Goldfish gasping for air

[savy]

Hi everyone! I’m a new fish owner and I just got a goldfish. I put her in a top fin 3.5 gal tank with a filter yesterday after rinsing all the gravel and decorations. I pre treated the water with some API stress coat, stress zyme, quick start, as well as some API freshwater aquarium salt for electrolytes. Anyways, all was good yesterday, my fish seemed very happy exploring her new home. However, today the tank is white cloudy which I have read is normal. But my fish has been gasping at the top of the tank by the filter for a while. I tried changing 50% of the water and it stopped the gasping for 30 minutes but now she’s back to the top. I’ve tried agitating the surface of the water to try to get more oxygen in there but I’m not able to see a difference in behavior. Sorry for the long post, but I’m wondering if there’s something I did wrong and if there’s anything I can do to fix this. Thank you!

[Aiken Drum]

A 3.5g tank isnt really big enough for fish, especially a goldfish. Goldfish get big, and live decades and are very messy. Whats probably happening is your fish is producing a lot of waste, and very quickly in such a small tank, water parameters are getting to toxic levels. The water change helped, but is papering over the cracks. Also those small filters dont really have strong enough water flow to properly oxygenate a tank, so a small airstone might be a good idea.

You need to have a think about what you want to do. Either return the goldfish to the store and look at something more suited to a 3.5g tank (shrimp and snails, at a push a single betta) or get a 30g tank which will be big enough for 1 goldfish. In the meantime twice daily 50% water changes will help with water conditions. And feed lightly to reduce waste.

[Aiken Drum]

A couple of relevant threads for people who find themselves with goldfish and are unprepared for it.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...re-377527.html

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...ve-265871.html

[savy]

That’s super helpful! Actually yeah all of this was last minute stuff since my roommate won a fish from a fair and was not prepared to take care of it so it fell to me to try and take care of it. I can’t really return the fish so i’ll go to the store and look for a bigger tank and better filter. Thank you!