Need opinion on fish's erratic behavior

[kiwi24]

First and foremost, I need an experienced opinion on one of my goldfish. He's been acting weird for a few days. His symptoms:

Not eating (completely ignores food during feedings)
Swimming along the wall in an up and down movement (he does not scrap his body against the glass, but does swim up and down with his nose pushing against the glass at times)
More frequent mouth aspiration
Flattened back fins (he keeps the back ones flattened when he swims, which I know healthy goldfish do when they propel through the water, but they usually unflatten them after stopping in one spot. He unflatten them after stopping in one spot, but then he flattens them again.)
Unstable swimming (at times, he seems to struggle to swim forward. I think this problem may be related to his almost constantly flattened fins.)
Inhaling water at the surface (the longest I've seen him stay up and continually have mouth aspiration is at least more than 5 seconds.)


To the best of my visual ability, I've looked at the fish and he has absolutely no physical defects. No cotton like spores, white spots, cloudy eyes, fallen off scales, bloody gills, open sores, rotting fins, bloating, etc.

I don't know what to do. I'm an amateur fish caretaker after my father bought fish yet he himself doesn't even know the proper credentials needed to keep fish healthy. So the burden has fallen on me.

 

[dalto]

Sounds like water quality.

How long have you had the fish and the tank? How often are you changing the water and how much do you change?

You need to test for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Most pet supply stores will sell these test kits if you don't have one already.

Alternatively, most fish stores will test your water for you. Just be sure to not let them tell you it is "good" or "bad". Make them tell you the numbers.

 

[Roz]

+1

Can you have the water tested and then post the parameters to us?

Do you think there could be a lack of oxygen? Do you have a filter / air stone that continually breaks the surface of the water? May explain the gasping at the surface.

Also, fish can behave oddly if they have lost a tankmate - before I adopted Dennis, his friend Rosie died. Dennis swam erratically until a new tank mate was introduced.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[kiwi24]

Yes, I did buy test strips a few days ago and tested it on the tank water. I'm horrified at the results and am in desperate need of advice of how to fix it. The test results were color based to determine parameter numbers, so below on my list, if I have more than one number for one thing, it means the test result color was somewhere in between that range.

Nitrate is at 160-200. Normal is supposed to be 0.
Nitrite is at 1. Normal is supposed to be 0.
pH is at less than 6.0. Normal is supposed to be 7.5.
KH test is at 0-40. Normal is supposed to be 120, 140, or 240.
GH test is at 60-120. Normal is supposed to be 120, 180, but my test strip result for this came out in a color that was somewhere in between 60-120.

As you can see, my water quality at the moment is severely terrible.

For the things I currently have:

Penn Plax Cascade Heater set at 79 degrees. I need to know if this is too hot for goldfish or not. Because they are in the basement, it gets freezing down there in winter. This is the first winter they will experience. I previously set it at 82 degrees (because there's no 80 or 81 parameter I can use on the heater). The heater can be set lower than 79, but I haven't done that as of yet. Like I said in my original post, I'm really an amateur at fish rearing, but I read on the Internet higher heat temperatures can cause less oxygen to be present in the tank water. Is this true or false, and if so, do you recommend I lower the heater temperature?
I have reasonable suspicions that the cold basement temperature itself influenced the water heater temp because when I had it at 82 degrees, I used a thermo to do a water temp check and it said 78 degrees.

Tetra Whisper Air Pump with one airstone. I checked the packaging and it says it's for up to 10 gallons of tank water, but since doing a manual measuring of the tank, it comes out to 11 gallons. Could it be I don't have enough oxygen in the water because the airstone is only for 10 gallons?

Aqueon Quiet Flow 20. This is the large one that filters up to 30 gallons. It was recently installed about a month ago and In a couple of days I intend to change the inside filter to a new one.

Additionally, this is also in response to dalto's questions.

I used to change the water every four to five days in the past when i did not have a filter because the water often for murky very quickly due to poop. One of the mistakes made was allowing the fish to habituate in a large fountain pond in the yard during the summer, and they were direct sunlight, so algae growth was ridiculously fast, which required frequent cleaning. Another mistake I made then, not knowing what I do now, is that untreated tap water is potentially dangerous to fish. So every week I'd clean the fountain and water accessories out with a cleaning pad and toothbrush with tap water, refill the fountain with tap water and put the fish back in.

