My goldfish can't close his mouth and it's face is peeling off!

[Mac14]

His name is Nacho and he has had this problem of having one piece of his mouth loose and he would be mellow for a few days, then it would disappear and he was fine and happy. Then we had a garage fire and we stayed at my aunts house, they (my fish Taco and Nacho) went from living in a filtered 10 gallon tank to a one gallon jar for a week and a half, they did fine and survived. We then got a rental house, and I got their tank back and put them in there. I put about 95% new water in there, and the water is from the same source as before. They have now lived in there again for about 3 weeks, and it seems like these last 2 weeks, Nacho has had a piece of skin on either side of his mouth loose. I thought it would go away as it did before, but now it is getting worse. His face seems to be peeling back from the top of his mouth upwards. I think it hurts him a bit because he barely eats. I looked up what could be happening, and I got this,
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080914102158AALHldQ
So, they say that it may be a bacterial or fungal thing, so we were wondering if we could put Grape Fruit Seed Extract in there, as it is good at getting rid of bacteria. Anyway, we will go ahead with putting the GFSE in there, but if anyone knows for sure that you can't do that, or what it is called that Nacho has, then please reply. Thanks.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I think there are probably a few things going on here.

First, they are most likely stressed from being moved around (I realize you can't help this!). Then going from a 10 gallon, to a 1 gallon (I'm guessing not filtered) then back to the 10 gallon can cause nasty things to be more prevalent due to the stress and reduced immune response.

The other issue is that gold fish really need larger than a 10 gallon tank. Typically, I find 10 gallons per goldfish works well for them. They are very dirty fish and ammonia tends to build up super fast when they are kept in smaller tanks.

The other thing I think could be causing stress is the 95% water change. That's a huge swing in composition of the water. While the good bacteria is still present to some degree, a lot of the other helpful stuff is mostly removed from the water and the tank will need a bit of time to re-establish itself. (Again, I realize everything that happened is out of your control! I guess I'm just pointing out these things so you know what may have caused the bacteria to affect your fish)

They generally sell a few things in pet stores to help with bacteria, but I did read a bit about using GSE. I imagine it couldn't hurt to try as long as you don't add too much!

 

[Mac14]

Thank you for the info. I put about 15 drops of the GSE in a small amount of water and slowly put a small spoonful at a time. Nacho seemed to start bouncing back, then I left for about an hour and a half, I came back and he was almost dead. He died about 10 to 15 minutes later. I think he had already gone too far when I tried to help him. The other fish, Taco, is completely fine but lonely. He "paces" side to side like he did before I got Nacho a year ago.

Taco is a common or feeder goldfish I got at the fair last year, and is probably just under 3 inches. I heard, to one inch of fish to have one gallon, but as goldfish are messy, I am applying one inch of fish to 2 gallons. I don't really have enough room for a 20 gallon tank, but I hate seeing Taco being alone. He and Nacho did great in the tank, until all of the changes happened. So I think I am going to let the water sit for a little while so the water can stabilize, then take half of the water out and replace it with clean water, then get a new goldfish.

The moving around must have been one of the bigger contributors to what happened. I can only imagine how stressful it was on them.

Thanks again, your information put things clearer for me, and I will try and keep it in mind.