my biggest goldy is tired

[guppler]

Well i've had him almost 2 years and he was about an inch long with a black stripe down his back when I got him. I didn't know the stripe would go away. I don't really know he's a he either.
Ok the problem is about the last couple of days i've noticed Cracker doesn't fan his tail out all the way. Then today he kept falling over almost sideways. It reminds me of a kid falling asleep on the school buss. They start to drop their head slowly, but they keep catching themselves and waking up again. Right now he's resting in the front corner with the gills and mouth going like usual. I thought it could be dirty water so i went ahead and used my 2 jugs of prebared H2O I as going to give to my girl guppies, who I thought needed it more until Cracker started falling over. Everybody else in the tank seems fine. They're all resting now because it's past their bedtime. I was feeding them a little less because I suspect i overfeed most of my fish, so I was wondering if he needed more food, but he's the biggest, so he usually grabs food before everybody else gets a chance and he loves to take food from my hand even when the others are too shy. I gave them seconds when i fed them this afternoon and Cracker came right up to eat, but dropped 2 or 3 pellets back up to the top and the others were all sitting there chewing like their mouths were full and they didn't finish it all.
Then I was wondering if it could be the heat. I keep my Goldies up stairs in my room and we have no air conditioning. I should put a thermometer on the tank, because it probably gets over 90 in here most days lately. They make heaters, but I haven't seen an aquarium cooler yet. I forgot about that a few weeks ago and tried to add a dojo. It only lasted a couple of days.
I don't think they're over crowded yet. Puppy and Nugget are only around 3 inches each and creamsicle seems to have pretty much stopped growing. He used to be big enough to bully Cracker, but now Chicken is almost as big as Cracker (maybe 6-7 inches counting the tail). I just doubled their tank size in July, and nobody was sick then.
Oh, yeah, I was wondering if one of Cracker's eyes was bulging more than the other, but It might have been the angle. I think he looks about the same as usual.
Maybe I'll just have to be sure and keep the curtains closed and see if he perks up when the weather changes. I could have the water tested again too, but I don't ant to medicate if there's no sign of infection. then again, I think He might be making some stringy white BMs. Does that mean anything?

 

[ryan]

The increase in temperatures will lower the oxygen levels in the tank which may make the fish more lethargic, but the other fish would show symptoms to. So I should think it is Swimbladder if the fish is having difficulty maintaining equilibrium and swimming, try feeding some Peas as a first step.

 

[guppler]

Ok
I'm amazed how fast you answered.
I've heard of the pea thing before and even tried it once, but at the time I think the pea was too big. Now it would fit.
recently I noticed that part of what loooks funny about how Nugget swims is that he had to wiggle pretty hard to go down and floated sloly toward the surface if he stopped wiggling. I thought it might be extra fat, because he's one of those short chunky fan tails, but That could have been a swim bladder thing too. He's not floating now.

 

[ryan]

Yeah certainly sounds like Swim Bladder, I cook the Peas and shell them then you can crush them or feed them as they are and they are soft and easily swollowed, best of luck.

 

[guppler]

Cracker pretty much ignored the peas, but he eats his pellets and flakes. One of the others, probably Nugget caght the skin from one of the peas and chewed on it for a few seconds before spitting it out, the way they do when they suddenly realize what they thought was a good pellet treat is actually fishy poo. The snail was trying to escape while i fed and watched the fish, so i dropped him near the sunken peas and he grabbed onto the skin for a few seconds and probably actually ate some. No fishies really thought peas were a food item. Cracker is still less perky than the others, but at least he isn't tilting and he does look better than he did.
I actually just took peas straight from the freezer and rinsed them in water to thaw a little before offering them to the fishes. Do you think they were not soft enough?

 

[ryan]

My fish refuse them unless I cook them, the first time I feed them they ignored pretty much but the next few times they were taken quickly. Try some Bloodworms to.

 

[guppler]

I have freeze dried blood worms. does that work or do they need to be fresh? I also have freeze dried "baby shrimp". I don't know it that would do anything for swimbladder, but they like them.
Cracker looks sort of depressed a lot of the time, but he sure perks up when I toss food in.

 

[ryan]

Feed him some frozen of live foods not freeze dried. It may also be constipation, how hard is he finding it to swim?

 

[guppler]

He's actually doing pretty well now. If I hadn't seen him for the last week and looked at him right now I'd have no reason to suspect anything was wrong. He might be all better. He was lying in the bottom front corner last night with his dorsal fin more down than up and when i dropped food in he zoomed to the top and ate ant in a minute I noticed his fin was standing up more than it has been for a few days, and it hasn't really gone back down like it was. He's almost as active as the others now and doesn't seem to have any difficulty swimming. He might be just a little on the slow side, but most of them slow down for a while pretty often. Chicken looks the laziest at the moment. They're all sort of staring at the corner hovering lazily above each other with Chicken on the bottom, then Cracker. Creamsicle and Nugget going back and forth a bit and Puppy trying to decide whether to copy the big guys or pick around at the floor looking for scraps.

 

[guppler]

I tried some cooked peas just to see if they would eat them (nobody was acting sick), and they do like them better than raw. It might also help if they haven't been fed recently.

 

[hellohefalump]

goldfish get less active as they get older... I always find with mine - i've been keeping them nearly 17yrs - they are VERY active and always hungry when they are little. I feed them and feed them and they get bigger and bigger and then they start to slow down, and eat less. I just had my eldest (16yr old) and a 4 and half year old die, so I've bought two little cute fishies to replace them, and they are soooo active and hungry, but lucky, my eight yr old just swims about very peacefully and Stanley (1yr) is definately slowing down.

some might say I overfeed my goldfish... I feed them whenever they are ALL asking for food (Lucky is a good fish, he only asks when he's actually hungry. the others ask all the time). But they all seem perfectly happy and healthy.

So maybe your fish is just growing up??

difficulty maintaining balance could also be due to wind if it's not a swim bladder prob. Feed bloodworm, it helps.

 

[hellohefalump]

oooh... and the colour changing thing is completely normal. Stanley (1 yr) used to be orange. Now he's white with orange lipstick! Teflon used to have black ends to all his fins and his tail, now he's orange... as goldfish grow, their markings change. They stop changing after a certain point though.

 

[guppler]

Interesting. (About the colors changing and then not changing as much)
I had picked up on the idea that they change, and it sounds like Cracker's change was very typical. He was probably just so young when I got him that he still had a little baby collor. For a while I was thinking about giving puppy a name to reflect a key shaped marking, but the marking changed within days, and I expect more changes. I have thought about "Pepper", or "Scrappy". I had another shubunkin named Puppy almost a year ago, but he died after an aparent accident with the bubble wand. ( I found it and him floating when i returned home from a field trip)
I mainly caled them buppy because they each had 1 dark eye and 1 light eye and dogs seem to be like that more often than most critters. It also fits because if his size and stuff. My shubunkin named Kitty only lasted a couple of days, and i'd like to get a fluufier calico to call Kitty, but i really have the tank full enough.
Chicken first looked like a white veil tail with a red hat and a yellow belly. Then he started to develop a wen, which I think might never get as big as on some Orandas. Now he has more orange scales than white ones.
I usually feed them when the all say they're hungry, but I don't always see them more than about 3 times a day, and If i feed them more than 3 times a day, they get smaller portions. Right now i'm trying to distract them from eating all my new hatching mystery snails.