Wounds/pimples On Fantails

[Guest rosaphile]

I'm new here and glad to find a community dedicated to goldfish! I recently (maybe 10 days ago) set up a new aquarium, just a little 5-gallon affair with two 1-1/2" fantails. I don't know the ammonia levels because I haven't been able to find test kits yet unfortunately. It uses a Whisper power filter with the biobag media. I've been giving them TetraFin goldfish flakes and sometimes Wardley goldfish crumbles, and trying very hard not to overfeed! I do a weekly gravel vacuum and about 25% water change using Aquasafe. The past 2 days I have been putting MelaFix in because I thought it was just a simple wound but now I'm not sure.

Here's the deal - just this past weekend I suddenly noticed what looked like a raw wound on Dorado's (my orange fish) side. I thought he must have injured himself somehow and have just been trying to keep an eye on it, but it's been hard to get a good look. Then yesterday I noticed a big white bump on Muffin's (the calico fish) tailfin and I started to wonder if it was more than that. I looked closely and carefully (without getting the fish out of the tank, I thought that'd be a last resort) and it looks like there is a long grayish stringy thing hanging out of the wound on Dorado, and also out of the "other side" of the bump on Muffin, on the inside part of his tailfin. Is this a parasite of some kind? Any idea what it might be? How should I treat it? They have both had trailing poops from time to time, particularly Dorado... could this be related or do I need to address that separately?

I don't know if they've been behaving strangely because I just got them and I'm not sure what normal behavior is supposed to look like.

Thanks so much for any help you can offer!

Lori

Milford, OH

[Black oranda 0]

For some reason his sounds like anker worms.....

Yes if it is,It is a parasite.

Im not sure how to cure it and kill the parasite.

I think your suspose to pull it out with twisers.

Hopefully im not wrong about this.

[Guest rosaphile]

They are better today. Yesterday evening I saw that the stringy thing was gone from Dorado's wound, and this morning the one is gone from Muffin as well and the "pimple" on his tail is much reduced. Guess I'll keep doing what I've been doing and see how it goes.

[Guest rosaphile]

Just an update, the fish are doing great now. You can hardly tell there was anything wrong and they seem (?) to be behaving perfectly normally. I'm going to get some test kits today (finally - with 10-month-old twins it's hard to find the time!) and see how the water is doing.

Heading over to the other forum for some more general questions.