and connecting head with belly is just disconnected and I can see red flesh from the bottom. It looks like someone cut her throat. I feel awful seeing it. It happened 6h ago. Fish surprisingly is swimming, keeping balance most of the time and majority of time sits at the top of the tank. I've put him into the floating breeder for now. It seems to me that his mouth doesn't fully open and he doesn't eat. Is there anything I can do to help it heal? How do I avoid infection? Will he heal from this horrible injury?

Answer
Hi Kamila,

As you might imagine, his gills are his lungs, so this is going to be difficult for him to recover from, but it's not unheard of.

Unfortunately, most don't make it from a gill injury, especially one which causes bleeding. Anytime they are injured to that extent, it's severe.

I'd definitely increase oxygen supply, in more aeration, good clean filtration and that's why she's at the top of the water.  She is having a hard time breathing and the oxygen is up higher.

Heat the tank 2 degrees higher than usual, and keep an eye on her.  She may make it.  6 hours is a long time.

Good luck and happy holidays.  I'm so sorry about your fish.

Happy fish-keeping.

Renee