The problem is dropsy, which is really a symptom rather than a deseas, The fish has kidney damage due to some bacterial, viral or chemical problem and that makes the fish unable to excrete the fresh water that it absorbs throught osmosis and its tissues become water laden and the scales along the flanks will stand up; adding salt will ease the osmodic presure on the fish but chances are the toxins building up inside it will kill it. Sorry

In my experience, I've been able to save two fish with dropsy doing daily water changes. One was a betta, the other an angel. It could have been that I just caught things in time, not sure. But I've also lost fish to dropsy regardless of methods trying to save them.

The bad thing about dropsy is when you notice it is normally too late. They get that open pine cone look and it's bad but usually not contagious to the other fish. Read up on dropsy and see if what you read sounds like it. From what i've read it's usually more humane to put the fish to sleep then let it end slowly. Have you tested the water ? how many fish and what size tank ?

He's really bad today...he is on his side, arced with his head and tail down, in a corner. I feel terrible, as I have been so busy, it never occurred to me he had anything more than perhaps a swim bladder issue. I have researched treatments and it sounds like it's too late. I do not have a quarantine set-up I can put him in, I have no salt or anti-biotics and I am leaving town for three days tomorrow mid-day.
I just cleaned the tank about a week ago- better than I ever have, ironically. I have tested the water and have 0/ppm nitrite, approx 7.5 pH, 0 ammonia, and low salt. It indicates I should add some. My tank is about 25 gal with 5 fantails, about 5" tip-to-tip, and the lionhead, who is about 6" long.
Tonight, we noticed one of the fantails is swimming irregularly. He is thin (compared to the others) and has no scale loss or pine-coning.

Any more ideas? I have no way of euthanizing the big guy, either. I am really distressed that I let this go so long without investigating. Thanks in advance.

You might want to separate your Lionhead from the rest of the fish. Now I am not an expert but I have heard fish getting mushed green peas with out the skin to help bladder infection. You might want to give all your fish that. I have read they love it. Hang in there, you can only do your best and let nature do the rest.
Theresa

Does it makes sense for me to treat my whole tank with an anti-bacterial medication while I am out of town? I have a family member who is only coming to feed the fish but does not have experience with fish. Should I get medicated food?
He is still arced over this morning, looking pathetic, nose in the gravel. I did remove water last night and added warmer to it, to bring the temp up above 71F. I am not sure what is is now but it is definitely warmer. Also- he has no reds spots on his belly or near his anus, as the sites I have visited show with their dropsy'd fish. Any other words of wisdom? Thanks~

I mean to say this gently, so please try to read it with that in mind.

With 5 goldfish in a 25 gallon tank, your problem is nitrates. (Not nitrites.) That tank is really only big enough for one goldie, and even that is pushing it at your temps. Goldfish are very messy fish. I suspect your nitrate levels are off the charts. High nitrate levels depress the fish immune systems and allows bacterial infections to take hold. Antibiotics are unlikely to help, and if you dose the whole tank you will kill off your biofilter which will in turn kill off the rest of your fish as ammonia and nitrite levels build up in addition to all that existing nitrate. The best course of action is to get the nitrates down with lots of water changes.

Just for comparison, i once kept 2 fancy goldfish in a 20 gallon because the literature said 10 gallons per fish. It was impossible to get the nitrates under control even with large ~daily~ water changes. They survived for a couple years, but eventually first one and then the other succumbed to dropsy, and i cried my eyes out. :( They should have lived at least 10. It wasn't from lack of care on my part, it was from simple overcrowding. High temperatures contribute to this, make the goldfish produce more waste than they do in cold water, and since my unheated tank sits at 80º or above year round, it was just way too small a tank to house the goldfish.

I vowed that i would not keep goldfish again unless i could provide 30 gallons ~per fish~. I'm sorry to say it, but if i was you, i'd euthanize the one with dropsy and try to find new homes for all but your favorite one. Or buy a really big tank to house the survivors. Do not have your family member feed the tank in your absence, this will only compound the problem. Do several water changes before you leave, and fast the fish for the 3 days you are gone. That will give you the best chance of coming back to live fish so you can do something about the crowding which is the heart of the problem.

I have provided a link below that gives some data about nitrate buildup with fancy goldfish. Best of luck to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Goldfish nitrate problems

I suspect you are right, though all my water levels are great right now. However, when I cleaned the tank thoroughly last week, I was plain shocked at how much cr*p was in the gravel and the filter. I am certain this dropsy is a result of poor water quality. Ironically, I do have a 1500 gal outodoor pond and am well aware of crowding issues. I guess by taking the tank and all it's inhabitants from a friend, I assumed they had done well in it and never really gave it any more thought. How many are "several water changes before I leave"? I work til 12:30, am going to the store to buy salt and anti-biotics, and I leave at 2PM. Should I pull the lionshead out and isolate him in an anti-bacterial tank? Should I even add a little salt to the water?

