My Sisters Goldfish

hi my sister has a problem with her goldfish think its been like this for a few days but only remembered to come on here and ask for help as its not my tank so wasnt on my mind which is a shame as the fish seems to be suffering, its behind the internal filter bent and its tail fin has loads of slits in it i cant see any colours on the slits which could be a disease, is it best she puts it down?

thanks sue, ye the fish's body is bent and the tail has slits in it, to be honest i always go on about her doing water changes and she tells me to shut up but it pisses me off so i argue with her i even tell her if ya dont wanna do the water changes or cant be arsed then sell ya tank and fish, sometimes i cant be arsed doing my tank but i do it, not sure on the size of the tank, ye she has a filter she does water changes but sometimes she wouldnt for ages but the past 2 weeks i think she has been doing it every week for the past 2 weeks or so, no i havent tested her water as i have my own one to look after she should do it ha, the filter is big enough for the tank i would imagine, ye i have told her to get a gravel cleaner like mine to do water changes as the one she has doesnt suck the gravel in and move around, i think its best to put the poor thing down its very bent will take a picture of her tank now

That doesn't look good. I think the time has come to put it down.

There's only so much that people want to hear. You can go on at them till you're blue in the face but it does no good.

Hiya Ceri,

Sorry to hear about your goldfish. When they get really bad like the bent one, putting it to sleep is often the kindest thing to do.

Whitespot looks like the fish has been sprinkled with salt. Some people say you can treat it with salt, but when my fish have had it I've used a medicine. There are quite a few makes in the shops to choose from. Whichever you get, make sure you follow the instructons to the letter. The whitespot parasite can't be killed when it's on the fish because the white you can see is a coating round it which stops the med getting to it. Then it falls off the fish and sits on the bottom of the tank inside its coating and multiplies. Then the coating splits open and all the baby bugs go looking for a fish - and this is when it can be killed. There must be some med in the water when every last one splits open or some will survive to infect the fish again.

But if it doesn't look like it's been sprinkled with salt it might be a fungus infection. That's white blobs bigger than salt. You need a fungus medication for that.


George tells me you don't clean the gravel with the tube when you do a water change - if you don't there will be fish poo and left over fish food in the gravel all going bad and making the water horrible. This can make the fish sick. If what George says is right, the best thing you can do for the rest of the fish is give the tank a good clean next time you do a water change. But I don't mean scrub it in washing up liquid  . Just stick the tube into the gravel and watch the muck coming out.