Help: Something's wrong with my Oranda goldfish

[Sati]

What's wrong with my fishy? My calico Oranda is not behaving normally. He's sitting on the bottom of the tank on the gravel. He will get up and swim, but not very actively. He just putters a right near the gravel. He did eat a couple of bites of food this morning. There is nothing visually wrong with him that I can see. I just did my weekly water change last night. My water parameters are steady at 0 ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, 0-5 mg/L nitrate, and 7.6 ph. The two other oranda and the two snails in the tank are behaving 100% normal.

 

[cindywindy]

Hi, Holly !

I'm sorry your fish is sick. First, some questions.

What size tank do you have him in ? When you do your weekly water changes, are you sure to vacuum the substrate completely ?

 

[Sati]

Cindy, the tank is a 29 gallon. I vaccum one half of the gravel one week, and the other half the following week.

The little guy does seem to be more active for the past hour. Maybe he was just really, really sleepy? How odd... I'm still going to worry today though.

BTW, the tank is 72 degrees. That is without a heater.

 

[cindywindy]

Sounds like everything is as it should be, Holly. Your params are in order and your routine maintenance does not appear lacking, which would explain the occurrence of a bacterial infection.

Since he appears better, I would suggest just a watchful waiting for the next 24 hours. If he takes a turn for the worst, do you have a spare tank you can use for a hospital tank in case you have to medicate ?

 

[TankGirl]

I second the motion for quarrantine for this fish. Ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure!

 

[Sati]

I do not have a spare QT tank unfortunately. I had planned on getting one in early 2004 after we move to our new apartment. Now I'm really tempted to buy one early. Sigh.

 

[TankGirl]

A Q-tank does not have to be much, especially for a goldfish, since you won't need a heater. A 10gal (depending upon the size of the fish) is often enough, with a bare bottom and a corner sponge filter would do it. Since normally you change water out every day when dosing meds, you don't need to cycle it, per se, and just do daily partial water changes to keep levels under control. You can run the sponge filter in your main tank until you need it in the Q-tank and keep it seeded with bacteria, then when you are done with the medication and tear down the little tank, thoroughly sanitize the sponge filter before putting it back into the main tank. It is worth it if you can prevent a disease or parasite from spreading to the main tank.