# Goldfish missing scales?



## AmazingBettas (Feb 28, 2017)

My friend sent me a picture of his goldfish and was wondering why it's missing scales. He said he was doing a water change when he noticed there were scales missing. I'm not quite sure what to tell him since I don't have experience with goldfish. What should I tell him to do?

Thanks!


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## Sfsam (Mar 15, 2017)

AmazingBettas said:


> My friend sent me a picture of his goldfish and was wondering why it's missing scales. He said he was doing a water change when he noticed there were scales missing. I'm not quite sure what to tell him since I don't have experience with goldfish. What should I tell him to do?
> 
> Thanks!


Years ago I had a few goldfish and one of them had a patch of missing scales. They were quite large and the patch was somewhere between the size of a dime and a nickel. I did nothing for him except more frequent water changes. Every day or two I took a a few pitchers of water out and replaced them. I did that for several weeks with no improvement and nothing got worse. After a while I went back to normal maintenance (which wasn't much compared to nowadays) and he lived for years never growing back that patch of scales. 
Goldfish are super hardy fish. IMO tell your friend to keep up maintenance and do a couple extra 20% water changes a week. And watch for signs of infection. 

One of fish from that tank ended up given to a friend's mother to go in an empty 50 gallon built in. His name was King and he lived at least 15 years with me before going to that 50 and Scar was around till a year or two before then. 

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## AmazingBettas (Feb 28, 2017)

Ah! Now he won't eat and is just laying there!

(we moved him to a bucket away from the other fish)


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## Sfsam (Mar 15, 2017)

AmazingBettas said:


> Ah! Now he won't eat and is just laying there!
> 
> (we moved him to a bucket away from the other fish)


Goldfish not eating is not good, they are pigs. I'd get him a bubbler in that bucket though for sure, they aren't like betta fish and looks like a small bucket might not be getting enough air exchange. 

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