Goldfish advice please

[Saffron]

Hi Forumites. Can you help me troubleshoot my goldfish problem?

I have a large shubunkin goldfish in a small tank. I'm hoping to rehome him in a pond soon. I've been waiting for the night temps to warm up a bit.

In the meantime, my filter has gone down (again). I've been distracted over the last few days, and I think the ammonia has gone really high. I see red streaks like bleeding/bruising on his sides. I think this is ammonia toxicity, so I've done 3x 50% water changes (can't set the hospital tank up at the moment, and it doesn't have a filter anyway). I've also managed to restart the filter. Goldfish seems not to e quite so listless now.

What else can I do? I can't get to the aquarium shop today. Not sure if any aquarium shops are open tomorrow. My water conditioner has a scale conditioner in it. And, I might have some extra fincoat in the cupbord, must look.

Any advice? Or is Mr Fishy a goner???

[Multifish]

If you get to a shop there's a product called seachem prime, it's a water conditioner that also detoxifies ammonia and nitrites temporarily (I think for 24 to 48 hours), you could dose your aquarium with it as needed daily until your ammonia and nitrite levels get back to zero (not all aqua shops sell prime so you might want to phone ahead). You could also get a bacteria booster to establish the filter more quickly, if you do have a lack of bacteria. I'd get a liquid test kit, especially for ammonia and nitrite so you can see how your aquarium is doing.

You could feed your goldfish very lightly or skip a few meals to reduce the work the filter needs to do.

I'm not sure about the specific symptoms you mention but I've known fish to look like hell one week and recover within a week or two. From what I've read, the general consensus on water changes seems to be no more than 30-50% in one day.

Also I'm pretty sure that Maidenhead Aquatics in Morden and Aquazoo in Croydon are open on Sundays, plus if you take a small bottle of your aquarium water with you they would probably test your ammonia and nitrite levels for you.

[Alan Medic]

There is a large petshop in Lewisham which is open on Sundays and has a car park. They do sell fish so presumably fish products too. You could phone them to see if they can help with your problem. Their number is 0208 690 7929.

[Salsaboy]

Got any chips, just in case?

[renzhuow]

Awesome

http://www.interbankforex.info/kv.gif

[Saffron]

Well Salsaboy, we always keep some chips in the freezer just in case, but Mr Fishy seems much improved this morning. The redness is diminishing in size and colour. His dorsal fin is up, and he's not bottom-sitting anymore. I won't put the deepfat fryer on just yet.

After flicking through some of the fish forums last night, I think in our case, the ammonia poinsoning wasn't that bad. It seems a severe case of ammonia/nitrate poinsoning would have resulted in the fish curling up on itself and/or having bleeding gills. Didn't see either of those symptoms in Mr Fishy. However, the fact that a water change yielded improved symptoms does suggest ammonia toxicity was the problem.

Multifish, I read the same about consensus water change being 30-50% in one day (followed by 20% every 5 days). It seems that fish can also be damaged by rapid reversal of ammonia/nitrate toxicity, although I couldn't find anything about the chemistry/physiology as to why that should be the case.

As our ammonia problem didn't appear to be extremely severe (ie, fish not curled up with bleeding gills), I decided to throw caution to the wind and do the 3x 50% change over the course of an hour. I decided to do this b/c I didn't have any chemicals to bind the ammonia/nitrate. But also, I was hoping (and thankfullly it worked) that the ammonia wasn't so high as to cause a shock by lowering it through rapid water change. We'll definitely be reducing food as well as doing the follow-up water changes. I've probably been letting my toddler feed Mr Fishy too much.

Alan Medic, I think I know the shop in Lewisham. I couldn't find our bottle of fincoat last night, so I'll defintely check out getting some seachem and a bacteria booster, as Multifish suggests. I've had this shubunkin for over a year. He's very large a beautiful, we'd be sad to lose him to something as trivial as bad water.

I've had an offer from another Forumite to rehome Mr Fishy in his pond with other happy shubunkins. As I said, we're just waiting for the night temps to rise a bit. In the meantime, if anyone else would be interested in rehoming him in a large indoor tank, please feel free to get in touch. I'd guess he's around 225g, maybe ~8". He could grow to be about 2x that large.

Thanks everyone.

[Multifish]

How's Mr Fishy doing this week?

[Saffron]

He was bottom sitting again Monday and wouldn't eat, so I did a 20% water change. He's looking good now. We've cut his feeds down by about 2/3. I think the filter is catching up with the water quality now too. I'm scheduled to do another 20% water change today. I'm really just desperate to for the nights to warm up a tiny bit, so we can move him to an outdoor pond. He's really far too large for his tank, but far too small for eatin'!!

[Dulwichmudlark]

aloe vira reduces stress in fish very useful

[Saffron]

Interesting. We have an aloe plant. Can I just squeeze a tiy amount of fresh aloe into his water?

[Saffron]

Mr Fishy's looking quite well today, so I think I'll hold off adding anything for now. Annoyingly, even though I fixed the filter, there's now a small leak on the back of it. Grrr. It can still run, but I have to leave a towel behind the filter and change it everyday.