Red spots on fish, and other problems...advice?

[xavier_rose]

I have two largish goldfish, somewhere around 8-10 years old: Wilbur and Orvillina . One of my goldfish has recently developed red spots on her scales...not spots, exactly, but it looks like burst veins underneath and between her scales. After googling it I figure it's an ammonia problem (I seem to have misplaced my testing kit, but I'll pick up a new one tomorrow). If it is, do I just keep doing partial water changes for the next few days?

If it helps, here's the recent activity the tank has had...

One week ago: I added two Siamese Algae Eaters to the aquarium, bought a better filter (since my old one was was nearing twenty years old), and took out the airstone because I realized the bubbles bursting at the surface were splashing enough water on my slightly too-large tank lid to have it drip down the sides of the tank.

Saturday: I added a medium Anubias nana plant to the aquarium, and noticed the goldfish occasionally had clamped fins. I assumed this was stress from the new tankmates and me messing around with the tank more than usual lately.

Sunday: realized that one of the algae-eaters had died, searched for the body, but could not find it anywhere in the tank. The other fish possibly ate him? :-/ Both goldfish definitely had clamped fins now, and one fish in particular seemed to be writhing in pain >...darting about, twisting, and scraping herself against the sides of the tank. I suspected the water quality was going bad, from either the new tankmates, the fish dying, or both, and did a 20% water change. I also noticed that one of the fish (I can't tell which) was producing clear excrement with bubbles in it which, I learned from a forum post on this site, is most likely a bladder problem, so I'll feed them peas, I guess?

Today/Monday: The same fish that seemed to be in pain is now displaying the red streaks/spots/veins I mentioned previously. The second goldfish has mildly clamped fins, but doesn't seem to be in pain. I also did a second 20% water change. I also noticed the fish were gasping at the surface more, so I replaced the airstone for tonight to put some more oxygen in the water. They both seem to be settling towards the bottom of the tank more often, but the second fish (the one that seems in better shape) appears to only do that to hide under the plant, whereas the sick fish will do it anywhere in the tank. When I feed them their fins unclamp and they seem well enough, but I'm worried about the spotted fish...

I'm sorry for the very long post, but there's been a lot going on in my tank and hopefully a lot of information will be helpful if someone knows what's going on. Should I quarantine the red-spotted fish? If it's an ammonia problem, why is it not affecting both fish? Is changing the water out the only solution? Combined with the bladder problem, is this something more than ammonia?

I love my fish and I feel bad that I don't know enough to take care of them right now .

(Oops, I just saw I posted this same thing twice...sorry. My internet likes to be difficult >.<.)

[ZeroSystem]

Welcome to FTF Xavier Rose!

Sorry to hear about the troubles your tank seems to be going through. It's hard to say for sure what might be going on with the amount of information you have provided. How big is your aquarium and are there any other tank mates in there besides what you've already listed? How large are the fish that you have? Do you know what the water parameters of the aquarium are? Things like Ammonia, NitrIte, NitrAte, PH and the like are all important pieces of the puzzle so to speak. Either purchase a test kit and post the results here or you can take a sample of water to your Local Fish Store and they should be able to give you the results. If you take your water to the LFS make sure they write down the results for you so you can post them here. Don't settle for a "your water is all good" statement from the employee, they likely just want you to purchase more fish.

Until getting the test results partial water changes would probably be a good idea. You'd be surprised how much fish can heal with just really clean water. Don't change too much water at once, maybe just 15 or 20% at a time. Doing this frequently would be a good idea to promote healing until we can get more information about the situation. Some kind of medication may be in order as well, but I'm not sure as to which kind so maybe someone else will be able to chime in with a suggestion. I'll dig around and see if I can come up with something.

[xavier_rose]

The tank is 10 gallons, the two goldfish are about 3.5 to 4 inches long, and then there's an algae eater about 3/4 of an inch long. I tested the pH and it's about 7.2, and I bought ammonia/chlorine tablets and used one of those two days ago. There are lots more red spots on them (on the second goldfish as well now), but they at least don't seem to be getting any worse. I'll keep doing the little water changes, too. Thank you!

[xavier_rose]

Now I've put my fish in a quarantine tank, been treating for ammonia/nitrates/nitrite, made it .03% salt, have given them two treatments for fungus/bad bacteria (first dose five days ago, second one last night/this morning), and two 20-25% water changes (one because the water was looking horrible, and the second a day prior to adding the second dose of fungi/bacteria medicine, but they aren't improving at all...and the eyes of the fish that got sick first are turning blue????

Descriptions:
Both fish: Mostly the same as before, except they aren't writhing in pain at all. There is white cottony stuff all over them that I'm hoping is a fungus and will be killed by the second fungi treatment, angry red streaks on fins, red spots all over, extremely lethargic (sit on bottom of the tank and barely eat), slight pineconing of scales.

Blue eyes on the first fish (the pupil is still black, but the socket around them is turning blue, a color like when a penny turns blue).

The second fish also is developing black spots...I'm hoping it's either that a) he's an orange fish so if the spots are actually red they're just showing up darker on him or b) it's dried blood, like the red spots that were there already are healing?

Improvements:
The fin rot seems to have slowed or stopped, thankfully before it's gotten to the base of their tailfins, and the first fish's fins are less clamped them before...instead of being constantly clamped, sometimes she fully opens up her tail even when not swimming. Aside from the perplexing eye issue, Orvillinia seems to be doing slightly better than before, which is encouraging -- maybe they're starting to get over this? :'(

("First" and "second" refer to the order in which they got sick, in case I didn't make that clear. The first fish, Orvillina, showed her symptoms a day or two ahead of Wilbur.)

[Judge]

What are your water params? Especially ammonia? Septicemia is what I suspect. Get back to us with some numbers.

PS: we have a video tutorial on fish diseases you want to see. It is located in several spots including the "site comments, feedback.." and there is a banner below my signature that you can click on , as well as a link at the beginning of each section in the forum.