Bit worried about one of my goldfish

aniascor

I have two oranda goldfish in my aquarium. I bought the two of them on the same day, about a year ago now.

One of them is thriving and is almost double the size of the other. I'm really worried about the smaller one. About a month ago, I think it had a swim bladder problem. Once or twice I saw it almost somersault and float upside down for a second or two towards the top of the tank.

But I reduced the feeding, and gave less floating food, and I haven't seen that reoccur.

Lately though, the small fish has been behaving really strangely. It swims around normally for a while, and then rests at the top of the tank, always in the exact same spot, just above a plant leaf, at the side of the tank. It looks like it is suspended there. Its tail is almost coming out of the water, and its head is hanging downwards. It might stay there for a few minutes or for an hour. Then it will swim around (at all levels in the tank) before coming back to the same spot in the tank, and stopping there again.

For a while the thriving fish seemed bothered by it, and would come up and nudge the smaller fish. But that seems to have stopped now.

Water quality is fine. I do partial changes regularly using a siphon. I'm at a loss.

kylith

Can you give us your tank dimensions and readings?

aniascor

kylith wrote: »

Can you give us your tank dimensions and readings?

The tank is only 30L unfortunately. I wish upgrading it were an option. If it were, I would. I didn't know how much space goldfish need when I bought it I'm afraid. The situation used to be worse until Boards came to my rescue last year (http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2056626023?page=1#post_78562013)!


If you think it's a tank size issue, then I'm not sure what to do. I'll happily rehome the fish if it means they'll be better off - but I don't think there are too many looking to give new homes to fancy goldfish.

Can't check water levels right now. Have to rush around putting a toddler to bed. But will check them later and report back.

Sleepy

How regularly are you changing the water? I think you'd nearly need to be doing a 50% change daily with a tank that small...

aniascor

Sleepy wrote: »

How regularly are you changing the water? I think you'd nearly need to be doing a 50% change daily with a tank that small...

Crap - really? Feck it. Once more I completely regret my impulse purchase on a sales guy's dodgy say so. I generally do 50% every Friday. Clearly that's not enough.

So are the symptoms the small fish is showing typical symptoms of poor water quality? My poor fish. I'll increase the number of water changes in the week and see how we get on.

Sleepy

I can't comment on the symptoms but generally, if you're keeping the water okay, the fish will be okay...

Silverfish

aniascor wrote: »

Crap - really? Feck it. Once more I completely regret my impulse purchase on a sales guy's dodgy say so. I generally do 50% every Friday. Clearly that's not enough.

So are the symptoms the small fish is showing typical symptoms of poor water quality? My poor fish. I'll increase the number of water changes in the week and see how we get on.

Just be cautious, sometimes drastic changes can push a sick fish over the edge. I'd recommend maybe 20% every day or two days, changing with temperature matched conditioned water.

'Headstanding' or floating tail up can be a symptom of a lot of things, but usually it's something not right internally.
I'd try not feeding for two days, and then feed a frozen pea - cooked, take the skin off, and mushed up.
That will help any swimbladder problems.

Do report back on the water test results, they normally mean you can rule out some things.

But I know what you mean, common goldfish are easily rehomed to ponds, but fancies are very hard to rehome.

aniascor

hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in coming back. Just wanted to give you an update. Well I got a shock when I tested the water on Friday. Nitrates close to 50. :eek: All the other levels were normal - nothing different to what I'd usually see just before a water change. So I took a closer look at the tank and realised that the goldfish had uprooted the plant, eaten all the roots off it, and the whole back of the plant was basically rotting into the water. The front leaves were fine for some reason, so it wasn't that obvious until you looked into the tank from the top down. Don't know how I didn't spot it when I was changing the water and cleaning the tank the week before. I'd say it had been getting steadily worse for a week or two.

Cue a quick removal of the plant and a couple of panicked water changes over the weekend.

I also didn't feed the fish for 48 hours and then when I starting feeding them again I've been feeding them smaller amounts. Presto - the smaller fish is full of energy and the strange floating behaviour has completely disappeared. I feel bad that I didn't notice what was happening sooner, but I'm glad it seems to be resolved now.

Thanks for all the advice and help.

aniascor

Oh - one more thing - OT but made me realise how little I know about this fishkeeping business. During my googling for answers in the past week, I discovered that I do not in fact have Orandas. My fish seem to just be fantail goldfish. I could swear they were labeled as orandas in the shop - otherwise, I'm not sure where I would have learned that name. But anyway, having seen numerous pictures of fantails and orandas on my searches, it seems obvious that they are fantails.

