I've been reading through the threads all night after discovering that one of the goldfish in my pond has a severe case of fin rot. The problem with having fish in a pond is that I'm not able to see them clearly, so I just thought this fish was going through another color change. I purchased it years ago, thinking it would remain black but it's gone through an array of shades over the years and now I'm worried that my ignorance will ultimately end up further injuring this poor fish.

Unfortunately I'm oblivious to the temperature and ammonia levels in our pond, it's been up and running for years without any issues whatsoever up until last month. While I was out of town my mother informed me that the pond skimmer literally caught fire and the whole unit melted. It took three weeks for the unit to be removed and replaced (thankfully the filter was still running, it just wasn't actually killing the bacteria running through it) and I imagine that span of time was all of took to stress out the poor fish.

This was taken on May 30th, a little over a week ago and I wish I had noticed that parts of the tail were actually missing. This fish has gone through so many changes in color I just took it to be an orange fin.

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There were signs that this fish was ill, it would float off to the side, away from the other fish. I searched and found a few forum postings suggesting that the constant flow of the waterfall could be exhausting to the fish trying to swim in a pond only half full. This was while we were waiting for the new foundation to dry. The next day we were able to fill the pond and everything went back to normal.

Earlier this evening I arrived home from work and noticed that my little fish was hanging out at the bottom of the pond, and it wasn't moving. I nudged it with my net and it seemed to float, but it wasn't as fast as it normally would be. Finally I just brought it up to see if it was okay and I noticed that the back fin was torn.

Originally I thought that maybe it had gotten its fin wedged between a rock but I checked the filter basket and the rest of the pond and there wasn't any sign of a torn fin. Then I

thought that perhaps the other fish had snipped at it.

I went up to Petsmart hoping that there would be someone knowledgeable to help me with my dilemma. They weren't much help other than suggesting that I quarantine the fish for the time being, which I have already done and probably shouldn't have.

Get the fish in the tank and it turns out to be much more severe than I expected. Nearly all of the fins seem to have rot away :(

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I've added a teaspoon of Melafix to the tank for the time being, but is there any hope of recovery for those fins? Thanks to this board I'm now familiar with Tricide-Neo dips but I don't know how long it would take to get to me. It seems content just hanging out and floating around. Makes me wish I hadn't even bothered with the tank, since it would have had more space to float around in the pond. I was just worried about it being able to eat and it's not even able to do that in the tank, either!

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Should I also invest in some aquarium salt, too? Any help would be appreciated!