please help - i have a poorly fish...

Originally Posted by Daniel Morrow

"rokki" wrote in message
...

hope someone can help me...i've just joined this site and am new to
fishkeeping. one of my goldfish is looking really poorly - he's never
grown as much as the others, but always seemed ok, but a day or so ago
i found him lying at the bottom of the tank looking listless and thin.
His gills are red (not at all pale), and there's nothing wierd on his
body, and he's not scratching or anyting. When i added some food, he
came up and ate some, but spat some out too, then he went back to the
bottom of the tank...am really concerned now and dont know what to do.
The following is a summary of the situation:

got tank 15 weeks ago - it measures 15 x 24 inches (18 inches deep), so
about 100 litres
it has a 'Fluva' power filter 3
it now contains 2 blackmoors, 4 fancy fantail goldfish and a plec
i measure the water at least once a week, and its always within normal
parameters, but the ammonia did go high the other week (1.2)
water at present is: pH 7, ammonia zero, nitrate 5mg/l (dont have a
nitrite test kit yet)

what have we done to make our fishy so ill? we followed all the advice
from our aqautic centre and not sure what to do.

all the other fish are fine, they've all grown well and seem fat and
happy. One of the fish has a tendency to lose balance and float to the
top of the tank, but i changed the food i was giving from granules to
flake and have started to add some cooked peas occasionally and that
has made it better (although he still does it sometimes - is this
related to the problem with the other fish? - put some swimbladder
treatement in the tank the other day...hope that was ok...)

hope someone can help ... i dont want him to die and its horrible
seeing him so miserable, just hope he's not suffering.


--
rokki

Your fish that has red gills has gill disease, you need to use furan-2
aquarium pharmaceuticals medication or a suitable substitute. If your
ammonia levels are high enough that could easily be the reason the fish's
gills are red. I would recommend you treat the sick fish in a hospital
tank/bucket so you don't destroy the biological filter in the exceptionally
good tank. Use water from the good tank and provide filtration (at least
mechanical) in the hospital tank/bucket. Make sure the bucket is clean first
if you use a bucket (i.e. no chemicals on/in it, etc.). No need for hospital
lighting (in fact no light is preferable in almost all cases of hospitals in
the fish hobby, but some light is required a little), no need for heating
either I am pretty sure. It would be a good idea to run an airstone in the
hospital too, even if the good tank doesn't have one. Good luck and follow
all directions, later!

Thanks for replying, i separated my sick fish from the others last nite, just woke up and he's still hanging in there and eaten a little food. will try your suggestions and let you know...

also, what do you think of the size of my tank? someone told me that it was too small for 6 fantails and that might be why one of them was sick