Black spot on my Goldfish Gills area...

skysuite

Dear all...

I have 3 goldfishes. I notice of late, one of the goldfishes (orange one) have got a black spot on the gills area. Also on the body. Slowly spreading.....At first I was thinking maybe its changing its colour. It is orange with black tails and fins (somewhat like a panda orange).

Is this a cause for concern?

JouteiMike

This sounds like it could be normal; I've had my goldies change colors before.

Can you post any pictures of the fish? Did you test your water parameters?

kelly528

Although Goldfish often change colour, usually this is the result of a loss of dark pigmentation. For a Goldfish to gain darker spots is very rare. In other words, Goldfish commonly get lighter with age but darkening with age is nearly unheard of.

I am more convinced that the dark spots you are seeing (espescially if they have come up over a period of days or weeks) are ammonia burns. Do you have any idea of how many PPM your ammonia is testing at currently?

It's very (WAY too) common for people to 'overstock' their tanks with Goldfish. Basically if you are not running at least 10g per Goldfish and overfiltering your tank you are in for a lot of trouble. To determine if overstocking is causing an ammonia spike please answer these questions:

-How big is the tank?
-Are your Goldfish 'fancy' or 'common'?
-What is the make and model of your filter?

JouteiMike

Are the black areas more like spots of black or patches? A picture would help.

Although it could be ammonia burns like Kelly stated, I would tend to think it would be more reddish/raw blotches/streaks rather than black if that were the case. From experience with handling Goldfish, the black patches usually appear after an injury such as ammonia burn, pH change, rough handling etc... happen, and are in fact a sign of the fish healing and appear secondary to the injury.

What other tank mates are with the Goldfish? And water parameter reading would help too.