Sick Goldfish- Advice Needed!

[remyrobson]

Size of aquarium/pond - 35litre biube

Types of fish - comet goldfish

Number of fish and sizes - 2, both about 10cm long

Filtration used and how do you clean it and how often - biube cartridges, monthly change

How much in the way of water changes and how often -- 10% weekly

Do you dechlorinate - yes

Symptoms of sick fish ie, spots, behaviour, etc - He has had a strange 'ulcer' above his eye for weeks, it's got smaller but never gone away. His tank mate recently had fin rot which we treated with pets at home med for fin rot and it resolved quickly. Today I noticed he was resting on the bottom of the tank with his dorsal fin drooping and appeared to be struggling to swim to the top. He has a normal appetite at does come to the surface when I go near the tank 'begging' for more food as usual. Otherwise externally he looks normal, but more lethargic.

How long has the fish been sick and which medications are your currently using or recently used - started looking sick this morning, put in biube first aid cartridge and did a 30% water change.
Test results for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph both from the tap and tank - run out of ammonia test but pH 7.5 and nitrite between 0 and 12.5mg/l
Anything else you need us to know - Moved house 3 weeks ago, only moved about 1/2 mile though!
Fish are 3-4 years old and very early on survived attempted murder when an evil housemate dropping a 9 volt battery in the tank, killing all the minnows. (Housemate then left without paying rent or bills ).

Any advice would be much appreciated, people keep joking that they are indestructible bionic fish but I'm pretty worried about this one now!

 

[afishdude]

Sounds like ammonia poisoning.

 

[remyrobson]

Is there any home remedy I can use tonight to reduce the ammonia levels? What else can I do to treat the sick fish?

Thanks!

 

[afishdude]

You can do a 75% water change and get an ammonia test.

 

[remyrobson]

You can do a 75% water change and get an ammonia test.

Thanks, he seems to have perked up since the water change and is spending less time on the bottom. I'll get the ammonia test in the morning and keep my fingers crossed!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Biorb tanks are really not that suitable for goldfish, the goldfish will be a lot better off in a larger tank with more advanced filtration- doing this will help prevent the fish falling ill in the future from ammonia poisoning (however you will have to test the tank on a regular basis with accurate water quality test kits for ammonia, nitrites & nitrates as well as doing larger water changes. Ammonia & nitrates should always be 0 while there should be some reading of nitrates- even small levels of ammonia are toxic to fish so you need accurate test kits that can pick up these things etc). The goldfish will outgrow the current tank within months either way. Comet goldfish can grow very large though (easily 10inches or more), so unless you plan on buying the fish a really large tank in the future, i suggest you look into getting a suitable pond for it at some point .

 

[silverrabbit]

You need to have plans to move those 2 fish ASAP - commons in a tank need a LOT of space - 30-40 gallons just for those 2 fish. You currently have them in a measely 35 litres. For 2 10cm fish, the waste levels will be extremely high and they have no space to move

To give you an idea, all most people keep in those small tanks are either a betta, couple of guppies or some shrimp. Definitely not goldies. Seeing as you mention P@H i'm not surprised at the advice you've probably been given.

Is the tank/filter cycled? Get a liquid test kit to see what your levels are, the strips are useless unfortunately. If your filter is not cycled, then you need to be doing serious water changes each day to keep that ammonia and nitries down.

Let us know how you get on