I have a fantail goldfish living in a 20 gallon tank. I feed him sinkable pallets, I only have one fish, i change his water every 2 weeks and i change 25% of it, and I give him a Bio-Coat internal and external stress defense additive every time i change the water. Lately he has been behaving oddly. He's been hanging around his power filter lately. There is this tube thing that sucks in the water for the filter and lately he has been squeezing himself between the tube thing and the tank. He's been swimming slower thatn usual and his swimming motion is kinda jerky, instead of his usual smooth swimming motion. He has also developed some white spots on his body. he has white spots on the very top of his head, some on the fin on his head, a little on his body, and some on his tal fins. His tail fins have also gotten frayed lately and it seems as though some white spots are sort of circling the wounds. Its also strange that he got his fins torn, and I have no idea how this happened. Could anyone tell me what is wrong with my fish? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Well, it sounds like your fish probably has ick. And if his fins are torn than he the white spots that are circling it could possibly be fungus. This is a bacterial infection that can get kind of serious. You should, firstly, find out if I'm correct and if your fish has ick and fungus, and then treat whatever you need to treat. I hope this has been of atleast some help.

Hiya LinkinBlink and

Hum Wonder could be right here, but we could do with some more info on the tank to firmly decide the best course of action? If you look at the top of the forum
or click here
http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/forum/index.php?showforum=10
You can see some questions that we need answers to? Can you have a go at answering them?

Also the "white spots", do they look like grains of salt? fluffy? slimey? hairy? Does he seem to be scraping on things? flicking? And if you take a peek at the colour of his gills, do they seem red? pink? white? jammed up? etc...

Tell us all you can, and hopefully we can provide a little more help

The thing is i don't really check the nitrate levels or pH levels. . . .

some white spots do look like grains of salt, particularly on his tail fins. These spots look almost fluffy. The ones on the very top of his head look somewhat slimey, almost transparent. The color of his gills are a reddish pink, with a bit of a white outline on some sides and i noticed they don't open up as much as they used to. . .