Our new goldfish (one of two bought) is acting weird and we only got him on saturday morning and from gold he has turned a little black in colour. He is now listless and on his side floating - breathing very slowly.
The other fish is fine and dandy...what can we do? We have changed the water (with additive) and fed sparingly.

darksonic,He may be adjusting to the water.In 1986,I had a fish do almost the same as your describing.Try to put a few more drops of the water adjuster in the tank.I did,and my fish got normal fast.Keep us posted.

Do you having any testing equipment to check the water parameters? Turning black is often a sign of healing ammonia burns, it could be that he was in bad water at the pet store and is now starting to heal, but if he is listless there may be other problems as well. Is your tank cycled (if you know what that means)? If the ph was very different in the pet shop that could be an issue too-unfortunately pet shop fish are not always healthy when they come to you and sometimes there is not much to be done. But keeping the water as perfect as possible is very important, so you were right on in changing the water and adding conditioner. Make sure the water is as close to the same temp as possible as well or else you can risk shocking the fish.

If you can, try and answer as many of these questions as possible, so the experts here can try and help you:

Please provide the following details when requesting help for Goldfish Problems:

Test Results for the Following:
Ammonia Level?
Nitrite Level?
Nitrate level?
Ph Level, (If possible,KH and GH and chloramines)?
Ph Level out of the Tap?

Tank size (How many Gals)
How long has it been running?
What is the name and size of the filter/s?
How often do you change the water and how much?
How many fish in the tank and their size?
What kind of water additives or conditioners?
Any medications added to the tank?
Add any new fish to the tank?
What do you feed your fish?
Any unusual findings on the fish such as "grains of salt", bloody streaks, frayed fins or fungus?
Any unusual behavior like staying at the bottom, not eating, ect..?

If you are new to goldfish you may not know what all those things mean (I sure didn't when I got here) so just do your best. Here are some great things to read about caring for goldfish that will help you out as well:

10 steps to a healthy goldfish: http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/tensteps.html
All about goldfish: http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...c=11275&hl=emma
Cycling the tank: http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/cycle.html

Excellent posting Jen. Please answer as much of the questions posted please darcsonic.

He died he started floating on his side then went to the bottom then breathing extremely slowly the did he must have been sick when we got him

Im sorry you lost him.
As you still have the other fish, could you fill in as much of jens questions as you can to see if we can make sure it doesnt happen to your other friend.

Im sorry about your fish ...im glad to see you tried to save him...

Aimless could you make your sig picture a bit smaller please

darksonic,Sorry that your fish lost the battle.

And when I got home from school the other one was dead

My dad dont want to use a filter or anything because hes got friends that have had fish for 10 years and had no filters I think it was stress and we kept changing water and did'nt follow instructions so next time we're following a book.

but I guesse atleast there buryed in a matchbox underground under a pot so the cats dotn eat em but it was sad I know I';ve had em 2 days but i liked them both cause they were so active and funny 1 day next they just died we did chaneg everything i nthe tank alot aswell so stress killed em i guesse but hey we gettin 2 new fish and we'll follow instructuions

Do u use any dechlorinators to neutralize the water of chlorine? To die that fast sounds like chlorine poisoning.

You can't keep goldfish without a filter. Just because someone else did for 10 years doesn't mean it's the right way to keep them or that it will work. Those stories are very rare and not the norm.

Please do not try keeping goldfish again until you can get a filter. They will just continue to die.

well my dad says hes not going to have it on so I said no we're not gettin fish till we have a filter what a tight ######

Also Back in 1960 my mumm and dad had goldfish and they did'nt even have filters then they did'nt really exist so how did they survive in the past?

How long did ur mom & dad had the goldfish for?

My mums lasted 15 years and no filters because it was extremely hard to get one

Maybe it survived but it certainly wouldnt have thrived in such a small tank. A goldfish should reach at least be a foot long in a few years and the problem with most small tanks is that the fish becomes stunted and thats an unhappy fish. Tell her you want to have a happy fish.

It's a fairly big tank not huge huge but its fine for gold fish but what we're gonna do is biocleansing for the tank

What do u mean by biocleansing?