I would get a fresh nitrate tester, and do as many water changes as possible before you leave so you know exactly how much nitrate is in the tank and how much a water change lowers the levels. I don't think you'll be able to get the nitrate to acceptable levels before you leave, so do the best you can. If you can remove the goldie who is showing dropsy symptoms, absolutely do that. It will be once less fish adding nitrate to your main tank and will give him the best chance of recovery (although few fish recover from dropsy). You may want to see if your relative can perform water changes at least for him while you are gone instead of feeding, particularly if your quarantine tank is lacking an established biofilter. There are several schools of thought regarding salt and goldfish, i can't really venture an opinion on whether it is truly helpful or not. I wouldn't bother with it personally since you are going to need to do a ton of water changes, it will be very difficult to maintain proper salinity levels.

I will not be able to do all this before I leave. I am thinking we should euthanize, as I don't want to leave him to suffer all weekend. It really upsets me to think I am responsible, and I want to try to save him, but I am not able to change my trip plans. My husband can get clove oil, which I read is a humane way to euthanize. Your thoughts? I will certainly have my relative NOT feed the others while we are gone. Will he be suffering horribly if we do not euthanize, and put him in his own tank? And take care of him when we get back? I suspect he will die by then.....

peas sometimes can do wonders.

But if he's truly far gone, I would euthanize. I've done this by placing the fish (in a tub with water) and putting it in the freezer.

Clove oil or vodka bath is supposedly the most humane way, although i have used the freezing method and did not see any evidence that the fish was unduly stressed or in great pain as anti-freezing advocates claim. If it was my fish, i'd euthanize. If you can't bear to, put him in quarantine and let nature take its course.

My husband is euthanizing the fish, with clove oil. I appreciate all your comments and know now I need to pay much more attention to this tank. We were remodeling our bathroom and my python cleaner did not work on any other faucet, so I had to clean by 'bucket brigade', which took a lot of time. I have a red-eared slider turtle in a 100gal tank, too, and that was a BEAR to clean during that time. So- I did not do it enough. Additionally, who knew (!) that we could get a universal fitting for that python- not us, until last week. I will focus on getting a bigger tank for the rest of the gang-all fantails-and getting a nitrate test kit.
I am such an animal lover and I cannot stand that my lack of effort caused this guy so much distress and, ultimately, his death. Even goldfish count!

(side note: I had a goldfish, years ago, that lived 13 years! In a 2 gal bowl, alone, without air, filter or heat. The last three years I had him, I got a little aerator/filter and he liked that-who wouldn't?! When we built our pond, we decided he should have free reign of it- all 1500 gallons, since he'd been so cooped up so long. He was OLD at this point and looked it. He only lived another two weeks but I like to think he enjoyed his new-found freedom.)

I'd like to reiterate that Dropsy is not a deseas its a symptom, there are caugfs that are bronchitis and there are caugfs that are SARS.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I DO undertsand that dropsy is a symptom. So- one of my other goldies is swimming irregularly (almost in a counter-clockwise downward loop towards the gravel, but is NOT swollen, or losing scales or pineconed at all. Should I treat the entire tank with anti-bacterials and do the recommended water changes?
I will be buying the nitate test tomorrow.
Thanks!

Don't use medications unless you are sure of the diagnosis and that the medication is targeted to the ailment. If it's simply a water quality issue as i suspect, the water changes will do more for their health than any medication ever will, it will remove the stressor and allow their immune systems to function properly. Medications can actually increase their stress, and antibiotics in particular are troublesome since they will also kill the bacteria that converts ammonia and nitrite for you, which is not a good situation. If you determine that antibiotics are needed, then treat the fish in a quarantine tank so that you don't wipe out the established biofilter in your main tank.

Make sure you get a fresh nitrate tester, see if there is an expiration date on the package, test kits often expire on the shelf.

Do I worry about the one swimming abnormally now? I can do a water change tonight, and again ...when? Thursday?
I will test the water with the nitrate kit before I do this.
Does that seem correct? water changes every two days or so?

If they were my fish, i'd be doing a 50% change morning and night, or at least daily, until the fish show improvement. (Tropicals are more sensitive to water changes and i would only do 25% in a single change for them, just for the record) After that, water change frequency will be determined by how fast nitrates build up. As i explained before, with only 2 fancy goldfish of about the same size, in a similar sized tank with similiar temperature, i found it literally impossible to keep nitrates under control even with large daily water changes.

Basically, yes you should be worried about the one that seems ill, but the only real way to fix what's wrong is to dilute their waste (with a gazillion water changes) and to eliminate the overcrowding by keeping less fish in the tank, this will result in less total waste entering the tank and will let you get away with less frequent changes.

What size and frequency of change were you doing before you noticed the one sick, out of curiosity?

I was doing not very frequent water changes and never less than 100%. I'd say I did about one per month, 100%. And that has been the entire time I have had them, which has been about a year. This last time, I waited longer than a month.

What I don't understand is, if the water quality is so bad, why aren't ALL of them showing signs of something?

I am off to get the nitrate test kit, a new filter and various other items. I will post my test results when I have them tonight. Thanks~

Okay...Before 60% water change done, nitrate was between 40 and 80ppm. 40 is max, and lower is better. After water change, it is at just above 10ppm. I will do another 50% change tomorrow night, after testing the water. I am curious-until I get a better set-up (btw-my tank is a 29 gallon), should I feed them every other day..every two days?

How many goldfish do you have in this tank? And how large are they? Have you tried using aquarium (or pond) salt? Goldfish are pretty salt-tolerant. Salt has been helpful to me in many instances (both pond and indoor tanks). Some medications cannot be mixed with salt, btw.... so do be cautious with any meds you use and don't mix them together!

I keep 3 orandas in a 42 gallon tank - but have two filters going to help keep it clean. I've found that with goldfish that are not in a pond environment, you really do need to do regular weekly water changes (I do 25-30% weekly water changes) and keep an eye on filters in case they're really getting clogged up.

I now have 5-5" fantails (tip to tip) in a 29 gallon tank. They were fine until I neglected the tank for too long during a bathroom remodel (it was impossible for me to use a python and I was having to 'bucket-brigade'). It is most certainly a water quality issue. I will easily be able to do partial water changes from now on. Maybe I should add another filter, as I will not be getting a larger tank anytime soon.
How often do you feed you fish everyone?

I would definitely add an extra filter. It DOES help! But you still have to do regular water changes. And keep in mind the new filter will need time to grow good bacteria in the filtering medium. I use an on the tank filter and a canister filter.

Feeding for my fish is twice a day. Use good quality food. When you have sick fish, cut back on feeding only because food will not be eaten. You don't want uneaten food contributing to water problems.

Ketel, i didn't realize you were including the tail in the length of your fish, generally with fancy goldfish you only list the body length, so the situation is not quite as dire i thought earlier. You should still try to ease the over crowding as soon as you can, but you can probably get away with this stocking for six months or so if you do your weekly water change and keep an eye on the nitrates, try to keep them under 20ppm to minimize stress. If the nitrates are slowly climbing despite regular weekly changes, move to twice a week.

An extra filter does help provided you clean the media regularly (in dechlorinated water) to remove the gunk from the tank before it can be converted to nitrates. A canister filter designed for a larger tank, in addition to your current filter (i assume it's a power filter of some type) would be ideal.

Feeding every other day would be fine, or you could do something like fasting on the third day, or fasting on the weekend or whatever. Goldfish benefit from periodic fasting, it helps to ensure that food is moved completely through the digestive track and doesn't get impacted.

Aha! That's good to know. I have never had fantails so was not aware of their correct measurement. One is actually quite smaller than the others, about 2" body length. The others are about 3" max body length. We did add another filter (both are power) and my husband added bio balls and beneficial bacteria to try to get a good biofilter started. I will follow your suggestions. The fish that has been swimming abnormally still is, but not as much. He was confining himself to a corner where he was able to get in a good current and stay upright. He's now swimming around the tank more, eating off the bottom, though he still banks right a bit. I am hopeful the water changes will fix him up. He is showing no signs whatsoever of dropsy.

I have three 5" goldfish in a 29 gallon (They are going in the pond in the spring). And I use nitraban from tetra and it works very well. My nitrates are on most reading below 5 ppm . There are always some and it just doesn't ever show zero. The bottle says you can go six months but I still change the weekly water anyway and just add this with it. Give it a try but you must have gravel on the bottom. I use 1" river stones and stir it up with a power head every other day. I had two Orandas the size of soda cans and lost them due to poor water. I had to freezethem and felt terrible (I used the clove oil).I changed water everyday and the temps was never then same. If you do lots of water changes get extra buckets and store some for tomorrow at room temp. With all the water changes the temp fluctuations are bad for all of the fish and cause stress. I only got the ryunkins to prove I could keep goldfish in a 29 gallon. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Good stuff

Thanks for that recommendation. I do have gravel on the bottom and that sounds like a good idea, especially as summer rolls around and I am gone many weekends. I did a 50% water change again yesterday and all levels are really good. The fish are happy and my problem fish is looking better, though not 100%. Still swimming weird but not like he was.
Turtle in her tank is happy, too.