Goldfish Vertical!

[KingKai13]

Can anyone give me insight as to why my goldfish is doing this?! The lil guy is hanging out in the back corner vertically. He is also breathing very heavily. He is usually very active. If anyone has suggestions to what is causing this and how to fix it it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[DragonScales+Doubletails]

Hi to TFF sorry this brings you here.
what are your water parameters, tanks size, stockings, cleaning schedule, and overall setup? if these questions are answered we can surely help!

 

[KingKai13]

Hi to TFF sorry this brings you here.
what are your water parameters, tanks size, stockings, cleaning schedule, and overall setup? if these questions are answered we can surely help!

Hey thank you for the response. It is a 40 gallon tank, with a high general hardness, a pH of 7 or slightly less, Nitrites close to 0 ppm. I did notice the Nitrates are much higher than usual, about 80 ppm. My other tank has very low nitrate levels. It might be an over feeding issue, but I do have two large plecos and a plethora of snails I thought could take care of that. Any suggestions on how to bring these levels down fast?!

 

[DragonScales+Doubletails]

how many goldfish live in there? how much water do you change and how often? Do you know your ammonia level? to lower the Nitrates I suggest a big water change.

 

[KingKai13]

how many goldfish live in there? how much water do you change and how often? Do you know your ammonia level? to lower the Nitrates I suggest a big water change.

Just 1 goldfish, 1 guorami, 1 angelfish, 7 tetra, 2 bristlenose pleco, and 2 African cichlids. I do about a 15-20% change once a month. Currently in the process of doing a small water change. Will do another tomorrow and clean out my filter. Hopefully this helps thank you!

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Your fish mix is really not ideal at all, infact I will go further and say that they should not be sharing the same aquarium at all and you need to do weekly water changes, not monthly, regardless of the stock.

Did you cycle the aquarium before adding all these fish?

Can you post a photo of the entire aquarium please....the mix of fish species is hard to visualise, let alone understand

@itiwhetu
@Colin_T
@GaryE
@Fishmanic

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Can you clarify how you came to choosing these fish please cos it truly is disastrous.

How long have you had the aquarium running for?

You might get a few angry responses to your mix of fish but hopefully we can help you get things sorted out. It will mean that some of your fish will need to be returned to the shop that they were bought from or rehomed if the shop refuses to help.

Whoever sold you the fish have done you absolutely no favours whatsoever, you are going to be in for a rough ride with that mix, there is no easy way to sort this out sadly.

 

[itiwhetu]

Do you control your water temperature with a heater thermostat? Your nitrate levels are way too high, is that level coming from your source water or from the tank? Goldfish should never be kept with Tropical fish

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Is the fish still eating?
What does the fish's poop look like?

If you can post a 1 minute video of the fish it might offer a bit more information. If you use a phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally so the footage fills the entire screen.
You can upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.

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The cichlids might be attacking the fish or it could be a water quality issue.

If you do bigger water changes more often, you will have lower nitrate levels. I recommend doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate once a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

If you have a water quality issue (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), or you think there is a problem with the fish, do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the ammonia, nitrite & nitrate levels are on 0ppm, or until the issue with the fish is identified.

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What sort of filter do you have?
How often do you clean the filter and how do you clean it?

Power filters should be cleaned once a month. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

 

[Essjay]

Just 1 goldfish, 1 guorami, 1 angelfish, 7 tetra, 2 bristlenose pleco, and 2 African cichlids. I do about a 15-20% change once a month. Currently in the process of doing a small water change. Will do another tomorrow and clean out my filter.

What @wasmewasntit is alluding to is that these fish have different requirements.
The goldfish is a cold water to temperate fish while all the others are tropical fish. The goldifsh needs cooler water than the others.
The African cichlids - are they Rift Lake cichlids or African river cichlids such as kribs? Rift Lake cichlids need very hard water.
All the other tropical fish need soft water.

Water changes should be weekly and most of us change around 50% or more each week. Unless the tank is heavily planted with live plants, all the ammonia excreted by the fish gets turned into nitrate by the filter bacteria and it needs to be removed by the fish keeper. Ideally nitrate should be kept below 20 ppm, and the nearer zero the better. If there are live plants and nitrate still gets high, there are several reasons - too many fish making too much ammonia; overfeeding the fish as uneaten food decomposes to make ammonia; not cleaning the tank or filter enough to remove the uneaten food; not enough or big enough water changes to remove the nitrate, allowing it to build up.

None of this is causing the problem with the goldfish, except perhaps the high nitrate, but it does mean you are likely to have problems with some of the other fish in the near future. Sorting out which fish are suited to your water and carrying out better maintenance will help prevent this.