goodfish42
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hi, I'm new here. I recently inherited two goldfish and a very small tank (over the weekend a friend of a friend needed to leave town quickly and was giving away his two goldfish and their one-gallon aquarium). One of the goldfish seems to be having some trouble as of tonight. They were fine for the first day or two, but now the smaller one is having buoyancy problems. He keeps swimming downward and floating back up. He's very active and alert, but I think he must be getting worn out! :-( When he gets to the top of the tank he goes sort of sideways and then swims down quickly again.
I don't know the water parameters and such. I have ordered one of those tester kits online but it won't get here for a few days. When the fish arrived (on Sunday) the tank was half full so I refilled it with filtered water and put in some AquaSafe drops and some Stress Zyme drops (as much as the bottles said I should use). I have been feeding them Top Fin Goldfish Flakes (a very small half-pinch in the morning and the same at night). I read somewhere that you should soak the food but I didn't know that before so I'd just been dropping it in. I made sure the water was the right temperature and everything. Today after the fish started acting funny I changed half the water again (I meant to do a quarter tank but I'm new to siphoning) and put more of the Aqua Safe drops in the new water. The other fish is having no trouble.
Any suggestions?
By the way, I'm not planning to keep the fish in the little 1-gallon tank -- it's way too small. I bought a nice 6-gallon tank (seemed big enough -- the goldfish are each about 6cm long) and new gravel and plants etc and I'm planning to start preparing the new tank tomorrow. If you have any advice on preparing a new tank please share.
Oh and my profile picture is the sick fish before he was sick (it's an action shot).
-Katie
I don't know the water parameters and such. I have ordered one of those tester kits online but it won't get here for a few days. When the fish arrived (on Sunday) the tank was half full so I refilled it with filtered water and put in some AquaSafe drops and some Stress Zyme drops (as much as the bottles said I should use). I have been feeding them Top Fin Goldfish Flakes (a very small half-pinch in the morning and the same at night). I read somewhere that you should soak the food but I didn't know that before so I'd just been dropping it in. I made sure the water was the right temperature and everything. Today after the fish started acting funny I changed half the water again (I meant to do a quarter tank but I'm new to siphoning) and put more of the Aqua Safe drops in the new water. The other fish is having no trouble.
Any suggestions?
By the way, I'm not planning to keep the fish in the little 1-gallon tank -- it's way too small. I bought a nice 6-gallon tank (seemed big enough -- the goldfish are each about 6cm long) and new gravel and plants etc and I'm planning to start preparing the new tank tomorrow. If you have any advice on preparing a new tank please share.
Oh and my profile picture is the sick fish before he was sick (it's an action shot).
-Katie