just joined this forum, unfortunatly i dont have the equipment to test my water condition, all i know is every other weekend, (ie every two weeks) i do a 25% water change, everytime i add the correct amount of tap safe and cycle for the bacteria, i also clean the filter out in the old water, as its only a small tank and a small filter, fluval 100, not sure on the tank size but its small, too small fr the fish i have tbh,

there are two fish, yellow comet (the one thats ill) and a red comet,

the red comet is about twice the size of the yellow one, they get along fine,

i feed the fish tetrafin comlete flake food for all goldfish,

the water conditioner and cycle are both by nutrafin

the problem started about two days ago when the yellow comet decided to stay at the bottom of the tank, and normally when fed they dart to the top and eat everything like theres no tomorrow, i dont think i overfeed them, once every two days, and never to much, anyways, its staying on the bottom of the tank and not eating, i knew it wasnt well, and did an extra water change yesterday and added some ammo lock just incase, however this morning she is now bent over on her left side, so i assumed she was dead, however on close inspection her gills were occasionally flaring, so i lifted her out the tank and she wriggled a little, not a huge amount thou, so i entered her into the water again, her condtion hasnt changed cince,

any help apreciated,

only other thing ive noticed from reading other posts is some of the poop in the tank sometimes is colourless and a ew air bubbles, not sure which fish it is, could this be constipation?

thank you for reading

Luke

In order to help out the professionals on here I would recommend going to buy a master kit from your lfs. sometimes they will be on sale for around $20.00 or more. Also answering all the questions on the top will help everybody reading your post an easier time figuring out what's wrong with your fish. Sorry I can't help and that your fish is sick! Hope all goes well!

Hi pardoe and

I'm worried about the size of the tank - because it should be at least 40 gallons to house 2 comets.

Would you be able to give the following:

Height of your tank =
Width of your tank =
Deptch of your tank =

Then we can work out how big it is.

As you're (what sounds like) overstocked, their health would depend on waterchanges - especially in a smaller environment so waterchanges done twice weekly - say 50% each time - would help.

Unfortunately when a fish starts to curl on its side - it usually spells the end So if you can, try to get the water perfect by doing 50% waterchanges daily for the next little while and please post back the dimensions of the tank - this'll help determine whether your filter is up to the task and if it's indeed a problem due to tank size.

Keeping the water perfect for now will lower the stress of your ailing fish but without knowing the size of your tank or the water quality (ie ammonia, nitrite, nitrate or ph levels), there's absolutely no advice that can be given other than to increase the volume of waterchanges. Admittedly, I've saved a couple of fish that were curled over but I had first hand knowledge of the water quality and a ready supply of bacterial meds on hand. In your case, it could be something as simple as poor water so increasing the waterchanges is a good place to start

How are things?