Help! Goldfish going downhill fast!

[enrgizerbunny]

Back again, this time my 3 feeder goldies seem to have a mystery ailment! Out of the 3, 2 are barely moving, and the Orange/white one was stuck on the filter intake. I don't think he's going to make it, only his tail and mouth are moving and he does little to move himself, just drifting with the current.

They orange one pictured swims, but stops and goes stiff like the white one.

Any help is appreciated.

Tank temp is 69
PH 7
AMMO 0-.25
NITRITE 0
NITRATE 0

WCS- 50-90% daily
Last water change: this morning

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[enrgizerbunny]

Update: white/orange is dead

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[Roz]

The poor little guys.
You are doing loads of water changes and the parameters are good!
But the tank looks very bare - are they in hospital?
How often do you feed them?
What size is their tank?

 

[enrgizerbunny]

They are in a ten gallon temporarily until my aquaponics system cycles and then they will be moved there. The water changes are all to keep toxins down. Saturday they spent basically all day in the dark

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[Roz]

Have you just bought them?
Do they clamp their little dorsal fins down?
Quite perplexing :-(

 

[enrgizerbunny]

I bought them this past Tuesday. They came out of the feeder tank so I didnt expect great health, but the sudden turn downhill has stumped me supposed because they were doing great

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[busterrox]

Start a varied diet, other the. Just pellets or flakes... Try to feed them pees with out the skins. Pees are like medicine for fish. Just make sure the out skin of the p is off or it make cause farther problems

 

[Roz]

Maybe they are stressed by the move? They have probably gone from terrible water conditions to pristine water, and it has been a shock?

I think you are doing everything you can, and good on you for giving these little guys a chance

 

[enrgizerbunny]

The remaining two fish seem to be doing fine now, I have no idea what could have been causing it

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[Roz]

That's great news!

Fingers crossed

 

[enrgizerbunny]

Well I brought home a replacement for the third. And I think the original two are going downhill. The bigger one in particular has stringy, white poop that I've seen for the first time tonight and he's been hanging out at the top of the tank. At the surface.

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[enrgizerbunny]

Now both of the original two seem to be having difficulty staying down in the water. Is that swim bladder issues? If they stop moving for a second, they instantly start floating to the surface.

The bigger of the two doesn't seem like he'll make it much longer.

 

[busterrox]

You need to start feeding the inside of pees. a adverse diet never hurts. I have told You this before and the poor fishes are paying for it. This may not fix it but it works very well when issues arise like this for my fish.

Best of luck!

Buster~

 

[enrgizerbunny]

I gave them some blanched zucchini and they didn't touch it. Don't have any peas in the house at the moment. I've only had the fish about 2 weeks, so I doubt their diet has anything to do with it. These guys weren't looking to good from the start, but I figured with lots of clean water the ammonia burns would heal and they would live.

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[Jmunroe]

Try getting them to eat a veggie flake if you think it's the problem. I'm guessing it's not though. This is why I'm one of the people that preach about not giving large fish feeders. Someone could have bought those, took them home and fed them to their fish and bam, now what ever they have would have been on somebody's show fish.

 

[enrgizerbunny]

I looked up causes of swim bladder problems and saw that constipation could cause issues. So peas would make sense. Peas, being a laxative would help clear the digestive tract and possibly clear up swim bladder problems. The fact that I've had them for such a short time and they do produce waste, I'm going to tentatively say that is not the issue. I am, however, going to give them 48 hours no food and then feed some pea innards. A brief explanation that constipation can cause swim bladder problems would have made those comments much clearer.

I'm much more concerned with why the apparent ammonia burns are getting worse in a tank that has received 50-90% water changes daily. I think whatever is causing them might be related. There are very very very few toxins present. Being a bare tank I vacuum all waste off the bottom every day. The "burns" only appear worse on one fish, the other actually looks to be clearing up a touch.

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[enrgizerbunny]

Update: larger of the two original has died. Pictures are available of the body.

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[enrgizerbunny]

The first image is what he looked like a day after I got him. The second is part mortem.

Both pictures show the same side of the fish.

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[Delapool]

Thanks for the photos. Something I read last week in two articles was that the black scales show recovery from ammonia poisoning and that it can take 3-4 days to fully show.

I'm wondering if your water isn't the issue and these might be new arrivals?

Edit - I wonder how bad the gills are. Were they gasping at surface or just up there?

 

[enrgizerbunny]

These are new arrivals. I picked him up about a week and a half ago. They are being assuaged in a ten gallon while their 30 gallon home cycles. The ten gallon isn't cycled either, so I make daily water changes. I was careless with one water change and didn't get a good temp match, but it was less than ten degrees difference in temperature.

Other than that, my water change schedule had pretty much been 50 one day followed by 90 the next. Today I am differing today and doing a 50% change where I have been doing 90%.

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