Freddie, my common is sick but I don't know what with. His eyes look kind of sunken in. For a while he was sitting at the bottom of tank like he does when he sleeps. The last day or two hes been at the top with his head almost at the surface of the water and his tail lower. Now hes doing the opposite at the bottom of the tank...like his tail wants to float up and his head wants to stay down, he almost vertical. When he swims he swims normally but about 90% of the time he just sits there. His fins aren't clamped. Ohhhh I don't know what to do!

It seems like lately everything has gone to heck and I'm afraid its all related. My water has been terribly cloudy for the past week, water changes haven't helped. All my test readings have been normal, ammo-0, nitrite-0, nitrate 10, pH 7.8-8. Tank is 30 gallons. I'm terribly overstocked, I think this is the main problem. I've got four small (two inches and under) goldies, 2 dojos, and 2 snails (I did have 3 but one just died, I think one of my others might be dead but I can't be sure).

I use Jungle ammonia, chloramine eliminator that get rid of chlorine also. Today I added Jungle Start Right and Jungle Start Zyme thinking they might help with the cloudy water...they made a white film all over everything but my fish and killed what little algea I had, they weren't supposed to do that.

I feed my fish a mixture of flakes, sinking pellets, algea wafers, and fresh veggies. Other that Freddies eyes looking sunk in he looks normal, his fins look fine. His odd behavior is listed above.

Sorry about the long post...I'm at my wits end

How long has he been like this?

Did you add anything new to the tank in the last few weeks?

Have you seen him poop lately? Is it solid? Or white and stringy?

Any marks on his body? Redness around the gills? Also, when you look at his gills, are they a healthy meaty red in colour? Not pale brown or pink, tattered?

How long has your tank been established?

Has you ph been stable?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but this will help narrow it down

Hes been acting strange for a week now, but he has recently gotten worse. I haven't seen him poop. No marks or unusual findings on his body, gills look normal. Tank has only been established about 2 weeks but I used filters from my old tank that was established for almost 2 months when I got this new tank. I would have waited to fully cycle but I decided that it would be better to stick them in the 30 gallon uncycled than have three goldies in a five gallon . My pH has fluctuated a little but I don't think its enough to worry about. Its typically between 7.8 and 8.

I am very guilty of adding things. Plants, more gravel, two snails, and two dojos. THis is probably where the problem is coming from.

Could very well be.

As for the ph, when you say it bounced alittle what was it exactly?

You are right, overstocking can play a major role in illness.
I am not sure of the snail, I don't know alot about them, so I don't know if it is possible for them to trasnfer anything to a gf.

Is there anyway to unstock some fish into the 5 gal?

The five gallon has a hamster in it so that wouldn't work, but I am getting both a 10 gallon tank and a 20 gallon tank sometime today. I'll put Freddie in the 10, hes the most fragile of my fish. I don't have anywhere to put the 20 so I can't use that, I wish I could.

Every time I've tested the pH has been either 7.8 or 8, it registered at 7.6 once but that was when they were still in the five gallon.

Freddie is acting more normally now. Hes swimming with the other fish but hes still not quite horizontal, it looks like his head is too heavy for him to hold up so it sinks down a bit and his tail is up higher.

Well that last symptom can be a sign of SBD or parasites.
Have you seen any other symptoms to conincide with either?
I would watch him a day or so, fast him and then start a couple days of peas, see what happens.

In the meantime I would do a water change.

Okay, I'll fast for a couple days and then feed peas to see what happens. In the meantime is there anything else I can do, like salt the tank for paracites? I noticed one of my other fish flashed, I've only seen her do it once though and I've been keeping an eye on the tank all day. I'm also wondering about one of dojos. I think its got fungus. I bought some Maroxy (it was the only stuff I could afford). I'm wondering if thats safe to use with snails in the tank.

You should remove the snails to a small tank if you're going to medicate. Maroxy helps with fungus and bacterial infections I believe but as Laurie mentioned, head down and tail up could be a sign of parasites - or a bacterial infection possibly brought on by parasites.

It's hard to know what they're carrying without more symptoms but it may well be a bacterial infection - especially if your dojo has a bit of fungus.

If it were me? I would salt to 0.3% (1 teaspoon per gallon x 3 times, 12 hours apart) and see if there's any improvement in the next day or so. If not, you could then try the maroxy.

I'm not sure if you can use Maroxy with salt otherwise, I'd suggest using both but let me do a bit of research first and i'll post back soon.

Freddie is back to acting normal now. I fasted him, well for about a day and a half and gave him peas this morning. Hes acting like his old self again so I decided not to medicate the whole tank. I moved Jeckyll to a smaller tank to treat him seeming that he is now the only one showing any problems. My question is should I use the salt or maroxy? Can I use both at the same time? He is acting sluggish but I think that might be because hes all alone. He hasn't eaten since I put him in the smaller tank.

To be honest, if he's acting more himself and you are still a bit worried, you can salt your tank to 0.1%. It won't harm him in any way and could act as a mild tonic.

I haven't found anything on using salt with Maroxy so hopefully someone with more experience of mixing meds can step in here. IMHO I would only do one or the other unless advised. To give you an idea, the limited meds we get in Australia can't really take the addition of salt as it's too harsh on our fish - but i don't have experience of using Maroxy <sorry>

All in all though, it sounds like things are looking up so you may not be needing anything strong