HELP MY FISH ARE DYING

[kaz petts]

Somebody must have some answers out there. My fish are dying.
First my oranda
one of my pearl scales is on its side floating and I am seriously considering euthanasia.
my Lion head looks ill but is swimming.
I have taken the pearl scale and the Lion head out of the tank away from the others

I have no idea what is going on. They have gone from happy fish to very poorly fish overnight.

So far none of the others are showing any signs of distress but neither were these fish yesterday.

What am I doing wrong?? Any ideas right now would be very helpful.

The poorly pearlscales poo was a bit red last night if this shines any light on the matter.
The lion head just went very quiet and has stopped swimming as much as it normally does.

PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME AND MY FISH. I DON'T WANT TO LOOSE ANY MORE!

Kaz Petts

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I am sorry to hear what has happened

What size is your tank and what are your parameters? If you give us some more details I may be able to suggest something...

 

[kaz petts]

The tank is:
L: 2'
H: 1'
w: 8"
Unfortunately I do not know what you mean by parameters?

At the moment I am thinking that they are dying of stress (after reading another post on here from someone else asking about a fish with a red dot on it).
The first one, my pom pom oranda had a red dot by its fin which I thought was down to it being attacked.
The second one my pearl scale had a red streak down its back.
At the moment my large Lion Head is still living and has no red marks, he/she seems to be battling whatever it is but is not feeding which I assume can also be a sign of stress. I have isolated this one from the others for the time being as all the others seem happy at the moment and I have removed the large tank ornament as I believe this has contributed to this problem.
I appreciate any advice given but will need some technical terms explaining as this is the first time I have gone into fish keeping on this level.
I look forward to hearing from you either through the board or e-mail.
Thanks
Kaz

 

[kaz petts]

I am hopeing that I have sorted the problem out.

I have lost 3, my pom pom, my large lion head and a pearl scale.

My smaller lion head is still a little sluggish but has resumed eating again (I am keeping a close eye on all of the fish)

I still believe that it has been a stress problem as I have done a water test.
my Ph was 7.0
my Ammonia was 0.25 and
my nitrite was 0ppm
as for the general hardness of the water this took 5 drops before the test turned green again.

I am still keeping an eye on my baby lion head and have no intentions of doing anything except the routine water checks with the tank now for some time. I would like to replace at least one of my fishes eventually but will wait until the next proper tank clean out in 3 to 4 weeks time. The only thing I will be touching until then is going to be the filter which will need a rinse from time to time.

Kaz Petts (feeling a little happier)

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I think you may have had too many fish in the tank. Goldfish need a lot of water per fish to keep healthy because of how much mess they make. I think that your tank is only about 12US gallons and many people recommend 10US per goldfish! I do not go along with that but I do think you may have had to many for your biological filter to cope with.

You should do small regular water changes daily as you should have no amonia at all and get no more fish until the situation is resolved. It may be an idea to not buy any more goldfish at all but consider adding a weather or hillstream loaches.

By parameters, I meant levels like amonia/nitrite and nitrate. Sorry to hear about your fish.

HTH

 

[kaz petts]

Thanks Cheese specialist.

I have lost my second lion head today, it died within the 7 day guarantee which the pet store give on all animals so I returned it to the store.
The problem is that the store only replace and not refund, I was happy to go and get another lion head as a replacement from these people. (All my other fish look healty enough, their fins look ok and their dorsal fin is up and they are not swimming funny or hiding in corners.)
Any way I returned the fish back to the store this evening. I went to the fish area to look at the lion heads so I could choose a replacement fish and lo and behold not one of their lion heads were for sale and were being treated as they were all doing the same type of thing that all the fishes I have lost have been doing.
When I think back the fish that have died have only died since I introduced this fish to the tank.
I have got a replacement fish (a red and black oranda), I couldn't see any obvious signs of stress on any of these and there was no fin rot or white spot. I did look at getting a chocolate oranda however the sales person had to take these fish off sale whilst I was there as I noticed that some of these were swimming strange and many of them had fin rot. (Not good)
I have now got another 7 day guarantee with my new fish and I am expecting a call from these people tomorrow to sort something out about the fish which I have lost since introducing this lion head.

Thanks again
Kaz Petts