lumpy goldfish

Re: lumpy goldfish

Marie Kubiak — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 09:16:37 GMT

Hi,

water quality testing I do in house - you can get cheap kits for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites from aquarist shops. Try and test water at similar temperature to tank to avoid artefactual variation (easy with room temp fish like goldfish).

I try and do scrapes conscious as anything sedative in the water will alter pH/irritate or sedate any external parasites and potentially increase skin mucus production reducing sensitivity of scrapes to pick up problems. If you need to sedate then I prefer MS222, but it needs to be buffered (we use baking soda!) when added into water.

Marie

Re: lumpy goldfish

Suzanne Kelly — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:09:40 GMT

Thanks guys! This fish appeared one evening as a 10 minute appointment so I wasn't exactly prepared when I saw it. The owners are nice normal people, they're just worried about their pet. I've told them that my fish knowledge is limited ( that's putting it mildly!) and I haven;t charged them a consult fee. It's 8 year old, a tank fish and as far as I know lives with one other. The other scales seemed ok, but I was looking at it doing laps of a small transport tank, so I'm really not sure.

Re water quality testing, how do I go about that? Also how on earth do I get a scraping of the lesion? Do I need to sedate it? Our microscope is currently in microscope hospital as it died last week, but should be back next week. I have vague memories of anaesthetising a salmon years and years ago, I think it was with benzocaine in the water.

Re: lumpy goldfish

Marie Kubiak — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 14:36:08 GMT

I definitely echo Mark's advice on water quality testing as often clinical disease is the culmination of multiple factors with water quality the most common debilitating factor in pet fish.

A few scales appear abnormal and hyperreflective on the photo - do they appear raised/have overlying plaques in reality?

Is this a pond goldfish or a tank one?

The mass doesn't appear to be huge/angry/bleeding so no rush to jump straight to excision but worth running water tests, taking a few skin scrapes and checking any other fish sharing the water and if all is unremarkable then considering excision. Papillomas aren't uncommon in goldfish and although better removed as they can progress to carcinomas (or indeed actually may be early fibrosarcomas), there is no rush. Often you'll find other skin nodules or plaques in this/other fish as the carp pox virus is frequently implicated in papilloma formation.

Excision itself is rarely difficult, but anaesthesia can be a bit unusual and tricky in fish! If you get to this stage then can advise on it step by step.

Marie

Re: lumpy goldfish

Mark Hedberg — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:44:36 GMT

Don't rush to operate; i'd be inclined to suspect parasite or bacterial infection before tumor. Fish surgery is not for the faint of heart! The number 1 thing here is to check history, water quality, tank setup. How big/heavy is the fish, how large is the pond/tank? Is this a lonely fish or is he one of 50 in a big pond? How often is water changed/cleaned. 99 times out of 100 fish become ill because their immune system is compromised by poor water quality. Sick fish means sick water. It's that simple and most of your fish owners will refuse to believe it and be totally insulted. Don't back down. Ask to see their water testing kit and records of levels of ammonia and nitrites.

"Oh, but it's just a solitary goldfish in a bowl the size of a shoebox" = the water quality is crap. Get them to change the water 10% every week. No arguments.

You'll get the fish owners harrumphing and saying they've kept fish for 20 years and how dare you, etc, etc. (Just like some exotics owners.)

Scraping or doing an impression slide of the lesion is a good idea - have a look at the slide under a low and medium power magnification, stick a cameraphone on top of the eyepiece and take a picture. :) Post it here and we can have a peek and a look.

Dosing fish with antibiotics isn't the easiest trick in the book; figuring out weight for dosing and picking the right antibiotic is a pain. If you suspect a bacterial infection, enrofloxacin can be given (according to Noga, p379) 5-10mg/kg, IM or IP. Lewbart Et at 2005 suggests that therapeutic levels are maintained in koi up to 5 days with this dose when given IP.) However enro is not good at all fishborne bacteria so your results may significantly vary.

If you're going to go in for fish med, "Fish Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment" by Edward Noga is a brilliant book; down to earth, common sense stuff.

That said, after all this, they'll probably flounce off in a huff that you question their godlike fish keeping skills.