Goldfishes tank and very cloudy water

[giuliano]

I have a 55 gal aquarium with 9 goldfishes, some days ago the water started to get cloudy, today is really very cloudy and these are the values:

PH 6.0
Ammonia 8 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm
Nitrite 0.25 ppm

The aquarium is being setting up for 2 years now and this is the very first time that I experience such a problem please HELP.
Also one of the goldfishes is being swimming upside down for quite a bit now (2 months), he is fine, he just cannot swim like the others and he is always on the top of the aquarium, I noticed that one of his fins looks like injured, is it possible to help or I do have to consider to euthanize him? Thank you very much for your HELP!!!

 

[Zagz]

With ammonia of 8 ppm you need to do a very large water change immediately if you want your fish to survive! The upside down issue is swim bladder most likely caused by overeating and water parameters. A cycled tank should have 0 nitrite and ammonia.

Did you clean the filters and tank at the same time? What kind of goldfish? 55 gals is too small for common goldfish. What is your water change schedule and how much each time?

Feeding your goldfish some frozen peas will help will the swim bladder as well as some epsom salts. First and most important is your ammonia and nitrite though. I would do 50% water change.

 

[mike47517]

Ammonia 8 ppm

There's your problem. Hurry and do a major water change to get alot of that out.

 

[giuliano]

I am going to change the water immediately but I am afraid I will not be able to reduce the cloudiness, any suggestion on what it could be? Maybe a fungus or parassite, I really do not like to use chemicals in my aquarium, but I need to try to resolve this issue ASAP, thank you!

 

[Zagz]

The cloudiness is a bacterial bloom brought on by your ammonia and nitrite. It is nothing to worry about. Once your parameters are stable it will go away.

 

[giuliano]

Thank you for your help, I will do a 70% water change immediately, any suggestion for the injured fish?

 

[mike47517]

The cloudiness isn't bad. Once you get all that ammonia out it will go away. (dont know much about nitrite so i'm not going to say anything about that).

 

[mike47517]

Thank you for your help, I will do a 70% water change immediately, any suggestion for the injured fish?

Welcome. Sorry im not smart about sick fish. No offense but what are you doing still on your computer? go change that water!!!

 

[Zagz]

The injured fish will do better once the water has changed. Change 50% as you don't want to shock the fish with too much change in water quality all at once. If the ammonia has been up for a while you are better doing 50% today and another 25-50% tomorrow. Too fast good quality water can shock the fish's system and cause as much damage as poor water can.

 

[giuliano]

Thank you I am taking care now of the first water change, I will do it again tomorrow!

 

[Zagz]

After your water change, provide us with more details on your water change schedule and feeding schedule and we can help you to maintain the tank at good water parameter levels.

 

[jsoong]

At this point, clean water is most important. Water change now & daily for the next while. Your aim is to keep ammonia/nitrite to under 0.5. <It should ideally be zero.> Also, what is your tap water pH? Did the pH also dropped recently?? <You can do large water changes as long as water parameters/temp match, but if your tank pH is way off compared to tap, you would want to do a series of smaller changes to minimize stress to the fish ... perhaps a bunch of 25% changes 2-3x a day.>

It is also important to get some idea of why your ammonia got out of wack. Did your tank got cycled (ie zero ammonia/nitrite) and this ammonia spike is something recent? If so, did something happened to your filter bacteria (adding antibiotics, meds, etc.) or maybe lots of decaying material had collected in the tank, or something died? So in addition to changing the water, gravel vac and get out as much of the MULM as possible. This should help in moderating your ammonia spike.

As for the flipped over fish, this is likely a swimbladder disorder. After 2 months, it is nothing acute & you don't need to do anything rash at this point. Once you get your water parameters under control, we can deal with the swimbladder. <The fin may be an injury, or maybe ammonia burn .... clean water is first line treatment.>

 

[giuliano]

I will, thank you very much again!