Any Idea What Is Going On With My Goldfish?

[Tokis-Phoenix]

He lives in a 200 gallon pond with 54 other goldfish and 3 tench. There is an external UV filter attached to a hozelock 2000 pump in there. It hasn't been tampered with for a while (its been under snow for atleast a month).

I have to say that is an aweful lot of fish for such a small pond, it would be no suprise to me if i discovered that the pond experienced lack of oxygen or water quality problems- and while such issues can easily be tolerated by tough goldfish and tench for a long time, such issues can start to visibly affect weaker fish before any other fish seem affected.
Regardless of what happens with this fish (and best of luck with him ) i do advise that come spring that you start to rehome some of the fish in the pond to help reduce its stocking density- this will definitely benefit all fish left in the pond overall in the long term. Especially as they grow larger and larger, they will be placing more & more strain on water quality and available oxygen in the water- i have witnessed quite a few people experience devastating pond die-offs because they overstocked their ponds with lots of small goldfish at the start which later grew large and put massive strain on water quality, which then (sometimes quite suddenly) caused all the fish to die off when the ammonia levels rose a little bit too high for the fish to all cope with.
Even if it is a typo error and your pond is 2000 rather than 200 gallons, i'm afraid you still have too many fish for it.

 

[Ryefish]

We finished the treatment fully and he looked back to normal, spent the past few days trying to get the water temperature the same so we could put him back in the pond. We put him back in and he is floating again >< so he is back in the bucket. Do you think this could be a re-occuring thing until the weather warms up a bit and the water is above 0degree's? (my thermometer doesnt read anything lower)

Tokis-pheonix, thank you for the concern but i know the pond is over populated. We have removed over 50 goldfish already and are planning on trying to rehome some more when spring/summer comes around. We are going to have to speak to some garden centres that sell pond fish and see if they will take them off us - we are giving them away free because we are desperate to get rid of them but nobody wants them LOL! (you can have some if you want )

We are hoping that they won't spawn again in the spring. We didn't go out and buy all these fish, we started off with 8 lol. They bred and we ended up with around 150, and that was only a tiny fraction of what could have survived (we carried out a massive water change and threw, by accident, a load of fry out)

 

[mark4785]

Although stocking density may cause such a problem, I doubt it did. As I said in an early post, my Metallic ogon koi showed signs of the swimbladder disease after being in freezing water for over 1 month. It could only maintain its balance when I placed it in a quarantine tank inside the house after the water warmed up. I tried to introduce him back into the pond (as Ryefish did with his goldfish) after adjusting the tank water to 4 degrees C (this was the closest temperature to that of the pond) and within 2 minutes it lost its balance again.

Unless the water is extremely toxic (mine is not toxic), I blame the extreme weather we've had for both cases of the swimbladder problem.

 

[Ryefish]

Thanks again Mark
We are thinking we are going to have to keep him in the bucket until the weather warms up otherwise we will just be at square one each time. We fished out Sparky (smallest of our fish, hes like 1.5" or something) to join him in the bucket. The other fish in the pond are perfectly fine and always have been, its only this one fish that we have had re-occuring problems with over the past few years.

All our pond weed has died off from the cold weather, so im thinking of buying some from the LFS to put in the bucket, he just looks so bored in there

 

[Ryefish]

The weather warmed up and the outside fish are a lot more active.
We put Hercule's and his friend back in the pond on Friday. we had a really cold night on Saturday night and Sunday morning we went to check on him and he had lodged himself in between a plant pot and the side of the pond. Hes been there since Sunday, so ive just given him a little nudge (he was getting covered in fish crap and i thought he might have been dead) and he isnt swimming well

We've decided to re-home him. We can't keep doing this, and we just don't have a tank big enough to keep him inside, so i am trying to arrange it with college that he goes and lives in one of their goldfish tanks. He is perfectly fine inside, but as soon as he goes into the pond and the weather changes he floats again.

It will be sad to see him go

 

[Ryefish]

I took Hercules to his new home today

He is living in a large tank with a few other goldfish and looked very happy when i saw him this afternoon. Hopefully this will cure his 'problem'

 

[mark4785]

I took Hercules to his new home today

He is living in a large tank with a few other goldfish and looked very happy when i saw him this afternoon. Hopefully this will cure his 'problem'

Hi,

He should be much happier indoors as it appears changes in temperature are causing swimbladder-like issues.

I don't know if you remember my comments about my Platinum Koi; he experienced the same issue during winter (loss of balance after temperatures plummeted). He has been in a 25 litre tank for 4 months now and I am about to place him back in the pond (where temp changes are unpredictable) and I'm hoping he doesn't lose balance as he will be very vulnerable and stressed. If he shows any signs of loss of balance I'm going to purchase a fairly large tank so he can become an indoor Koi lol.

I am in the process of preparing a spare room for two large fish tanks (one a 'hospital' tank and one for tropical fish) so he will go in either one of those. I've even considered placing him with the tropicals but I'm not too sure how compatible he will be with them. Any suggestions for mixing coldwater fish with tropicals? Is it possible?

 

[Ryefish]

I considered buying a large tank to make Hercules an in-door goldfish, but we just don't have the space (i just bought a 6ft tall rat cage, which my mum is still coming to terms with LOL). He has been at college about a week now and is still really happy.

And i dont think that cold water fish will do well in a tropical tank - even if the water isnt that warm