Sick Gold Fish.

[rvijay07]

I had placed a 20G tank on a book case. Recently, I noticed that the book ase was slowly giving away. Hence, I moved the 20G tank to a different stand that is more stable. In this process I ahd to change the water. After this, inorder to help my fish cope with the change and make them happy, I overfed them. I know the rules and usually don't overfeed them. However, this time the move stressed my mind, I am glad that the fish are happy in the new home and so over fed them.

They all ate. This happened two days ago. I even fed them bread with butter on it etc., small pieces. That evening one of my GF an orange white one, very pretty, started staying stright up and motionless. I noticed this in the late night. Immediately the next morning, reflected on this and quarantined him in a 5G tank. He is about 1.5" to 2" long. Later, he has been moving a little bit. However, he can also be seen resting at the bottom of the tank.

I gave very little food today. However, he has a great difficulty in even eating that small amount and is floating upside down and then tries to balance himself again. He also does look obese.

For now, I am going to almost not give him anything and rest in quarantine. I shall also remember the over feeding rule more closely now. I have never done it so much until the day of this move. Please pray for him. Any suggestions/comments welcome.

Thank You.

Vijay

 

[Guest]

I even fed them bread with butter on it etc.,

This can't be good. fish are not made to digest things like dairy products. He probably has gastro problems. Don't feedanything to him for several days, see if he can pass the previous food, and hopefully regain his balance and health.

 

[rvijay07]

This can't be good. fish are not made to digest things like dairy products. He probably has gastro problems. Don't feedanything to him for several days, see if he can pass the previous food, and hopefully regain his balance and health.

He is lying on the bottom now to his side, motionless. Whenever I touch him with a metal rod he moves a bit and them again stops. His belly looks bloated, probably from the undigested food. I also gave rice in addition to the bread. Sometimes, when you are tired, eating and they really beg for food, you forget the rules.

I hope there is no next time, but if ever there is, I will be more careful.

Vijay

 

[Guest]

Vijay, I'm really sorry, keep holding out hope for now. I hope I didn't make you feel worse, that was not my intention. I'm sure you really know better, and won't do this again in the future. Stick with fish food. I'll keep my fingers crossed for your goldfishy.

 

[rvijay07]

Vijay, I'm really sorry, keep holding out hope for now. I hope I didn't make you feel worse, that was not my intention. I'm sure you really know better, and won't do this again in the future. Stick with fish food. I'll keep my fingers crossed for your goldfishy.

Nope you didn't make me sad at all. All members here are friendly and helpful. When something like this happens and I come to my senses about my overfeeding mistake, there is a lot of guilt and disappointment associated with my action/my forgetting the rules. That is all.

Vijay

 

[Allivymar]

Its possible he is constipated (quite possible actually). While I doubt you can get him to eat a pea, which is usually the first suggestion for constipation in fish, try an epsom salt bath. Take some water out of the tank and put it into a clean container. Add 1 tbsp epsom salts per 1 gallon to that container. Put the fish in, and let it sit in there for 15-30 mins, then return it to its original tank. Hopefully that will help if he's not too blocked up.

 

[rvijay07]

I put some squashed chick peas in his tank. I also tried to squeeze him very gently. His stomach feels really thick. Here is what I feel has happened. The bread that I offered them was also toasted and hence dry. I think once my GF ate this bread and his stomach fluids started acting on it, all the bread became soaked more and swelled a lot. This might be blocking/squeezing several internals and causing great pain/discomfort. For some reason I feel I shouldn't use chemicals/medicines for this.

I hope the situation improves on its own. However, he sems to be getting less active and more motionless.

Vijay

 

[jsoong]

My goldie had similar problem recently. All fancy goldies are susceptable to swimbladder problems, this can be from infections, poor diet or constipation.

It is generally not recommended to feed goldies floating pellets because they can swell in the gut & block off the swimbladder function, so the fish can't swim - they either stay in the bottom & can't get up, or (in my case) floats & can't dive. Sometimes they swim at an odd angle & are totally stressed out.

The recommendations for swimbladder problem are:
1. Do not feed for 5 days (2 if fish is small).
2. Put in seperate tank with shallow water (just enough to cover fish), gradually increase water depth as fish gets better.
3. Increase temperature - helps with digestion - you can gradually increase the temp to high 70's (max temp for goldies is around 80, some say 82).
4. Feed peas - regular green peas, cooked, skin removed, chopped. This is what is recommended, I don't know if chick peas (being more starchy) will do the trick. Also, it is recommended to feed fancy goldies peas or other greens at least once a week to prevent problems.
5. If fish is bigger, you can try feeding 1 grain of epsom salt. You can do epsom salt bath as Alli suggested.
6. You can purge the fish using a salt dip.

You may want to check out the following:

http://users.megapathdsl.net/~solo/puregold/disease/symptom/symptom.htm#floating problems

Also check out other links in this site. They have detailed instructions on salt dips - never tried it myself, but from what I read, do wonders to goldies & pond people do it routinely.

In my case I fasted the fish for one day, then offered peas the next (I can't stand to starve my fish for longer, though you are supposed to! ). My goldie ate the peas & was better after 24 hours.

