Just Bought Goldfish

[Robris]

I just bought 2 x XL Comets (about 8-9inches) for my 130g pong outside, little did I know the lfs kept them in warm 25 degrees water temp, my pond is about 4 degrees since its winter in australia, I left them in bag floating in water for an hour then added tank water and left them floating for another 45mins. When I let them out they just sank to the bottom and barely moved.

I gently touched one with my finger to make it move if it was still alive, it didnt move lol. So I thought they were dead, after 1 hour i checked on them again to see if anythings changed and they were slowly moving around.


Its been 4 hrs now and they are still alive and slowly moving/standing in one spot. Is there a chance they can adapt to such a change and live for me?

 

[candyraver]

Goldfish are cold water fish.But 4 degrees sounds pretty freezing.
They'd do better @ room temperature I'd assume...or slightly less.Too warm could lead to fungal infections.
& too cold could lead to freezing solid if your pond happens to freeze solid.60-62 degrees F maybe?
Either way you could purchase an heater to just warm it up a bit?
I don't mean tropical climate,but just warmer you know.
If winters there are like in Newfoundland,it gets below freezing,the ponds
here would freeze over& lots of fish would get lost.
I am really REALLY proud that you have them in such a nice size enclosure.Too many
people think you can keep goldfish in something smaller than 20 gallons
20 gals would be good for only 1 fish,& even then i'd still go with 25

 

[GoldLenny]

They may or may not make it. That is a severe change in water temp and one hour wasn't nearly enough time. You should have kept them inside and slowly acclimated them to the cold water in your pond over the course of several days to a week.

With fish in a pond, once the water gets below 50F, the fishes metabolism starts to slow dramatically and when the water gets down closer to freezing temps, the fish will go into a like a state of hibernation where they hardly move and don't eat at all throughout the entire over-wintering process.

Normally, they get use to these cooler and then colder temps over the course of weeks or months so your fish are likely suffering from temperature shock. Just leave them be and hope for the best as I'm not sure moving them into another drastic temperature change will be any better for them. If you have a veterinarian familiar with fish, you could ask their advice as well but I'm not sure many would know what is the best thing to do in your case either.

You will know in the next 24-72 hours if the shock did them in. BUT you also have to worry about the lowered immune system problems caused by the shock and the chances of the fish succumbing to any pathogens in your pond that the fish did not have immunity to.

For others reading this, it's not good to introduce new fish during the overwintering process since they are more susceptible to new pathogens as the water starts to warm up in the spring and their hibernated state makes their immune system weaker... even for fish who lived in the pond prior to the overwintering process... so new fish will have a much tougher time come spring.