Fish lying on its side

Hi,

I'm staying at a friend's house for the holidays and they have some fish who look sick. One fish is lying on it's side and another fish who's gills seem a little red.


I'll try to figure out what kind of fish they are and post a follow up.

Any advice on what to do? Thanks so much!

fishfriend758 said:

Hi,

I'm staying at my parents house for the holidays and they have some fish who look sick. One fish is lying on it's side and another fish who's gills seem a little red.
View attachment 149883View attachment 149884

I'll try to figure out what kind of fish they are and post a follow up.

Any advice on what to do? Thanks so much!

Click to expand...

the one with its gills red is either too low oxygen or ammonia poisoning
turn up the airstone and show parameters

Hi and welcome to the forum

First picture is a common bronze goldfish. It is really skinny, looks unwell and has damage to its tail.

Second picture is a calico fantail (doubletail goldfish). It is sunken in on the back and that can be from lack of food or a genetic deformity.
Calico goldfish can have semi transparent gill covers and this can make the gills look more intense than on a normal fish.

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Feed them 3-5 times a day for a few weeks and do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day when feeding this often. Then reduce feeding to once a day and do a 75% water change once or twice a week (depending on if there is a filter on the tank).
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Add some salt. See directions below.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

Thanks so much for all the help I really appreciate it!

One last quick question, does the fin of these betta fish look alright:

here's another photo. Thanks again.

Fin looks alright from the photos, but it's a little hard to tell. If anyone sees an issue with it would definitely like to know, of course.

However the "tank" is definitely problematic. It's a "goldfish" bowl (a term I'm using very loosely), which isn't suitable for any fish - let alone a betta. From the pics, it seems to have no filtration or heater, which is essentially a necessity for betta fish as they're a tropical species and require higher temperatures around 75-80F. The "substrate" looks to be just some glass marbles, which isn't conventionally appropriate for fishkeeping environments either.

Not sure what tanks the goldfish are in, but if it's anything similar to the bowl that the betta lives in, it's totally not an appropriate environment for the species described by @Colin_T in his reply.

The fins on the male Betta appear fine, although they do have a black edge. This could be normal colouration or damaged tissue that is healing. Without seeing a picture of him from a few months ago it is impossible to say but if the fins have looked like that for a couple of weeks, and they haven't developed any splits or holes, then it is just colour and nothing to worry about.