new goldfish died.

[frogman3]

I came home late from work tonight and one of my new fish, bought on line, that I have had in a .3% salted 400 gallon quarinteen pond for 10 days was dead! I had seen what I thought yesterday one fish was at times seperated from the pack but only sometimes. I netted him/her and see nothing wrong except a slight reddning on the underside of one gill plate but it's not much. I checked every paramiter that I have a test for and they are perfect. I hate to start dumping meds in for a possible bacterial infection when none are showing any signs of a problem but I do want to be prepared to do so if any more act screwy. I have him in a container in the frig wonder if I should look at scrapings under a microscope for some maybe unseen parasite. Oh crap! I hate it when you don't know what's wrong, how can you fix it? Does anyone have any idea of what I should be prepared to do should another show signs of a problem. Thanks for your help.  Tom

[Kittyzee]

I wish I could tell you what to do, but I'm no fish expert.  I am so sorry that you lost your fish and you don't know the cause.  To me that's the worst scenario.  I hope you can figure it out.

 I lost two very large goldfish a couple of weeks ago....they were outside my pond.  The culprit was a cat that was hooking them (because they are so tame) and flipping them out and playing with them.  I was furious!    However, it IS cat behavior...

I have since "pinged" that cat with the BB gun whenever he hunkered down to "fish".  Now he associates pain with the pond and I haven't found anymore dead pets.  :'(

[sooks]

I'm sorry to hear that your goldfish died. I can't remember how many fishes i've killed over the years. I remember i use to add salt like you did. i think that's the best way to cure a fish disease. how old is your pond?

[frogman3]

It's a new Quarantine pond but the filter was started several days before the fish arrived with filter media from a mature filter. The water perameters could not be better. The fish have not shown any signs of parasitic infection so I'm at a loss as to what's going on.

[tracey_shafer]

You are better off doing a scrape and scope on the fish that were in the QT with the dead fish. If it was a parasite such as flukes it would leave the host as soon as it died. Although flukes usually does not kill the fish, many fish have them in small amounts with no problem. Leave your other fish in the salt for now and if you can try the scrape and if another starts the same behavior I would suggest a water change and preform-C if you do not find flukes. (You can use the preform-C with up to 2% salt depending on the size of the fish w/o hurting them but it is suggest not to go over 1% usually with goldies).

[Julles]

Frogman, some fish just die.  I've noticed that new fish up and die, seemingly for no reason, more than the others.  I think a lot of it has to do with stress (remember, he was just netted up, shipped, stuck into salted water, etc.) and also the fact that their systems have not acclimated to the ecosystem within your pond, meaning the particular bacteria and etc. that live in the water and among the other fish.

I can't tell you how many new fish I've had, that seem to acclimate well, and then pop up dead a month or so later, with no marks on them, no signs of any problem.

In fact, one of my goldfish was floating dead the other day - one of last year's spawn that had grown to about 3" and was doing fine. 

[Derrick]

Wow, so sorry to hear about this Froggy. Wish someone had a solution, but sometimes it just happens.

[frogman3]

Thank you for all your comments. I do have access to a scope but have never done anything like this before. I still have the dead fish in the frig can I learn anything from it?
Thanks for all your help. Tom

[tracey_shafer]

You might, it never hurts to try.