someone please help me. i dont have a water testing kit and have never come acroos one so i can answer those questions, sorry.its a coldwater,10 gallon tank and has been running for 3 days,but i put some nutrafin cycle in it,and aqua plus. the filter thingy is called 'elite mini underwater filter',there are 2 gold fish, about just over an inch long each and 3 little mountain minos,little ones.they havent been feed nothing by me as i heard you have to wait 24 hours.they all look healthy and happy accept for one of the mino's. i looked into my tank and couldnt find the 3rd mino anyway,i came to the conclusion he had been eaten.but then i saw the poor little fellow ,just sat dead still on the bottom.if i didnt know that they float when dead,then i would of thought he had popped his clogs,but he hadnt. when he does move its just a sorta shaking,from the middle of his body to the tail.he's staying on the bottom.but his fins and skin look okay.but he's definately not right please ,please help me if you can.as they are my new baby and i had brought two ,two weeks ago and they both died,one of fin rot (i think) (the medicien didnt help) and the other had the start of fin rot , then as he was picking up he got attacked by fish lice.i was so deverstated.and before that i had seven new ones and they all died. but before that a few years ago ,i had three 2 died almost instantly,but hotrock lived to thre grand old age (well,it is for my fish!) of 3 years old.so i dont know why he survied and the didnt. i just dont know what i'll do if my lil mino dies.someone please help me.firstly do i seperate him???????im torn on this,cos if he is ill i dont wanna spread it,but if its just something like stress gfor example,i dont wanna move him and cause him more stress.does anyone have any ideas.sorry to be a pain.
kirsty louise

Hi and welcome, sorry to hear you are having difficulties.

Unfortunetly I don't know about minows but I can safely say that your tank is overcrowded which will bring on poor water conditions that will be toxic.
My first recommendation is to change 50% of the water.

GF produce a ton of waste causing the water to become toxic. That is why it is recommended for fancy gf to have 10 gals each and commons/comets 20 gals each. The minows will need extra space if you are to keep them in there.
However I don't think it is recommended to house them together (correct me if I am wrong anyone), for they have different needs as well as the gf will eat them.

Since this is a tropical fish in trouble I am going to move your thread there. Hopefully the experts will chime in soon. In the meantime you'll have to get tests to test the water as it is cycling with fish you will need to test daily in order to keep it livable for them. Good luck with the minow.

Given that all the fish are living together, if one has something they all have it. It would not be useful to move the fish unless it is danger from the other fish picking on it.

There is no reason to wait 24 hours to feed your fish. They often don't feed them at all in the petstore which may be one of the reasons your minnow is weak.

I will second this recommendation. It's very important to keep up the water quality, especially if the fish have weakened immune systems.

Since they are both coldwater fish (I see you moved this to tropicals but they are truly coldwater) they would be fine together until the goldfish are large enough to eat them, which may take a while.

Hope I helped some. Sorry I don't really know what's wrong with the fish, but please get that test kit ASAP and let us know what the parameters are.

Mary

You need to get your water tested either by yourself or by the pet store to see where the levels are as we just cant guess at whats wrong. It takes some fish a bit longer to adjust to a new tank so give him a few more hours to see if he comes round.

Minnows are sub tropical not coldwater

I agree though that the tank is overcrowded and common goldies need 20 gallons each when small so unless you can get tubs or put the minnows in another tank then the problems will keep occuring.

Is this the elite mini filter you have?? - (click)

If so one of your problems may be that the filter is not strong enough for the amount of fish you have. A solution to an overstocking problem that cannot be corrected imediately (ie if you cant get a bigger tank) is to get better filters and cycle them using some beneficial bacteria product. Ideally the filter you have needs to be 10x gph (ie if you have ten gallon tank you need 100gph filter) but if you are overstocked and having problems it may help to have a bit more than that.

If that is the filter you have, i would reccomend taking it back to the shop as you have not had it long and it is unsuitable for that size tank and should not have been sold to you for your fish. Tell them you want a bigger filter and they probably wont mind refunding the other one as they will be making a bigger sale!!

thankyou for all your help guys. they are red cloud mountain minnows,and were in a cold water tank,also i got the tank size wrong,its 10 uk litres . i now relise its too small,i feel guilty cant get new tank for a week,is that too long??? the minnow has picked up today , and is swimming and eating , but still sitting in the middle of the plant. i think she might be laying eggs or something,as i noticed there is white ,fine string like stuff attached to the plant,it dont look like poo. what do you think?

Minnows are egg scatterers so its not eggs you are seeing. It could be algae starting to build or bacteria. 10 litres is too small for them but do daily water changes and they might make it to next week.

okay ,thankyou so much for your help. i'll let you know how it goes

she seems a lot better today guys.shes swimming around and spending only a quater of the time she was on the bottom,still not eating much though.does anyone know how to sex minnows? cos on his no belly and it just goes straight across and the other 2 have little rounded belly,,and there's other differences in the non bellied 1 to the other2.would i be right in thinking the ones with bellys are female?once again thanks for all ur help.

Yes the fatter ones are females. I would get a couple more as they like to be in groups of at least 5

thanks sandy babes. i was thinking what about 3 female and 2 male (in total,if i get two more)?

and i getting new tank tomorrow! wayhey!!! but unsure of what to get .heres my choice's : 14 litre tank with mini elite underwater filter (thats the filter i got now,seems quite good,but is in a 10 liter tank) or a 21 liter tank with an elite stingray 5 underwater filter.i know the 21 liter tank will prob' be better for size but it is for only two 1½ inch goldfish.and ive heard that the stingray5 filter is crap.so is it better to get the smaller 1 with a better filter or a bigger 1 with an ok filter? any ideas???

Well the goldies need as big a tank as you can get so you could try both the filters and put the minnows in the unfiltered tank and just have the minnows in the smaller one. The goldies im afraid are still going to be in too small a space but with careful monitoring and daily water changes you will have just a few months before they need upgraded again.
Are the goldies commons or fantails as that makes a difference.

well i got the 21 liter one for now.it was £80.00 i really had no more money .one of them is a shubunkin (think thats how you spell it) and for some reason i think the other is ,maybe ,a comet.or just a normal goldfish.his tail is much shorter than the shubunkin's.in body there the same size.im gonna try and find some pictures on the web to see if i can tell the difference.will get back to you. oh yeah,and will the minnows be okay without a fiter or air supply???as in a few weeks there will be 5-6 of them in a 10 liter tank? cheers hun x

its a common.ive moved the common and shubunkin in2 a seperate tanks from the minnows. wil the minnows be okay without filter or air supply?