Hi

I've returned from a couple of nights away to find my bug-eyed fantail upside down at the bottom of the tank with a white translucent lump above his eye and a harder looking much smaller lump near his dorsal fin. I noticed what I thought was a small abrasion on his head a couple of weeks ago but it then disappeared. The lump has come up quickly and is now approx. 9x5mm in size. He lives with a fantail goldfish and fleshy-headed pearlscale, both of which are healthy - and a snail. I added a small amount of diluted swimbladder treatment to the tank last night (as per instructions but don't have salt) and did a partial water change (with conditioner) today. He is now floating at the top upsidedown rather than sinking to the bottom as last night. His eyes are moving, his gills are barely moving. He pretty much looks dead but rights himself and swims if stimulated. He CAN keep himself upright for seconds at a time, but clearly with effort. I've had him and the fantail for nearly a year, and the pearlscale since around August last year. They've all been healthy and happy till now. They're in a W55xD26xH36 tank with filter (I have switched this off temporarily as poor Bug-eyed Marty is just being swirled around and battered). I'm now due to stay with other relatives for another night and obviously don't want to create more distress for this poor fish or come back to find him dead. The heating has been off while I was away and the flat very cold - not sure if this is relevant though.

Please can anyone offer advice!!?

Thanks

Lulu

Hi

Hopefully one of the cold water advisers will be along to help you identify the cause of the lumps soon, but in the meantime please switch the filter back on as a matter of urgency - if you leave it off the "good" bacteria in it that actually process the fish waste into a safer form will die and the tank water will rapidly become toxic, poisoning your fish. To reduce the buffeting of the poorly fish try fixing a piece of filter sponge over the outlet to redirect and reduce the flow a little.

In order to help advise you, can you confirm whether the tank dimensions you've given are in centimetres or in inches please?

Also, if you have a test kit can you post readings for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and pH?

Try not to worry, I'm sure someone will help identify the problem and then you can work on getting it sorted out.

Hi - do you have any sort of thermometer on your tank? Fancies do like their water on the warmer side - I keep mine at about 22C (coldwater is a little bit of a misnomer) - so the temperature will have got pretty low in their tank if all your heating was off? Any chance you could pop a small heater in the tank for them - keeping the temperature steady and stable is very important

Hi

Thanks to you both for your replies. What a difference a day makes - I'm pleased to say that after another night away from home, I've just returned to find Marty behaving pretty much like any other normal fish. I don't have a temp guage or a heater unfortunately but can guess that the water was/is far below 22c (which sounds positively balmy). I'm unsure whether it's the water change or treatment that helped but i'll keep a close eye on him. For info, the tank size is cm. (Er, an afterthought - I put the diluted swimbladder treatment directly into the tank. Obviously Marty's benefitted from this - could this produce side effects for the other two? I see it contains formaldehyde..)

Can anyone confirm what these translucent lumps may be if not abrasions?

Thanks

L

problems with the swim bldder can be complicated, and to be honest swimbladder medications can only help when the problem is caused by the specific pathogens the medication targets. physical causes of swimbladder issues cant be helped by adding treatments.
unfortunately swimbladder problems are more common in fancies because of their body shape, it is more likely to be a physical problem.
can you get a pic of the lumps at all? it is possible that they could be abrasions, especially if he has beem struggling to swim upright.
a picture may give moe clues if you can get one that would be useful

Quote:

Hi

Don't wish to alarm you, but for three fancy goldfish the tank is much too small and may be contributing to Marty's buoyancy issues due to poor water quality caused by overcrowding.

Have a look at this page which give minimum tank sizes for these fish.

Also, please look at the care sheets (link is on left hand menu) and you'll see that for fancies the temperature should be between 20 and 24C, so the cold may also be a factor in an unheated tank at this time of year.

If possible, leave your heating on round-the-clock until you can get a tank heater