Goldfish 5 yrs old. Mouth sealed :(

[pc-med 10]

I know it's a goldfish but a pet is a pet. Been like this a few weeks now and have tried anti fungal treatment to no avail.

 

Any advice? Poor bugger is going to starve :/

[CollieBird 10]

Are you sure its mouth is sealed? Surely it needs to open its mouth in order to work its gills and breathe? The water flow over the gills is regulated by the pressure difference caused by the fish opening and closing its mouth. Wouldnt it therefore die if its mouth wasnt working?

[pc-med 10]

In that case no, I'm not sure. However, he can't eat. Flakes in the tank just drift to the bottom and where before I could see the flakes being sucked in as he opened his mouth, now I can't. It's not through lack of trying either.

 

Sounds promising from what you say but if he can't eat surely that's a huge problem?

[mickey finn 12]

Some fungal infections can fuse the mouth up, I have heard of people manually opening the mouth.

[pc-med 10]

I've heard of this too. Don't fancy it though to be perfectly honest, would be worried about causing further problems.

[mickey finn 12]

I've heard of this too. Don't fancy it though to be perfectly honest, would be worried about causing further problems.

 

Yes it sounds like an incredibly stressful thing to add to the poor things problems and not one that has a high success rate, not sure what to suggest really, it looks grim for the poor thing.

[pc-med 10]

Yes, reaching the same conclusion :-/

[mikeyc88 10]

Hi dont know if this problems sorted yet or not, but sounds more likely a bacterial issue, mouth rot being a common external bacterial infection. Anti-fungus treatments may help prevent secondary fungal infection, but will do little to treat the causative issue. If your still having problems:

Find an acriflavine based treatment

Use in combination with salt @ 3g / litre water

If the fish is large enough, remove from tank and treat the infected area topically with tcp or similar.

Ensure aquarium/pond hygiene is maintained.

[pc-med 10]

Thanks, sadly it's still the same. Odd thing is he looks reasonably healthy so can only assume he's getting nutrients somehow.

 

I have tried an anti fungal treatment but his mouth still appears to be shut to me. Considering a second course.

 

Would love to be able to do as you suggest with the TCP but don't think I could bring myself to do that. I'm no fish expert, got this one when one of the kids fetched it back having won it at a fair! Would be worried about causing duress. Same reason I haven't done as I've read elsewhere and tried to surgically open the mouth.

 

Not sure what else to do but don't want to see the poor little more starve :-(

 

Thanks again.

[CollieBird 10]

I'm sure there must be a fishkeepersSome forum you could Google Someone on there could maybe help ?

[macboobs 10]

I used to keep African Cichlids. They are 'mouth brooders' which mean that they spawn eggs then keep them in their mouths until they hatch and then eventually swim free. When you are breeding them and wanting to save as many fry as possible (some get eaten)many people 'strip' the fish by holding the fishes mouth open and allowing the fry to swim free for collection. Its not difficult to do this and most African cichlids mouths are much smaller than a goldfishes. If your gold fish mouth is somewhat covered (it can't be fully as it would die as has been explained) you can open to try and free it up a little and maybe take away a bit of the fungus. A bit like picking a scab

 

Regarding the flakes, crush them up a bit (not too much) so they are smaller pieces but definitely look into getting some kind of treatment if the one you tried didn't work. There are all kinds of stuff available for various ailments.

 

The main cause of disease in fish tanks/ponds is poor quality water however. You need to keep on top of that to keep disease at bay. In the 'fish keeping' hobby it is said you don't actually keep fish, you rather 'keep water' for fish to live in.

 

Goldfish are very hardy fish so with this one being ill it could mean your water parameters are quite out of whack and any other fish you have will go the same way.

 

Check out http://www.puregoldfish.com for help.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited June 11, 2015 by macboobs

[mikeyc88 10]

As I mentioned before anti-fungal treatment won't treat what i suspect is an external bacterial infection of the mouth. Its very rare for any fish to develop a fungal infection, unless its secondary to some other issue, in particular, bacterial infection.

 

The most widely available bactericide for the general fish keeper is acriflavine based medicines. They're not the best, but easy to get hold of. Use this with aquarium salt at 3g/litre. This will help a) reduce the bacterial load in water, b) treat the affected fish, c) the salt will reduce osmotic (water/salt balance) stress on the fish, which in turn helps promote the fish's natural immune system.

 

In regards to topical treatments, its nothing to stress over. Again tcp works just fine. Simply remove the fish and dap tcp onto the wound with cotton wool. Do this every few days until any wound clears and starts healing.

 

Finally as someone said earlier, infections in fish are usually a symptom of a more general issue or imbalance in the aquarium. Therefore ensure water parameters are maintained (ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, nitrate <50ppm). pH should be kept at a steady 7.5-8 with no sudden fluctuations. Finally the tank needs to kept as clean a possible, with regular water changes. If as you said the fish isn't feeding well make sure to keep feed to a minimum. Over feeding will result in polluted, dirty water, and will exacerbate your problem.

 

Hopefully this may help.