hiii , plz help me quickly , i have a tank with several fishes all of them are ok but the biggest one , which is before a week was the most active one, now it doesnt eat and sitting in the corner on the bottom all the day, i isolated it and treated it yestarday with potassium permanganate(i thought its flukes) but its still not eating at all , some times it takes the pellets and spit them back :-( ...

what should i do , plz hurry before it dies

So we can help more, could you fill in the box above and which country you are in.

I'm sorry your biggest fish is not well. I hope we can offer you some suggestions but we need more information. As Sandy mentioned, when you click 'reply' you will see a white box full of questions at the top of the page. Please answer as many as you can.

Welcome to koko's. Sorry about the circumstances.

Can you also detail your PP treatment. What concentration and how long did you leave the PP in the water? Did you neutralise it with peroxide?

Why did you think that it is fluke?

well im sorry not to give all the info but im still a very hobby(less than a month since i got my fishes) and i had lice(argulus)(my fishes had it) and i got rid of it and now i have this situation...
well i dont think i can provide the info you seek as i live in Iraq and almost every testing kit is not availabe but what i know is that all the other fishes are ok.

my tank is crowded and this is something i cant change now(frequent partial water changes till the big tank comes),temperature is 86 F , i add salt to the water(2 leveled tsf per gallon(5 litres)) i feed them pellets after soaking them in water for 5 mins.
i thought its flukes because of the symptoms(sitting at the bottom , not eating , swim normally if stimulated and nothing else to observe...)

this is some update to my first post , after putting my fish in water of 0.4 PP for 12 hours , i deactivated the PP with antichlore and brought him back to my tank as it was very exhausted , now it seems to swim not sitting at the bottom but it is lazy and definitly not eating , it became thin and i really dont know what to do to help it
hope you help me before it dies from starving...

Hi there.


Off the top, the temperature of your tanks water is very warm. Are you heating this tank they are in or is it because of the weather? If you are heating, I would try reducing the heat to no more than 78F. Oxygen becomes MUCH less available to fish in higher temps and a fish that was recently put through PP treatment is bound to have frazzled gills.

My advice would be to increase aeration. Lots and lots of aeration. Reduce heat.


First and foremost though, filtration is going to absolutely need to be up to par for the amount of fish you have in your particular tank. As you may have read, fancy goldfish need AT LEAST ten gallons per fish to thrive and live as long as they are able to. On top of the ten gallons per fish, there needs to be at least 100gph for every ten gallons of water. If these general rules of thumb are not met, an overcrowded tank will most surely have high amounts of ammonia and nitrItes and can most certainly cause sickness. Sometimes, these sicknesses can be misdiagnosed and using the wrong treatment can cause further distress in the fish.

So, we need to assess the state of your tank and its filtration. The amount of fish, their size and the gallonage of your tank are what is need to figure out if your water is being kept as clean as it should be for a fish to recover from illness. To do this, answer these questions:

What is the name and size of the filter/s on your tank?

What is the gallonage of your tank?

How many fish and how big are they?

With this info and correcting any problems, I believe we can stave off any further infection or ailments in your fish.


Post back soon.

Paul

Toothless, ya think if treated for floating disease would help? Its da fishes preference to where they sit and float. As for your fish not eating, try frozen brine shrimp or mushed and deshelled peas. Your fish's gills are swollen. Which is why its hard to eat. If we try something soft, maybe that will help.

Hi Des.

I think the problems here are centered around water quality. Without test kits, there is no way for Haydar to know if the filtration, on his overstocked tank, is sufficient enough to handle the bio-load created by the fish. This leaves only one option to ensure that the water quality is able to support healthy thriving fish; excess filtration.

The formula for a an exemplary tank scenario is one goldfish, ten gallons of water and filtration rate of 100gph per ten gallons of water. If the tank were to be overstocked by double, the filtration rate needs to be at least 50% more then the norm. So, a ten gallon with two fancy goldfish would need at least 150gph to sustain healthy fish indefinitely. If a ten gallon tank were overstocked by double, then the filtration rate would need to be, at least, doubled. This is the threshold of having too much filtration in a small tank. If the gph is more than double the suggested rate, the currents become too much for the fish to handle and they will become inactive or stressed.


I think that once the water quality is corrected, improvement will be seen. But, action must be taken NOW. The longer the wait, the lesser the chances of a full recovery.......


