Medication problem

[KingBrian]

Like I mentioned in my other thread in this forum, my large oranda seems to have become allergic to my medicine that I used to treat other fish for swimbladder.

HERE is a link to pictures (http://www11.brinkster.com/kingbrianii/SickFish.htm)

Right now I put in fresh activated carbon to remove the medicine from the water. Tomorrow if he isn't better, I'll try and treat with something else to help his fins.
He sticks near the bottom of the tank (unless he's eating). As you can see from the pics, his fins are bloody and have white spots. I have medication that fixed a similar problem with our Discus, so I'll give that a go in my goldfish tank.

[rfleming]

Wow...I am really not sure what to say, poor fishy looks awful, if it were me, I would do a massive water change and really vaccum the gravel, add salt to a 0.3% solution (if a goldie only tank), and maybe feed a medicated food like medi-gold, and keep a REAL close eye on water quality...the carbon is a good start but remember it is almost useless after 5 days so remove it and maybe use some new carbon after 5 or so days.

That is all I can say.

-Rob

[KingBrian]

Without adding anything, just doing a 25% water change and removing old medicine from water, he seems much better. Most of the white spots are gone, but his fins are still very bloody looking. He's also swimming a little more.
When you say 0.3% salt solution, how much is that? (For my 55 gal. tank, I should be adding x tbs of aquarium salt).
How much salt is too much? I know that salt doesn't disappear unless water is removed, so how much can I safely add? (I only have test kit for pH, ammonia, nitrate, General Hardness (GH) and KH (potassium hardness?))

[rfleming]

Here is what I posted in a previous thread...

A good remedy that has been used for hundreds of years for goldfish in Japan is to salt the tank at the first sign of stress or disease...salt can cure most minor things...to do this you should establish a 0.3% salt concentration in your tank. Remove any live plants, do a 50% water change, and add 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons, but do this over the course of 24 hours by breaking it up into 3 treatments 12 hours apart...this way you won't shock your fish...for certain applications you can increase the dose to 0.6% (double your salt added) or 0.9% (triple salt added) but I like to try the lower concentrations first.

So as an example...if you had a 10 gallon tank and you wanted to treat it to a 0.3% salt solution you would...remove plants, perform a 50% water change, add 1/3 of a tablespoon of the salt you choose to a small amount of aquarium water (from the water change) and let it disolve...if you did this at 8am on Monday, you would do the next treatment at 8pm Monday and the third treatment at 8am Tuesday.

As you said the only way to remove salt it to do a water change...you mostlikley want to do one at 14 days at the latest, also...I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS EFFECTS OTHER TYPES OF FISH...I can only reccoment it for goldfish only tanks.

Also, as far as type of salt to use:

Fish don't like a lot of iodine...iodized salt contains iodine...for us 2 legs, as we usual don't get enough in our diet otherwise...If you use pure Kosher salt than it will work great, or as Noboon suggested aquarium salt...If however you are having trouble with your pH being too high go with the Kosher salt as aquarium salt will raise the alkalinity of your tank. Another note...DO NOT use salt which contains any Yellow Prussaite of Soday (YPS) other anti-caking agents...unless you like dead fish.

[KingBrian]

It was 100% a medication allergy. After removing medicine and adding aquarium salt he is now about 90%. His fins both have a red vein but most other veins are clearer, and his fin has much less white. A few days ago it looked like several veins burst as it was puffy and red.