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Full Version: Could My Goldfish Be Blind?
Forum > The Goldfish Topics > Disease Diagnosis/ Treatments > Diagnosis & Discussion
adrieanne
Bought a Shubunkin goldfish on Friday night and had it in the tank with our four other fish. They seemed to be bullying her, tail damage being the most obvious. She is not very active and sat at the bottom of the tank only rising to eat and not moving about much.

Today the bullying got a bit much and we moved her to her own tank and she is still not active, not eating and if we move our hand in front of the tank she does not seem to be registering us there at all. In fact, she has not moved since she was introduced to the tank.

Could she be blind??
daryl
Hello - and Welcome to Koko's! smile.gif

Goldfish do go blind - usually from mechanical injury than from any other reason - but I really doubt that is what is going on. A blind goldfish still has it's sense of smell - allowing it to find food - and it will find the boundaries of it's environment easily and live within those boundaries quite readily.

There is soooo much information here on this site about goldfish and their care that I really cannot begin to go into it all in one thread. However, we stand at your beck and call to help answer any questions you may have.

If I had to hazard a guess, most likely the water parameters of your tank are not what they should be. I do not know if you know about the "nitrogen cycle" - or the "balanced tank", but, since you have had your other fish for a while, most likely your tank is running on a nitrogen cycle. When you add in a new "waste maker" you can put that cycle or balance out of whack - impacting all the fish of the tank and especially the stressed, new one.

I am going to give you a couple of links to some good, basic information about goldfish care. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about it. I am also going to ask you to do a couple of other things. First, and foremost, before you do anything else, I ask that you change out some water from your tank. Take out the old water and put back in new water - of the same temperature. If you are using tap water, I suggest that you either let it stand overnight to remove the cholorine, or you add in a water conditioner that will neutralize the chlorine. Changing the water out will NEVER hurt - and can only help.

Next, I suggest you get some water tests kits from your local pet store. The most important ones for now are ammonia and nitrite test kits.

Just as a doctor cannot do a very good job at diagnosis without some information on the patient, we cannot help you help your fish without some basic information, too. So - I am also going to move this thread to the Disease and Diagnosis Forum - that does not mean that your fish is REALLY sick - but there is a set of questions at the top of the page - basic "patient history" type questions - and if you can answer as many of them as you can, we can see if we can help you solve your fish's problems.

Again, welcome to Koko's - and please post back soon.

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=41101

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/care.html

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/cycle.html
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