Sleepy

I think fantail is just a generic name for the group of goldfish which Orandas, Ranchus etc. belong to.

Silverfish

I think fancy is the generic name, fantails are a breed in their own right, and ranchus etc don't have fantails!

aniascor

Silverfish wrote: »

I think fancy is the generic name, fantails are a breed in their own right, and ranchus etc don't have fantails!

Well this is what the big one looks like - so what do you think? Fantail? Or something else entirely?

Silverfish

aniascor wrote: »

Well this is what the big one looks like - so what do you think? Fantail? Or something else entirely?

He's a fantail. I'd say there's a bit of ryukin in him as well.

There's no sign of any wen growth at all but it can be hard to tell sometimes, one of mine had no headgrowth until he was about 6 months old.

He's lovely though, has the proper split tail and he's nicely rounded.

aniascor

Silverfish wrote: »

He's a fantail. I'd say there's a bit of ryukin in him as well.

There's no sign of any wen growth at all but it can be hard to tell sometimes, one of mine had no headgrowth until he was about 6 months old.

He's lovely though, has the proper split tail and he's nicely rounded.

Well he's over a year old now and very big- over double the size of his companion who is the same age, so I don't expect him to develop head growth at this stage. Of course what do I know!

Silverfish

aniascor wrote: »

Well he's over a year old now and very big- over double the size of his companion who is the same age, so I don't expect him to develop head growth at this stage. Of course what do I know!

I think you know enough, he's in great shape!

aniascor

Thanks silverfish. Shame the other one isn't the same. Thinking about it, maybe the other one has just never been a healthy fish? It never seemed to grow at the same rate even right at the start, and when I first introduced it to the tank, it brought white spot with it, which took weeks to clear out of the tank. I actually thought the smaller fish wasn't going to survive that episode, but I managed to treat it and get it healthy-ish again. But it has just never thrived since then. And where the big fish has lovely a lovely sweeping tail, one side of the small fish's tail is kind of curled in and looks a bit stunted. Poor fish.

Silverfish

aniascor wrote: »

Thanks silverfish. Shame the other one isn't the same. Thinking about it, maybe the other one has just never been a healthy fish? It never seemed to grow at the same rate even right at the start, and when I first introduced it to the tank, it brought white spot with it, which took weeks to clear out of the tank. I actually thought the smaller fish wasn't going to survive that episode, but I managed to treat it and get it healthy-ish again. But it has just never thrived since then. And where the big fish has lovely a lovely sweeping tail, one side of the small fish's tail is kind of curled in and looks a bit stunted. Poor fish.

That's the trouble with them, there's a lot of bad genes due to massive inbreeding, it's a lottery when you buy the small fish in the shop as to whether it will actually turn out right or not. When I'm buying a fish I spend ages studying them to make sure they are swimming right, have clear eyes, dorsal fins are up, tails look healthy with no streaking...... and then I fall for the sickest fish in the shop and buy that and try nurse it back to health!

If you want a guaranteed healthy well-bred fish the normal price is upwards of 100 euro, sometimes into the thousands. What you buy in most shops is the excess that are almost right but not quite. Sometimes they have faulty tails or scales or don't look right, but are perfectly healthy, but they can also look great but have internal problems.

Once you get them through the first year, they've usually come through the worst, and have a good chance at living a full life.

aniascor

Silverfish wrote: »

That's the trouble with them, there's a lot of bad genes due to massive inbreeding, it's a lottery when you buy the small fish in the shop as to whether it will actually turn out right or not. When I'm buying a fish I spend ages studying them to make sure they are swimming right, have clear eyes, dorsal fins are up, tails look healthy with no streaking...... and then I fall for the sickest fish in the shop and buy that and try nurse it back to health!

If you want a guaranteed healthy well-bred fish the normal price is upwards of 100 euro, sometimes into the thousands. What you buy in most shops is the excess that are almost right but not quite. Sometimes they have faulty tails or scales or don't look right, but are perfectly healthy, but they can also look great but have internal problems.

Once you get them through the first year, they've usually come through the worst, and have a good chance at living a full life.

I had no idea. I just kind of assumed a goldfish was a goldfish...

We picked the ones the toddler liked best!