Goldfish tank getting very murky - is it the food ?

deadl0ck

Hi all,
My girlfriend got a goldfish 2 weeks ago (she got the tank from Lidl a while ago and treated the water for 2 weeks with "Aquaplus" and "Cycle" before getting the goldfish).

The fish food she got with it is "Nutrafin Max Goldfish Flake Food".

Anyhow - she has it 2 weeks and has cleaned the water after 1 week and 2 weeks, by taking about 40% of the water and repalcing it with treated water.

For some reason, the water kepps getting murkier - could it be the food ?

The flakes are quite big and she breaks them up, but the fish never comes up to the top to eat them.
When they get saturated and float around the tank, he eats a few, but not a load - and a lot of them end up getting stuck round the filter (a simple filter with a little sponge in it). The sponge was pretty manky near the top of it when we took it out tonight during cleaning.

Also - the goldfish goes crazy when you go to near the tank - like really crazy - swimming into the tank walls to try and get away.

So - any advice ?

Is there a different type of food you can get ?

Is it even a goldfish she has ???
He's about 2 - 2.5 inches long and gold, with specks/patches of white and black.

Any advice would be great !

Thanks !!

Sigma Force

Sounds like there might be something wrong with your fish, what size is the tank ie how many liters does it hold and is it an actual filter or just an air pump?
Have you got any pictures of the fish to see if it is a goldfish, there are a good few varieties and not all are gold.
If your fish isn't eating all the food within a minute or so take the rest of the food out and feed it less, you could be over feeding the fish this causes the water to become murky.
If it is a gold fish some say twice a day some people say once a day, once a day should be enough for that fish and mabey about 2 flakes crumpled up you can soak the food before hand so that it sinks.
I'm not too familiar with fish food since Ive only had a fish a while myself but we feed our one the one you would usually get in most shops Aquarium it's called. Some say pelleted food that sinks to the bottom is better.
Your fish is still new so he might take a while to get used to a hand or whatever going in the water they soon get used to it.

It sounds like you would be better off changing the food to something more soluble and feeding less, Im no expert though still learning myself but the advice I have been given by other fishy owners and reading up a bit has worked for our fish so far.

One goldfish should have a 23 liter tank as far as I know, the one we have is 20 liter but it works fine for our one small fish (he's about 2 1/2 inches long) but we have to upgrade once he gets a bit bigger.
I also added some live plants certain plants help oxyginate the water and also fishy can nibble on them to have a varied diet if your fish is a gold fish you can also feed the occasional pea, feeze dried krill,daphnia and a few other things like that from your local aquarium center just be sure to read the label to make sure it's ok for the fish you have.

Try chaning the food and see how that goes

deadl0ck

Thanks for the suggestions.

It is a water filter - similar to this
The tank is 15 litres - almost the exact same as this one
I don't have any pics of the goldfish, but if required we can take some.
I think we were way overfeeding it - we'll tone down the feeding and see how it goes

boroughmal

You have to cycle a new tank.
Feed a constant ammount enough that they eat it within 5 minutes.
take rest of food out or cut down to enough.Feed once or twice a day but be consistent
tank will biocycle in 40 days or so.
change only 20% of water once a week untill then as new water will kill the bacterial cycle.
after that reduce it to 15% water change or fit a nitrate removal filter media.
these take out the nitrate automatically & require no water changing once the cycle has taken place.