Paul

thanx alot for your help , as i said i live in IRAQ so most of the things you talk about are not available here , my filtration is a stone like ball attached to the air motor which brings out bubbles from the stone...

you will say i'm nuts because i have two 4 inchs and two 1.5 inchs and two 1 inch goldies in 10 gallon tank!!!

i cant get rid of them now and absulotly no one wants them...an ah the weather is too hot so the water is also hot...

well thanx again for replying as some members may not reply because "hey he lives in Iraq"...

so my fish now is alot better and eating and swimming almost normally , it looks like the PP worked...

Nah, nobody dislikes anybody here just because of what country they live in. We are all along for the ride on this little blue marble. Despite anyones differences, we are ALL the same.....


As for your filtration, I am afraid that you do not have filtration at all. What you described is an aerator. Unless, of course, it were connected to an undergravel filter or a sponge filter. I am almost positive that this is causing the water in your tank to become toxic in between waterchanges. Not to worry though, I have some simple solutions for you:


making sponge filters Use a BIG sponge if you make this.

This is perhaps your best bet until you can get a larger tank with actual filters on it. You will need to do 100% waterchanges every single day until you can get the filtration sorted out. Otherwise, I am afraid that this is not the last you have seen of sickness in your tanks.


I am not too sure that the PP did anything for your fish except agitate its gills even more. Even though it recovered, this will happen again if filtration is not provided. do your fish a favor and do not use the PP again unless there is a very specific treatment you have in mind. there are other, less intrusive treatments that work great. PP is usually reserved for killing off parasites. You have not listed anything about flashing or scratching so I doubt that parasites were the problem.


Anyway, if you would like to work on the filtration thing, dont hesitate to post back here. I will do whatever I can to help you get this sorted out so that a reoccurance does not happen.


Good luck and stay safe!

Paul

Hi Heydar,

Welcome to this message board! In agreeance with Toothless, there is problems about who you are, and where you are from, we are all here because we care for goldfish!

Toothless's advice is all good, there is not much more I can add, I'm in total agreeance with what he has to say, yes, your tank is too crowded, it will be a struggle to the end with the amount of fish you have in your tank, I know you can't give your fish away, can you get another tank? Or even another container like a bucket to keep them in? you have an aerator, you could get multi adaptors for the aerator tube and have have air going to more than one container.

Also, you will need to change the water on a very regular basis, 50% twice a week, to keep all the fish waste down (ammonia and nitrItes).

Your tank will definitely benefit from having some sponge filter attached to the end of the aerator stone, again, toothless's link to the filter page is a great place to start.

And yeah, best not to treat with PP again unless the fish really does have parasites, PP is a really harsh treatment and it wont 'cure' your fish unless your tank conditions are perfect (ie water has no ammonia/nitrIte/ low nitrAtes), you will do more damage than good for your fish.

I'm sorry to hear of your dilemma, it's unfortunate that the person who sold you all these fish for your tank was not more helpful in letting you know how to look after them. Don't give up hope yet, this messageboard is a wealth of knowledge for fish hobbyist newbies, you'll learn how to care for your fish very fast!

Good luck, and remember, we are all here because we love our fish, it is difficult to know the facilities that are available in Iraq for you, so I apologise in advance if I have made wrong assumptions about your situation.

Hi Heydar, and !
Nothing to add to Toothless' advice (as usual ), and not to worry as where you are living. We don't judge anybody by that - one of my earliest friends on this board was Fefe from Pakistan, and it doesn't bother me one bit where he comes from.
So, enjoy your stay, and you'll be able to find Toothless' info useful in any way....

hiii again...
thanx alot to all of you lovely people , sorry for being late in replying as my ISP was down ...

i bought yesterday an amazon liquid filter(i think its sponge system) with 600 litres/hour that means 120 GPH and its operating well , also i bought a new 2 gallon tank for isolation of sick fishes and two yellow/orange snails...

the only thing i have to know now is is this filter enough for my 10 gallon tank , and it is(the filter) making the water waves strong(it has a strong air pump) so will this hurt my fishes as i see now the same fish which i thought was sick spends some time sitting (or i can say hiding) under the filter on the gravels , but its normal in eating and every thing else , except this (napping time) which seems unusual cause when i turn off the filter it comes from the gravel and swims normally!!!

just something to note that all other fishes are acting normally , just this fish which used to be the most active and hard behaving weired!

It is true that some fish don't like strong water currents, especially if they a weak or sick. Can you arrange some rocks or plants in the water so they stop the current and allow some peaceful spots for the fish?