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Hi everyone,

The staff at my local aquarium have run out of ideas about what is making my fantail goldfish ill. Can you help? There are no external symptooms, all we have to go on is:

*Has been off his food for 4 weeks
*occassionally tries to eat food flakes but spits it out
*sometimes gill fluffing/choking
*stingy white poo (even though he hasn't eaten anything!)
*listless, hovers stationary 2cm off the bottom of tank .

Over these four weeks I have dosed (and had no result) with:
*Praziquentel 5mg/L (and redosed 7 days later)
*'Bactonex' by Aquasonic (contains aminacrine hydrochloride and methylene blue)

I would be very greatful for any ideas for what to try next - this fish is starting to look very skinny. My tank details are below, hope I haven't missed anything. I'm in Australia.

Thanks so much for your help!

Tank info

Size - 15 L, approx 23cm height x 36 wide x 18 deep
Stock - 1 sick fantail goldfish, approx 4cm long excluding caudal fin
Filtration - VitaPet 200, filters 200L/hr

Additives used every water change:
1. 'Prime' - removes chlorine, chloramine, ammonia, detoxifies nitrite and nitrate.
2. 'Aquarium salt mix' manufactured by Jem Aquatics, my local fish shop. I add 1 teaspoon to a 10L batch of new water, and then use this to do a 20% water change in the tank. The staff at the shop said this amount of salt is fine.

I did a 25% water change about 12 hours ago, I hope that doesn't affect the usefulness of these measurements. I used an API testing kit to get:
Ammonia: 0ppm
nitrIte: 0ppm
nitrAte: 5.0 ppm
pH: between 7.0 - 7.2
Temp: I don't have a thermometer. The room temp is about 15 - 17 degrees Celsius, but the water feels cold. At a guess I'd say...12 degrees Celsius?

Hi Charlie and welcome to Fish Profiles.
I'm in the middle of retiring and moving and this is the
first that I've been on lately. I'd have thought that you
would have had a response by now. Sorry.

What is the status of your fish now?

What type of gravel do you have in the tank or, is it a
bare bottom tank? If it is bare bottomed you should put
some aquarium gravel, about a cm thick on it. when a fish
sees its reflection below it in the glass below them
they get frightened that it could be a preditor or rival.


If you have large size gravel, just small rocks, or
marbles on the bottom, that provides traps for food to
settle in and polute the water.

If I assume that you purchased the fish at the same
store you are working with, you might ask what
they feed their goldfish and try feeding that.

Your initial water chemistries are fine, but in that small
a tank the nitrate could rapidly climb into the problem
area.

Your water is, IMO (In My Opinion) too cold for goldfish.
You should consider a heater and you do want to obtain a
thermometer to keep an eye on things. I think you have it
at the bottom, or below, of the temperature scale for
Goldfish.

Frank

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