Pleco Damaged Goldfish - Urgent

[hikarishadow]

I was just over at my friends house and noticed their pearl scale goldfish at the bottom of the tank breathing heavily with almost all of it's scales torn off.

I took her home and and put her in a quarantine 10g filled with some of the water from my 90gal and some fresh, acclimated her and added a 1/4tsp of aquarium salt to about 4gallons of water, added an air stone and a heater.

I have maracyn-two and ick clear, but no other medications (store is closed now and opens tomorrow) She looks like she might have a bacterial infection, but it is hard to tell she is so torn and tattered. Should I treat with maracyn-two or wait for tomorrow when I can get stress coat and melafix or pimafix (or is there a better medication I can grab tomorrow?)

Quick responses needed!

Thank you,
-Tegan

[suphi]

Do you know for sure that the pleco did this? Scale loss and ragged fins can also be caused by advanced stage of infection.

What I would do in your situations is just observation for now. Providing clean water and extra oxygenation (1 or more airstones) is very important for healing. Do not feed the fish until it starts to perk up, fish can easily live a few weeks without food. If the digestive system stops working, food will get rotten instead of being absorbed causing more internal infection.

If the fish is getting worse I might use medications but it's really tough to decide what to do without seeing the fish first-hand. Avoid using medications that can be toxic to the gills/open wound (formalin, peroxide, etc.). Antibiotics are usually benign with correct dosing, but very few can treat nasty bugs such as aeromonas/pseudomonas. My fav broad-spectrum antibiotic is oxolinic acid as it gets most of the common and uncommon bacteria in fish. If you're gonna use one that would be my recommendation.

Bacterial infection typically doesn't occur unless there's an entry wound from trauma or parasite infection. So, that may pose another problem. Antiparasite meds are usually not as benign to the fish.

[hikarishadow]

Thank you for your help.

Unfortunately, she didn't make it through the night.

-Tegan

[suphi]

Sorry, sometimes (well, most of the time) you just can't beat mother nature.

[hikarishadow]

Thank you very much for your help.

My boyfriend posted the question about the fish while I was away since he came home first and went to get her. She was my fish being baby sat while work took me out of town for a few weeks. I thought it would be safer if she was watched in another goldfish tank, but I had no idea there was a pleco in there. I'm so heartsick to lose my little Coco.

Again, thanks for your quick help.