Can someone please help me here. I found my gold fish (the one with the red head and white body, I think its called Ranchu?) not moving at all one night (where it was very active and looking alright the day before), lying flat on the bottom of the tank. I thought its dead, so got it out and put it in a separate bucket to have a look at it, and found that its gill is still moving. So its trying to breath through its gill but the mouth is not moving at all, so as the whole body and the fins!!! It looks as if its been paralysed!! I put him in the salt bath now and its now just lying still at the bottom, not moving at all except for the gill, which is moving at a very slow rate.

This fish has always been the one gets sick easily ( i have three other fish), it always has the swim bladder problem. But this time even the fish shop owner does not know what is the problem.

I am very upset as there is nothing I can do. I am even too scared to look at it just in case its really dead.

Can anyone please advise me what to do?

Anne

sounds like you have one very sick goldie. the first thing i suggest is to get some test kits to test the water with. water quality is a big issue.

Hiya

Unfortunately, when fish get to this stage there is usually very little you can do to save them.

Blinky is right though - the first thing is to test the water quality and make sure that is OK.

When you say salt bath, how much salt did you use?

I don't know how to help you, but I hope the little guy is ok!!

My little fish seem ok now, its not lying flat anymore. But it is still not actively swmming around. Still have him in the salt bath. the salt bath I prepared was done according to the fish shop owner, 1 teaspoon per one litre of water.

Thanks guys!

Something to share: I was doing water change to the main fish tank, when I pour water into the tank, one of the thee gold fish seem to get shock and jump up high in the water, then lied flat in the water, as if it was dead. It also seem like it stop breathing a while too. this particular fish has also been behaving strangely recently too. Sometimes he will just sit at one corner still staring at the glass for a few seconds, then suddenly swim in a very fast motion then stop again.

I just want to say, fish have lots of strange behaviour that humans can't understand.

one of my fish does that too...he goes in the bottom corner of the tank and just stays there looking at something (don't know what) for a long time...it's wierd

This fish is getting worse now. It seems to be blind. It sits very still for a while then swims off very quickly without avoiding things like rocks or the tank. Sometimes it even swims backwards.

We have tested the water and it seems fine. There is no ammonia and the pH is a little bit low, but not too much.

Does anyone have any idea why it is behaving so strangely?

That actually sounds like poisoning, epilepsy or brain damage.

When you do water changes, do you use a water conditioner which removes both clorine AND cloramine? Is the new water temperature-matched to the old water? When you say the pH is fine, does it change in the tank over a period of time and become different from the tap water? What type of containers do you use to store/move water around? Are the ammonia and nitrite 0 and the nitrate less than 20 ppm?

Sorry for all the questions!

Hi Emma,

I found the edge of its fins are frayed, I think this is the problem for it to stop swmming and just lying on its side! Some of its scale have gone missing too, and the body seems like turning from red to white. Is there any medication I should use?

Just tested the water, the ammonia was a bit high, 0.5, ph level is 7.0. dont know about the nitrate as I haven't got the test kit. So I have changed the water, making sure the temp of the water is same as the old one. At the moment this fish and the other sick fish (that I mentioned early in this post) are both sitting in salted water, which is made up of 7 littre water with 7 teaspoon of salt. I have them there for a while, almost a week. Cause whenever I put them back to the main tank, they started the strange behaviour again.

I am really stressed now about these 2 fish and don' t know what to do!

Does anyone know if this could be dropsy? The white could be a fungus. It's good to keep them separate from the other fish.

Hi all,

Thanks for replying to my mail. The fish is dead....

Feeling very down. It was fine a minute before then it just stopped moving completely. Had a close look, I think it was fungus. The scale kept dropping off... However the other fish that had problem is fine now

We are going to bury him in the front yard....

anne