Good luck.

 

[rvijay07]

My goldie had similar problem recently. All fancy goldies are susceptable to swimbladder problems, this can be from infections, poor diet or constipation.

It is generally not recommended to feed goldies floating pellets because they can swell in the gut & block off the swimbladder function, so the fish can't swim - they either stay in the bottom & can't get up, or (in my case) floats & can't dive. Sometimes they swim at an odd angle & are totally stressed out.

This exactly seems to be the case.

Vijay

 

[rvijay07]

My GF died. I noticed his motionless body in the morning, just now. I gave them all over 5 times their normal feeding. They have handled that before. However, I feel that this time, this litte guy ate more.
Epsom salt might have helped in some other cases of constipation but not in such an extreme case.
It is my all fault for feeding them so much. In any case, this is a great wakeup call for me. It is not enough to just know the rules, but it is important to follow them at all times, specially in the most confusing and demanding situations.

Vijay

 

[rvijay07]

After overeating so much I must feel fortunate that my GF lived for so long. It appears to me as if he lived just to reassure me and make me feel comfortable. Every time I touched him, he would move just a little to show that he is OK. He even swam around a few times slowly but with great struggle trying to explore. Looking back, all this greatly helped me slowly get used to the idea that he is dying and accept it. Had he died the same day he overate, I would have been in too deep a shock to recover and would not have handled it well.

My only reassurance is that I overfed with an intention to reduce their stress and make them happy. Other than this, I had no other reason to overfeed them.

This is a great lesson to me that sooner or later a time will come when we will have to part our pets.
I hope my GFs soul rests in peace. Please pray for him.
Peace and Love.

Vijay

 

[rvijay07]

Caring for pets is like driving or walking in a busy road. One must pay attention at all times or
will have to face the consequences of an accident.

Vijay

 

[Guest]

Vijay, very sorry to hear all this. You meant well and were trying to be nice. My condolences.

Not a pleasant way to learn, but I'd bet you never overfeed again.

 

[rvijay07]

Vijay, very sorry to hear all this. You meant well and were trying to be nice. My condolences.

Not a pleasant way to learn, but I'd bet you never overfeed again.

Thank you for your kind words. Now I will never forget this lesson and pay extra
caution with all my fish.

I am very glad I quarantined him soon as he fell sick tho. That way atleast he was not disturbed by his tank mates. Moreover, the 20G tank water was not polluted by him.

Here is a basic logic behind an ailment. If the factor causing the ailment is not removed/rectified and persists, then it is a matter of time before the fish dies. I was just hoping that somehow he will be able to expel all that bread, but it never happened.
Prevention is better than cure. Better safe than sorry.

Vijay

 

[silent_beauty]

Response to situation!

Vijay I was wondering why you fed your fish to make them happy. I'm a psychiatric doctor and when reading your situation, I became concern wondering whether you use food as a way to make yourself happy. It's a serious problem among many people who feels that the only way to be happy is to eat but it is not. It leads to overeating as you saw within your fish. You do not have to use food as a mean to feel good. There are many others ways in which you can feel good. I'm not really sure whether this imply to you or not but from your statement on how you wanted your fish to be happy you gave it food. I just wanted to know if you use food as a way to make yourself happy cause I seen it often with a lot of my clients. I hope you are taking care of yourself also, and I'm sorry to hear about your fish. It is a sad situation to know that there wasn't much you could have done to help save your fish.

 

[Christmasfish]

I can sometimes overfeed my trick fish (see SHerbert before and after...^_^)
Communicating and rewarding peculiar animals like raptors and fish and weasels always involves food. It the the most understandable positive reinforcecment for these animals.
Though I am sure your keywords for beauty were the "stressful move so fed extra."
Really any feeding at all would have "consoled" them actually. More correctly, distracted them from any strangeness.

That aside;
Koi and golds in public places end up all manner of things..they just move around more because the space..and usually have more compettion. We used to pick up and trade out one of our show koi from this restaurant all the time becuase people would throw stuff in the decorative pools. The koi specalist actualy shoveed a tube down their gullet adn suctioneed out what contents there were before any other recovery therapy. I know I used to give my favorites all manner of things that are normal to a kid's pocket if they begged enough..one was very fond of twinkies and KNEW when I had one.

Maybe there was an extra factor in there like a extra cold evening temp and no heater to keep even temps? So the smallest? fullest? sickest one went down?

Outdoor Koi can go down to 55F with no problem, if it was a case of 85 that day and 55 that night ..they'd be belly up and bloated(happened to some Koi we sold to a palm springs lady).So many things!

However rember with these round shaped fish that the stomach is about the same size as the eyeball. And with golds it is less efficient so as mentioned before...the can get intestinal blockage fast..

So sorry about the unlucky one.....hope everyone else continues on with good health!!

 

[Pinky25]

Sick Goldfish

I have a gold fish (Aronda) that I think is sick. Recently he likes to float in the corner of the tank and just stay there not even moving his fins. Sometimes he even floats up side down but when I came to feed him, he'll eat (even though he's having a hard time balancing himself). He's not fat but his scales are gone leaving white skin on his stomach area.

What is happening to the fish? and what should I do?