Hi all,

I have a 49-gallon tank that contains four fancy goldfish: a black moor, an oranda, a panda telescope and a fantail. They are all about 3½ inches long.

Every time I feed my fish they gasp/gulp for air, immediately after feeding. In between feedings they occasionally gulp the odd air bubble. However, at no other time during the day do they gasp for air as vigorously as they do after they have been fed.

My oranda and telescope especially seems to suffer and gasps for air for up to an hour an a half after being fed. The oranda sometimes turns upside down on its back after I feed it and remains in this position for a couple of hours. The telescope can barely swim to the bottom after being fed, followed by gasping at the surface.

I feed them pre-soaked sinking pellets (soaked for 5-10 mins) once a day and pea’s or occasionally blood worms in the evening. I have tried 3 different of pellets (2 x sinking and 1 x floating and always soaked) vegetables, bloodworms, brine shrimp and raw shrimps. However, after each feeding all the fish are gulping or gasping at the surface. I have noticed that the fish seem to gasp for longer when fed high protein foods compared to the vegetables. Water tests show that I have no ammonia or nitrite and nitrate is at 30ppm. I have just finished a twelve day treatment for flukes - this resulted in no change. Has any experienced this? What causes it? Am I overstocked - leading to low oxygen? Can anyone help me to solve this problem as it is driving me crazy?

This is probably best moved to disease and discussion. As all four are doing it, it def. suggests that somethings not right with the tank as a whole.

Gulping can mean many things from low dissolved oxygen/parasites/diet related etc...

Im less inclined to think its oxygen b/c there is a pattern, after feeding. If o2 was the issue it would be more often than that.
Their diet seems pretty varied also. What are their stools like?

What was your prazi dosing schedule? Theres a chance that if it were flukes, notoriously hard to get rid of, they weren't completely wiped out.

Hi,
Thanks for replying!

What are their stools like? ----> normal - short, dark with no trails

What was your prazi dosing schedule? -------> I was recommended, by my local fish store to use Sterzin (appearantly no so harmful to the filter). It involved 5 treatments over 10 days, carbon was returned after fifteen (is this ok?)

Good that their motions are healthy.

I used Sterazin for my fluke infestation and it made no difference unfortunately. Sterazin doesnt contain praziquantel. Waterlife wont reveal what is in their products but given the information they do give its likely to be malachite green/formalin. I emailed them to ask what the best dosing schedule is for eradicting flukes but they never replied.

I would def. pursue another fluke treatment. If you can get hold of PraziPro that would be great. If your in the UK, and im guessing that you prob. are if they sold you sterazin , you'll have a harder time getting hold of it. I managed to order mine from a US shop. Pricey though, about $29 inc shipping for the smallest bottle. Some of the prazi based meds available in the UK have really hefty water changing instructions, like 75% twice in one day, then 50% the next day, for Dactymor. I just couldnt keep up with that. Makes me anxious too about whats in it if you have to change so much water out after a couple of hours.

Im having success with Flubenol 15 for gill flukes. www.flubenol.co.uk
You can read about it on their website. Its a good deal cheaper than getting the prazi.
My current dosing is

Day 1 Weekly Water change 25%(gravel vac./algae wipe and rinse filters if they need it too): Add first flubenol 15 dose.
Day 2 Nothing
Day 3 Nothing
Day 4 Nothing
Day 5 25% WC
Day 6 25% WC
Day 7 Add Second Dose....

And do that for a total of 4 treatments. That just how Ive worked it out for me. You dont need to do WC on the separate days like that, you could do 50% all at once, just so that the medication is reduced before you dose again. I might start adding carbon also towards the end of the treatment to make sure there isnt too much build up. Though they do say it can be overdosed up to ten times the amount to no ill effect.

The only thing ive noticed about Flubenol is that it really makes the algae grow.

Let me know what you decide to do!

Hi yazooo! Thank you for your detailed reply. It is very much apprieciated. I will order some Flubenol 15 asap, thanks for the recommendation. Would you say that my problem is a definate indication of gill flukes? (sorry, i am still new to fish keeping).

In the past, when I added a new fish, it was fine for a few days, however it did start gulping/gasping after feeding a few days later (another indication maybe?)

Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks again yazooo, i'll be in touch.

No prob Taz!

In your case it seems highly likely to me. Gulping is one of those non-specific things indicated in a lot of different things. Like the oxygen deprivation etc...
Ruling them out one by one points to flukes. The fact that all your fish are doing it points towards to a tank wide issue as opposed to say perhaps a dietry problem which would be pretty unlikely to affect all of them, all at once in the same way. They are having normal stools too which suggests digestion is good and in working order.

The post meal gulping isn't something that ive seen mentioned especially for flukes but I know with my own for a long time this was the only way that it manifested itself. It wasn't until weeks later they started having other indicators showing up.

Because the new fish started doing it after a few days in your tank, again it seems super likely to be flukes to me. If one fish has them, they all tend to. Same thing happened with me! Though I think it took him about a week to start gulping. The only way to know for absolute certain would be a scrape examined under a microscope.

Just about the flubenol 15, it wont work immediately and it'll make the water look cloudy for a few days! That whole drug family doesnt dissolve fantastically so there will be little white particles in the water that will settle on the bottom and can be removed when your doing the water changes. I get a big jug of aquarium water and stir in the powder for ages to try and mix it up as best I can before distributing it. The powder itself comes in a little bag. I pour it all out on to the back of a magazine and use a credit card to divide it up accordingly. Ive got a 20gallon so splitting a pack that treats 100 gallons is pretty easy.

It works by actually starving the parasites to death so takes a bit of time to properly take effect. I noticed less gulping within 24hours but it didnt stop altogether until maybe three days? So don't be disheartened if you dont see immediate improvement.

Oh and one last thing about flukes, make sure you clean all the aquarium equipment you use each time(gravel vac's, buckets etc) to avoid reintroducing the parasites! I let everything dry out (as I read somewhere drying kills them) and then further rinse everything under the hot water tap. If the air doesnt get them the chlorine will!

Id be really interested to hear how you get on with it, see if you experience the same things. Stay in touch!