My Goldfish

Can anyone tell me why my goldfish is starting to do (as my son says) the fish olympics, one of them has started to spin around and around, its like watching a cartoon, I have had the biggest ones for about 5 years and they seem to be alright but my fan tailed one is going mad i have had that one for about 3 years, I cleaned the bowl out the other day and within a couple of days one died and the other well started spinning.

Does anyone have any advice and is it worth getting the water checked, someone told me it could have something to do with the water.

Anyone got any clues

 

The fish spinning round etc is a sign of irritation caused by poor water quality.The fact that they are in a bowl backs this up too. Bowls are absolutely no good for goldfish at all! They are large and create a lot of waste so need more space than most people realise. 10 gallons per goldfish is just about the minimum if you want happy healthy fish. The biggest favour you can do them is to go out and buy them a nice new tank which is much much bigger than you have now.If you don't then I'm sorry to say that the fish wont last too much longer
You should test the water parameters of a tank regularly, but as yours are in a bowl it's clear that they are all over the place so I wouldn't bother right now. When you cleaned the bowl out did you empty the whole thing and refill it with tap water? You should never change 100% of a tanks water and you should always dechlorinate the water and have it the same temperature as the original water in the tank was so as not to shock the fish.
I can help you further if you like, but the first thing you need to do is get them out of the bowl and into a cycled tank.

 

dont think i would like that expense for 1 fish, tanks can cost a lot of money

 

I am trying to upload a pic of my "bowl" as i called it before it is a tank will post it as soon as pos

 

this is my "bowl" hope fully



you cant see the one I wanted yous to see and no there not dead even if they look it

[ 02. May 2007, 04:03 PM: Message edited by: Sunshine P ]

 

Hi Mel sorry for not replying as you can see I have been adding pic of my "bowl" I have been changing it for the last 3 years the same and no probs before, so you think there is a problem with the water, sorry to have mislead you on the "bowl" front but i have always called it a bowl cos i have a huge fish tank with sharks and alsorts in but you werent to know that,

I will get the water tested at the garden centre tomorrow and see if there is a problem.

Thank you very much for you advice and if it is the water what will i do then :eek:

 

Thanks for posting a picture! When you said a 'bowl' I thought you meant the old fashioned goldfish bowl type thing. Your tank isn't as bad as that which is good. I see you have a filter which is also good.
If you have been doing 100% water changes you need to stop doing that and if you haven't before you need to start using dechlorinator (which you can pick up at any aquatic/pet shop).
The tank wont be cycled if you have been doing 100% water changes so once you stop things should get better for the fish. When you clean the tank, aim to change roughly 30-40% of the water. You can buy something called a gravel vac for a few pound and then you can clean your gravel thoroughly whilst doing the water change. Empty the water you are removing into a bucket, then you need to clean your filter sponges gently in the OLD tank water, never under the tap as that will kill all the good bacteria in them. Then you can refill the tank with fresh dechlorinated water. It takes roughly 8 weeks to cycle a tank. When this has happened and you get your water tested you should have no ammonia, no nitrite and you will have some nitrates.Usually you'd do a water change roughly once a week, but as your tank is quite small, I'd do two a week but only clean the filter sponges once a week.
If you do this and only feed them a small pinch of food once a day conditions for the fish shoul dimprove drastically.
Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for that Mel I may need a new sponge in my filter also as it has been in there for a long time and is not looking very clean, I have one of those gravel vac things for my big tank, wonderful things they are,

Thank you for all your help and will let you know how I get on with the water test tommorrow

 

and dont forget dont run the sponge filter through tap water before you put it in, get a bowl of the same water out of the tank, some people make this classic mistake of doing this and find your back to square one

 

will do and thanks

 

just an update on me fish, i asked at the garden centre it had swim bladder, so they gave me something to put in the water. tried that but didnnt seem to do anything so in the end i put him down the toilet cos he was just lying at the bottom of the tank all the time, also i didnt know whether it was harming the other fish. :(

 

well thats one way to get rid of it :D :D I would think iff that one has it the other one will so that will be 2 down the loo eventually :D :eek: