Fish suddenly bloats and dies

[HooKooDooKu]

I tried asking in unhealthy fish, but not getting any response.

The short of it... I had a Rosy Red Goldfish that I removed from the goldfish community tank and placed him in a 1/2 gallon vase at bed time. The vase was filled with tap water at about the same temperature as the tank, added two drops of Prime and a few flakes of food. Then chased the rosy down, netted him, and placed him in the vase (without aclimating) as I headed to bed.

Next morning, his belly was bloated and he was swimming upside down. A few hours later, he was even more bloated and dead.

Can you please explain exactly what killed this fish that fast?

 

[HooKooDooKu]

After doing a little more internet research, while I don't know for sure, the best idea I can come up with was that the fish had a bacterial infection. The infection might have been a part of the reason why be had become a bit more of a bully. Add to that the stress he went through and his immune system just broke down and allowed the infection to just suddenly take over.

That's so far the best I can come up with on my own.

 

[glassbird]

I am not familiar with "Rosy Red Goldfish", but I am VERY familiar with goldfish (fancies and pond types). If you put a goldfish in a 1/2 gallon "vase" without any additional source of aeration and/or water movement, I would bet that the fish very quickly ended up with not enough oxygen in the water. He may have spent several hours "gasping" near the surface, trying to breath. Goldfish can pull in room air while gasping....and then "bloat" and die. Not acclimating probably did not help.
It's possible that he did have other health problems, but given your description of the situation, I am thinking he might have died from too little oxygen in the water, and too much air in his bowels.

CT

 

[Phoenixphire55]

It looks like a rosy red is a minnow, not a goldfish, but they are often kept in feeder tanks along with feeder goldfish at the pet store. It sounds like you did multiple things wrong. There are no fish that you can put in a 1/2 gallon vase. I mean come on. I'm not trying to be a jerk but its weird to see someone posting about putting a fish in a 1/2 gallon of water and then being surprised when it dies.

 

[HooKooDooKu]

It looks like a rosy red is a minnow, not a goldfish, but they are often kept in feeder tanks along with feeder goldfish at the pet store. It sounds like you did multiple things wrong. There are no fish that you can put in a 1/2 gallon vase. I mean come on. I'm not trying to be a jerk but its weird to see someone posting about putting a fish in a 1/2 gallon of water and then being surprised when it dies.

Yes, a rosy red is a minnow... but it's still sort of a goldfish. Technically it's not a goldfish, but they are still a part of the carp family that includes koi and goldfish.

And I would say that you are being a bit of a jerk. Pay attention to details. This minnow was in a 1/2 gallon vase for HOURS before dying, not days or weeks. This is a small fish, and there isn't any reason for him to die simply because he was placed in a 1/2 gallon vase over night until I could decide what to do with him. That would be like putting you in a closet and finding you dead when I openned the closet a few hours later.

This vase was sort of heart shaped when seen from the side. That means it starts narrow and gets significanly wider as you move up. At it's widest point, I would say the vase was about 8" accross, and that's the level I set the water (to maximize the surface area).

If the fish was perfectly healthy, then the only things that could have killed it would have been lack of oxygen (I don't think that by itself was it, not given the surface area of the water), ammonia/nitrite poisioning (there wasn't enough time for the them to build up to leathal levels), shock (temperature, which was relatively the same; or pH, but the water source was the same, only difference there would be the slight difference in pH because having just come from the tap, it had more disolved CO2).

Now what I also left out of the original post was that this fish was moved because he starting bullying the other fish in the tank, including the goldfish that was 4 times his size. I've since learned that this can be a sign of illness, and as I've already stated, it would seem an illness played a major role in his death. But I didn't realize he was ill until after the all occured and he was dead (there were no outward signs of illness before being placed in the vase).