Is nugget really sick this time?

[guppler]

I got nugget a long time ago, maybe 2 years, maybe it just seems that long. Chicken came with him, and so did 2 shebunkins, named Puppy and Kitty, but they died, the shebunkins, that is, not Chicken. Chicken is a veiltail, who was smaller than Nugget, but is now larger. I also got another shebunkin, because I love them, and now my second "puppfish" is about the same size as Creamscle, who came with Cracker before I had any of my other rcurrent fishes. I'd love to build them a pond with a glass wall or at least put them in a much larger tank, but they've seemed pretty happy, for the most part, and I just don't have the space or money right now. I've even thought about selling some of my big guys, but They have such personalities, and the longer I keep them , the more they like to eat out of my hands. I have just recently started giving them excces snails from my tropical tanks, which are really the same temperature, because there's no need to heat anything in California in the summer. They used to only have Mystery snails that were too big to eat, but I pulled them out to breed more. I've also been trying to feed the goldies a little less so they'll stay clean longer, but they yell at me a lot and shred all the leaves off their plants, and spit gravel at me, especially Creamsicle, the greediest.
Well Nugget was a nice light bronzy gold color originally, and he gradually darkened on top to a prtty nice chocolate brown, and looked almost white underneath until the orange and yellow started spreading. The change seemed to accelerate right after I told him that it wopuld be cool if he had bid orange pom poms on his nose like some brown fishes I'd seen in a book, but he already had hints of oranger spots by then, including an orange spotch on one flank, surounded by paler yellow. I kept looking closely, because sometimes when he was younger Nugget would get stressed and his flanks or gills or fins would be sort of infused with red, which woried me at first because I thought it could be septicemia, until I read that that's not necesarily the case with "long finned cold water fish". He's been doing well for a long time. Hasn't gotten the red in over a year , I think, but just this morning he looked red on one side, and I noticed that the dark brown on his upper surface seemed to have a slight cloudiness to it. I sometimes looks almost velvetty, but I thought that was normal until today. I wouldn't mind if the orange continues to take over and he looses most of the brown, but I'm starting to really worry about the red and possible velvetty white. I think he might even be a little wrinkly around where the red is coming through. I wish I had good pictures, but I haven't developed skills in the use iof digital photography and online picture sharing.
I haven't noticed behavior changes, or anything unusual about the other fish, but I'll check to see if there was anything to the overall pinkish appearance of the tank and be sure he isn't injured. I did leave a clear box in that they were not acustomed to with some snails, and heard some splashing and bumping last night. I also fed them freeze dried ocean plankton for the first time last night, but I don't think that's much different from the baby shrimp they've already been getting sometimes, and like I said, the others look normal..
I don't know if cleaning up will be good enough for now, or if I need to medicate or try to find a way to get them more space ASAP.

 

[black angel]

quite the story there guppler

lets start with the basics and what size tank etc. do yout est the water at all and how much and how often do you do water changes with gravel vacs. this will tell me if you have any bacterial load. is your filtration 10 times tank capacity?
reddening that looks veiny or bruises is a sign of septiceamia and without pics its going to be hard to diagnose.
what exactly are you feeding your fish apart from the snails?
i might have got lost in reading your post but what kind of fish is nugget? he sounds like a calico?
the cloudiness, does it looked slightly raised and is it in patches?

 

[guppler]

(didn't mean to post twice. can we remove the second one?)

Nuggget is a fantail. Originally he was what some books might call "uncolored", or bronze. Just paler on the bottom than on top, but the brown got much darker on top and just within the last couple of months, he's been getting a lot more bright golden orange from the bottom up. He could end up the same color as Cracker, the common goldfish, but at least they are totally different shapes.
The cloudiness is hard to explain, sort of a slight velvetty haze, like you see on a lot of moors and Nuggets brown is so dark now if it was all over, some people might say he was black.
I looked more closely at all of them right after posting yesterday and saw that everybody with white fins had some pink or red in them. I'm still considering septicemia, but I'm more convinced than ever that it's basically stress, and I think I know why now. They weren't getting enough air or O2 in the water. I gave them more plants, and changed water and filter cartridge yestwerday, and I added a new flexible bubble wand, but it wasn't working until this morning when I switched to a more powerful air pump. The bubbling clam shell wasn't working either, but it used to work when the air tube didn't pop off. I knew they needed more air, but I thought they could last at least overnight.
Chicken was dead when I first turned on the lights this morniong. I should have known yesterday when I was feeding them a tubiflex cube and he only backed away when I put it right in his mouth, he wasn't chewing, he was gasping for air. Everybody else came and got worms from my fingers but they were all gasping. Now I think they feel a little better since I swiped the air pump from my comunity tank, but it's too late for my pretty chicken.
I almost don't want to say what size tank they're in because it's really better for just one of them. They only have 20 gallons. I have considered trading tanks with my 30 gallon comunity, but I really like having the comunity downstairs where more people can see them because they have more variety, and I don't know how complicated the move would be. I'd like to get a bigger tank and have the comunity of small tropicals and the gold fish downstairs, because the goldfish are fun to look at too, but they do take up lots or space. I'd probably need 50 0r 60 gallons at least, and then I'd want to add dojos or something for variety. I'm not sur what the current filter is supposed to do. Maybe just up to 30 or 40. It does get dirty fast. I get my water tested at my lps ocasionally, and they said it was borderline last time, but should be OK for goldfish with a little clean up. In fact it wasn't really unhealthy, just on the edge. I actually have a home test kit, which I took upstairs with me to read the directions last night, but it was late and my cat wanted to snuggle, and the cories and guppies needed the lights off.
I wish I could fix the leaks in the old spa in the back yard and turn it into a pond. Then I could have more goldfish, but I'd have to find away to keep them safe from all the neighborhood cats and egrets, and they'd get a lot of junk dropped on them from the trees if I don't do something about them.

