Comet goldfish - multiple different behaviors.

[nomzombie]

I recently tore down and RE-set up my 70gal after losing my Goby to algae treatment. So this is basically a new tank but with established filter media and an established piece of driftwood and a baby clown pleco. I asked my mom to pick up 2 comet goldfish to start the cycle and she came home with 6. (Insert rolling eye emoji here). The water was treated with dechlorinator and stress coat. All water parameters are fine. No spikes in ammonia or anything else. The only thing is that my tank stays at a ph level of 8. But my other fish before these and my pleco seem to be fine. One fish after the first day had clamped fins and stayed in the sand being very lethargic and died the next day. 2 days later I have another one doing the same thing. And 3 other goldfish swimming in a very jerky fashion and rubbing against the glass and the bubble bars. The slightly bigger one of them all seems to be totally unaffected. None of these goldfish see food before it gets to the bottom. I fed them all chopped peas instead of they're normal crisps. I don't see any salt like appearance or specks in my water, no sores or damaged scales, no white patches, no gold glittery effects, no torn or discolored fins. Everyone looks fine despite their behavior.

Could this be a parasite problem or is it because my ph is too high? Is there another problem? Should I put them In a salt bath hospital tank?

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[Delapool]

How are the fish doing? Did they settle down or still having troubles. One thought would be to try and check at the store and see what tank conditions were like where they came from.

 

[nomzombie]

I moved the one with clamped fins to a hospital tank and I've been treating him with a 10 day herbal parasite treatment. He's more active but still has his fins down. The others seem to have calmed down greatly since I took out the sick fish but they still look a little twitchy. Though It might just be that I've never owned goldfish before and that's just who they are? They've stopped rubbing on everything at least so that's good! I've been trying to use ph down on the large tank and it's not working at all. I've counted out 140 drops for 3 days in a row and the oh hasn't dropped at all. I guess I'll just have to hope it's not because of the oh.

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[Delapool]

It is pretty odd behaviour I'd say for any fish. Water quality somewhere (eg even just solids in the water) or parasites would also be on my list. Is it just random flicking or after feeding or just on the gills or anything more specific? Are the gill plates raised at all or any colour change in gills.

Reading through I'd have hoped it would have settled down by now and some parasite infection may be the case. It's hard to know though without knowing more on the quality of them. Here, if they were just common, feeder fish the risk would be higher and a bit risky for fish-in cycling.

Have you tested kh and gh at all? The fish should be fine at that ph but a kh test is really needed imo before trying to shift ph (which generally I don't worry about too much).

 

[nomzombie]

The gills look just fine! I haven't noticed any gill twitching, just the fins. And I haven't noticed a pattern either. It just seems to be random. And other times they seem to be fine. I don't have a kh or gh test but I guess that's something I should invest in. But I think it's parasites. Common and comet goldfish are both sold as feeder fish here and most of them are a cross between the two. So my fish have the color and slenderness of common goldfish but the long tails of comet. The one in the hospital tank finally put his fins up today so I guess the herbal parasite treatment is working. I'm just wondering if it's worth dosing my whole tank since there has been improvement. Also I finally brought the ph down to 7.5 and they don't seem to be swimming as frantically anymore. So I'll have to lower the ph in the hospital tank before I reintroduce the small one. I really appreciate your continued interest in my situation, thank you!

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