Now that I know tap water is bad for them, I've been slowly replacing 2 gallons of treated tap water into the tank. On the bottle, it says to use 2 drops per gallon to treat chlorine and heavy metals but then it says use 6 drops to treat chloramines. So I'm supposed to use 8 drops per gallon? I was so unsure and afraid that I was doing it wrong, so I only put in 6 drops per gallon I was changing. I have not done another water test since replacing the tank water with tap water. The reason I was doing only two gallons per day instead of doing a full and immediate water change was because I had reason to believe I might stress out the fish with the sudden change.

To further explain how the fish ended up from a fountain pond to a tank, it was due to the changing season and chiller weather.

I last gravel vaccumed last week, but in my ignorance at the time, I still did not know untreated tap water was bad for them and ended up putting in about half of untreated tap water.

At the moment, I have about four other fish in the tank. They are all eating and behaving normally. I feed them once in the morning and again in the evening. They eat fish flakes, but I soak it in treated tap water (by taking a bit from the existing treated water in the tank) and then slowly sprinkle it a little at a time to make sure they are eating and to ensure I am not over feeding.

Any advice you have I will be willing to try.

 

[dalto]

The first thing you need to do is water changes to reduce the nitrates. I would do 2 30% changes and then 50% changes until nitrates are under 20ppm.

Do changes 2x per day. You have either chloramines or chlorine so using 6 drops was the right thing to do if you have chloramines in the water.

Once you water chemistry is back to normal you need to do something about your stocking levels. It sounds like you may have too many fish in that tank. What are the other 4 fish? What type of goldfish is it?

You will also need an ammonia test kit. I suspect your tank is still cycling with the new filter.

 

[dalto]

A few more comments after reading your post again.

The airstone/pump you have should be fine.
You should lower the temp to at least 75. In order to give you a better temp we need to know what kind of fish the other 4 are.

 

[kiwi24]

For the 2x changes per day, would you say I should separate the two changes within several hours to allow the fish to adjust to the change? And if I need to do another nitrates test, after how many days of water changes should I do this?

Ideally, how many fish should be in an 11 gallon tank? This is the tank I currently have. What happens if there are too many in a tank? Could this problem also be fixed by getting a bigger tank, and if so, what is recommended?

 

[dalto]

For the 2x changes per day, would you say I should separate the two changes within several hours to allow the fish to adjust to the change? And if I need to do another nitrates test, after how many days of water changes should I do this?

I would put at least 6 hours between the water changes since the levels are so elevated.

Ideally, how many fish should be in an 11 gallon tank? This is the tank I currently have. What happens if there are too many in a tank? Could this problem also be fixed by getting a bigger tank, and if so, what is recommended?

It depends what kind of fish you have. A neon tetra needs less space than a red tailed catfish. So.....what kind of fish do you have?

 

[kiwi24]

It depends what kind of fish you have. A neon tetra needs less space than a red tailed catfish. So.....what kind of fish do you have?

I believe they are goldfish because they all look just about the same. I guess I could try to take photos and post them to make sure.

 

[dalto]

Do they look like this:

Or more like this?:

Either way, you are going to need a much bigger tank. Once we figure out what you have we can figure out how much bigger. How big would you say the fish are now. Also, you should be able to slowly drop the temp to 70, just do it slowly. Goldfish are not tropical fish.

 

[kiwi24]

Do they look like this:

Or more like this?:

Either way, you are going to need a much bigger tank. Once we figure out what you have we can figure out how much bigger. How big would you say the fish are now. Also, you should be able to slowly drop the temp to 70, just do it slowly. Goldfish are not tropical fish.

They definitely resemble the first fish photo.

 

[dalto]

Approximately how long are they at this point?

 

[kiwi24]

Approximately how long are they at this point?

Three of them are as long as a pinky finger, but the fourth is a bit longer than that.

 

[kiwi24]

Did another test strip. Nitrate is down to 80 and nitrite is down to 0.5. Everything else (pH, KH and GH) has remained the same. Anything I can do to improve pH, KH or GH?

I read up on it and it appears I can increase all three by adding a rock containing limestone into the tank or using corals or shells. Are pet store bought ornaments like this usually labeled somewhere to help increase pH, KH or GH? And if I want to increase all three, will I just need one thing or multiple ones?

 

[Matt68005]

Anything I can do to improve pH, KH or GH?

I read up on it and it appears I can increase all three by adding a rock containing limestone into the tank or using corals or shells. Are pet store bought ornaments like this usually labeled somewhere to help increase pH, KH or GH? And if I want to increase all three, will I just need one thing or multiple ones?

Yes, but i would not waste money and get them from a Hardware/landscaping store instead, like menards or home depot.
Go to a landscaping place or some place with rock/cement blocks ect and ask for some limestone rock. Replace your stubstrate with this and your GH should go up.