goldfish with "dislocated jaw"?

Yesterday, I set up a 75G tank, and broke down the 37G that my fish had been living in. I put them in a 5G bucket over night on a slow drip line, because the water had been SO bad in their old tank and I didn't want to shock anybody with clean water.
Just a few moments ago, I removed the majority of the water from the bucket, and then gently poured the fish into the new tank (only a few small pieces of drift wood for decoration; it's a little larger than I'd really realized).
Everyone seems stressed and irritable, but no more so than would be expected except for a 3yr old 7" male comet "carnival fish" named Darwin.

He doesn't appear to be able to close his mouth. He's a rather sizable fish, and so I can easily tell that there's nothing stuck inside (I can see all the way to his throat opening). His mouth doesn't appear to be deformed or misshapen in any way as from an obvious injury, and he's never exhibited anything like this before, so I'm ruling out the genetic difficulties which often accompany carnival fish.
He was tipping back and forth from side to side like he was a little woozy, but now he's swimming alright. He can sort of bring his mouth a millimeter or so more closed than it is, so I know he's trying to close it, and that it's not a paralysis issue. The poor thing tried to eat (I fasted them for a day before keeping them in a bucket to minimize waste production in the small space) when I fed everyone about a 1/3 meal (don't want anyone to over eat while stressed), but couldn't close his mouth behind the food, so it would just float back out again. I can't tell if he's "in pain" or not, but he's obviously stressed by the situation.

Does anybody have any idea what this might be? I tried "googling", but I'm never sure about the reliability of the personal accounts I find.
If anybody knows what might be wrong with my oldest goldfish, the fish that got me into fish keeping, might you know anything I could do for him? If worst comes to worst, I'll take him to Cornell Vet school; about 30 minutes from here but I'd like to keep him home as travel can't be good for him in this state.

 

Is there anything caught in his gill? Mr Gold used to do that with food, and he'd struggle to close his mouth until it moved closer to the outside of the gill.
It's awful seeing them unhappy

 

Wise! So great to see you again - but I'm sorry it's under such an unfortunate circumstance.

I really wish I had some advice for you, but I think your guess is better than mine. At least you know that fish can go awhile with out eating, so it wouldn't "hurt" to monitor him awhile before taking him to the university (although what a great resource to have access to!).

I would watch for more signs - redness around the gills, development of injury/ulcer and other signs of stress. Maybe he injured it while in the bucket and its simply too sore to close right now?

I hope all is well for you otherwise!

ps. I love the name

 

Thanks for the love and good energy guys! Now that you mention it, his gills are strangely clamped, not wide and gaspy like they would be when entering a new tank tasting the new water, being a little nervous, and especially in such warm water (I do what I can to keep it cool but it gets HOT!). Unfortunately, because they're clamped shut, I can't see inside to see if anything's wrong (I don't want to take him out to get a closer look until tomorrow night at the earliest, so soon after moving. They're definitely not swollen, if anything, almost the opposite.
He should be fine for maybe a week if I can't get him to eat; if he's still in a bad way on Monday, I'll call the Vet school and ask if they have any suggestions, or if I should just bring him in. In the mean time, I'll add another filter, do a small dose of TSS to keep nitrites from building up (didn't move any of the substrate), and continue to dose with melafix and stress coat, in the hopes that I can at least keep things from getting worse. I'm hoping it's just the fish version of lockjaw, and he'll get over it on his own as his mussels relax.
In the meantime, keep the suggestions coming! Also, does anyone have any good tips for feeding a goldie that can't close his mouth behind food? would he do better perhaps with peas or something a little more bulky that won't just fly back out again?

 

oh yay! I just got home from work and his jaw is closed! Hurray! He's still a little nervous and off his color; I think I need to get some more hiding ornaments. He seems awfully freaked out by all the open space. Maybe we need to introduce him to the good life a little more slowly...

 

Wonderful! I'm so pleased he's feeling better!!

 

Good morning,

I'm glad to hear the fish is showing signs of improvement.

Information on Lock Jaw below that may be helpful for future references:



Ken

 

Reading some of the posts on the link you sent me, it looks like his jaw issue was probably caused by stress and/or smacking into something during the move. I'm going to have to find a better way to move them, next time, but it's a relief to know not only what'a going on, but what caused it, where it might have come from, and most importantly, how to prevent it in the future. In the meantime, Anybody have some good links on soft territory designating ornament suggestions? He seems really distressed by how much open space there is, and how little of the tank is composed of screened hiding places.

 

Yay! So glad to hear that he's ok!
For creating territory, what about fake plants? You can get some really tall ones that can break lines of sight quite well.

 

I have so many fake plants in there, I'm hoping to avoid more. Maybe I can just get sinkers for the ones I have (most of them are floating right now; they're just for bacteria and to provide the platy with hiding places).

 

lots of feathery plants? easy to swim around but breaks up the lines of sight....

I have this for my betta: https://www.plantedtanks.co.uk/

 

unfortunately, while I do like the look of milfoil; I'm not convinced my fish wouldn't eat it. It's also a high light plant, and I'm doing very diffuse lighting from a shaded window ATM to help me cut down on heat (my poor little guys are cooking at 95 sometimes!)