hmm. fish tail help

[godzilla]

I work at a library and there are turtles in the childrens room. The librarians feed them feeder goldfish sometimes and last friday there was a feeder fish in the turtle tank and the turtles had bit off its tail and I felt sorry for it so I took it home. About half his tail is gone and he seemed to be alright but last night i noticed that there is now black around the edges of the tail. I'm not sure if this is bruising (do fish even bruise? haha) or somekind of disease. The fish is in a bowl now because my little 5 gallon had a crack in it. I do have 2 other 7 year old goldfish in a 55 gallon tank but I was afraid to put the new fish in there because I thought one of the older fish would eat him because they are pretty big.

I put stress coat and aquariam salt in the bowl when I changed the water. I'm going to be getting a tank for the fish probably later today or tomorrow.

I was just wondering if any of you know of any medicine I can get or know if this is a disease or something. i looked around online and I didn't find anything. sorry this is so long.

[t_chelle16]

Probably the ammonia burn from being in the bowl (ammonia will build up very quickly in a bowl). Definitely try to get the new tank asap. Until then, I'd change the water in the bowl at least every day.

Once you have the tank (I suggest taking some of the filter media from the 55 gallon filter and putting it in the new filter), you can try adding some Melafix. That should help the tail heal faster and hopefully prevent any infection. Also, closely monitor the ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte in the new tank. Adding the media from the 55 will help speed up the cycling process, but it may not instantly cycle the tank. You'll want to do water changes to keep the ammonia & nitrIte as close to 0 as possible and the nitrAtes below 20.

-Chelle

[godzilla]

ok thank you. i'm getting the new tank tomorrow for sure because i dont have to work