 

[guppler]

Oh, I forgot to say what they eat. They usually get golfish flakes in the morning and goldfish pellets later in the day, and sometimes they get a treat, like spirulina flakes or crumbled algae wafers or baby shrimp or tubiflex worm cubes or blood worms, or even a little bit of peas and other vegetables. I've also given them a little bit of bottom feeder pellets or wafers. They used to eat goldfish crumbles when they were littler, but they ran out, and I even got some small pellets for juvenile goldfish, mostly for nugget, but those went pretty fast because it was a small jar.

 

[guppler]

One more sad update, just to finish the story.
i did decide to medicate, but it was too late for Nugget, so now I have 2 dead fancy goldfish in the fridge while I decide what to do with the pretty little bodies. The 20 gallon now just has 3 single tail goldies, which could go to a pond if i find one I'm willing to put them in.
I do gravel vac about once a week in all my tanks generally.
I originally decided to preserve the bodies temporarilly so i could try to get one last photo or at least sketch them again, since they have both changed color since the last time I drew pictures of them. Then I guess i was thinking about how Nugget used to be "bronze" and a friend from one of my art classes showed me how one of his classmated in another art class bronzed, or aluminumed?, his dead fishes, but they were much smaller, so I was wondering if there was anything I could do with clay or plaster of paris, which are much cheaper materials I already have, and Chicken is so colorful, it wouldn't really look like him unless I could color the model. Then there's actual taxidermy, but I don't know how well that would turn, especially if I don't have it done right away, out and i don't know anyone who does it. So I'm probably runnning out of time, and Mom says i might have to move them to the freezer. (She's the one who first suggested the fridge.)
Usually I just bury fishes in the garden, preferably where I won't be digging for a while, so they have time to decompose and enrich the soil, but I've never buried a fish this big. Once, my brother in law asked why I don't just feed them to the cats. I could think of several reasons. One being that I don't want them in the habbit of eating fish straight from the aquarium, then there are health concerns, and they are kind of good for the soil, and I really don't want to watch my pets eat my other pets.

 

[black angel]

First off i just want to say i'm really sorry about your fish and can tell by the posts that you were really fond of these guys and how much it must hurt now they have gone.
I think it would be best to take the pics of the dead fish and then bury them somewhere quiet as i dont think fish can be done by a taxidermist and if you have a pic of both sides of each fish then your friend could see if they can be modelled from clay.
Keeping all those fish in a 20 gallon wasnt going to work no matter how hard you tried to keep everything clean. As the fish grew so the strain on the filter and i think too the red fins would have been septiceamia.
the fish you have now will either have to be rehomed or you swap the fish over but then you are still going to have the problems. If you cant get a bigger tank then can you get a couple of 20 gallon rubbermaids as a temporary measure? you could then get a couple of filters and hook them up until you figure out how you are going to house them. If you want to keep them together then you are looking at a 75 gallon tank with 750 gallon turnover of filtration.
Would a local pet store take them and swap for a couple of fantails?

In the meantime you should remove the fish from the tank and take out the gravel as that will house lots of bacteria and your fish wont miss it. give the filter a good clean out and with plenty of aeration and daily water changes of 30% hopefully you can keep the water in reasonable condition for them.
Cut back the feeding to once a day as this may have contributed to the problem.
invest in some good testing kits such as ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph and test your water every day for any fluctuations. Only with clean water can you start to help your fish. Good luck