Hello all,

My first post on the forum so hi!

We got our son some fish around three weeks ago and up until now, they have been great. However, in the last three days we have noticed that they seem tired and are sat next to each other most of the time, very rarely swimming around.

Then tonight when I got in from work, they looked like they were covered in something white. They don't seem to be swimming around and are hiding in an ornament most of the time. The little orange fantail seems to point head up when it stops swimming around, the little moor just sits flat on the stones?

These are some pictures to help, I hope...







I changed the water tonight hoping that might help. Our water was tested by the pet shop before we put the fish in and it was fine. Its just a small tank and we treat the water with Nutrafin.

Thanks in advance.

Martin

Hi Martin, welcome to FK Oh dear, sorry to hear things aren't going so well though I suspect you may be the victim of some unfortunate advice from somewhere.

Your fish appear to have whitespot, this is a parasite and often manifests when fish are under the weather or a bit stressed. The main reasons for fish not being 100% are environmental, i.e. water quality, tank size etc.

Can you give us a bit more info?

Size of tank in Litre or Gallons, if you don't know the water capacity then the physical size of the tank L x W x H?

What filter do you use?

How long has the tank been set up? Did you add the fish immediately you set up the tank?

What water tests have you done and what are the readings pH, Ammonia, NitrIte, NitrAte, Phosphate, water temperature?

When was the last water change and how much did you change?

A list of all the inhabitants?

When did you last add fish, plants, ornaments or other tank equipment?

Have you added any medication?

The more you can tell us the more we can help

My guess would be you've bought tank and fish at the same time, or bought the tank and left it to stand for a few days before adding fish? Unfortunately this is often advised by stores but in reality isn't anywhere near long enough for the good bacteria to set up home first. These bacteria need a food source too and an empty tank won't provide this. Have a read of this for more info

http://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/modules/ ... ection/item.php?itemid=51

It's not easy to medicate when fish are in a tank with water problems, you will need to do some daily water changes to try and keep the water quality up so if you add meds you'll need to account for the water you've removed and add a bit back in for the fresh water, if that makes sense.

I'm also guessing the tank isn't a big one, goldies do need big tanks as they can get rather large indeed Bigger tanks are also better at dealing with water problems as a larger body of water is more stable and more water aids dilution of pollutants. Any chance of a larger tank? Or failing that a Really Useful storage box from the likes of Staples, these are marvellous as temporary tanks.

Obviously we need to get the fish better as well as talking about a larger home for them Protozin is the med of choice for most people when dealing with whitespot, either that or ESHA Exit, personally I find Protozin easier to find in shops. But they need a whitespot medication asap, it can kill them quite easily, especially when they are babies. Also make sure you clean the tank well, and hoover the gravel out really well to help keep the parasites at bay.

HTH, I've probably missed stuff, it's a bit late, so shout if there's anuything you're not sure of or if you need any further info, there's always someone around to help out

Hi Suey2,

Thanks for your post, I'll try and answer as best as possible.

The tank is approx 35 cm long, 20 cm deep and 25 cm tall. I use just a basic filter that's fixed to the base of the tank and blows the air bubbles upwards, the tank and filter came together in a starter pack.

I'm going to do a water test tomorrow morn as I don't have a kit at the moment, the pet store checked the water for us before we brought the fish home.

I changed the water in the tank tonight (all of it) and gave it a good clean inc all ornaments and added my Nutrafin as I always do. The ornaments have all been in there since I set the tank up and haven't added any since then.

At the moment we have one gold fantail and a moor, that's all that's in the tank. We did leave it set up for three days before we added fish, that was on the recommendation of the pet shop?

I do have a larger tank that's around 2 foot long but we're in the process of decoration so have nowhere to put it juts now.

What should I do now to help them get better?

Many, many thanks.

Hi again, right, well, there's a few things to attend to here First off I'm not sure the filter is a filter Is it literally just a thing that bubbles? Filters are normally a box of some some sort which suck water in one end/side and pump it through some media and out another end/side. There should be some sponge or ceramic media inside the filter housing - can you have a look at it and see how it's made and what's in there?

The good bacteria live in the filter so it needs to have some sponge or other media for them to live on. Fish excrete ammonia, bacteria turn this from toxic ammonia to toxic nitrite, different bacteria then turn this to non-tox nitrate. The bacteria development process takes on average about 4 weeks and only starts when there is a source of ammonia to get the bacteria going, so standing empty for any length of time won't help. When the store tested the water for you it was indeed ok, nothing was happening in there for three days to make it otherwise It would be so nice if shops would check that customers understood the concept of the nitrogen cycle and how to prepare a tank for fish before selling livestock.

The link I posted explains what filter bacteria do; while they are developing and you have fish in there you need to be doing daily partial water changes to keep ammonia etc. as low as humanly possible. But, if you change 100% of the water the tank will never cycle. So it's a tricky one. There is a water conditioner called Seachem Prime which will detox ammonia and nitrite to a certain degree in an emergency such as this. Or else you can get something called polyfilter which goes in the filter and helps clean up the water, especially useful during a 'fish-in cycle'.

I'd strongly recommend a larger container for them, this will make your life a whole lot easier. That tank works out to about 17 litres, so really only about 15 when you consider you're not filling it to the brim. Really Useful boxes come in an 84 litre version which costs about £17 and holds about 70 litres of water. That tank is really far too small, even for babies, and unfortunately we see a lot of them on here with hapless worried owners - a pox on the makers! My fantail is 11 inches nose to tip of tail

A bigger container will really make their outlook a lot more promising, they need good water quality to get over whitespot and a bigger tank will help you provide this

Personally I'd go with a proper whitespot med like Protozin. You can use salt but it's not a guaranteed method of dealing with it, Protozin should be.

If you get the shop to test the water for you make sure they do ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and ask them to show you the test results and write it down for you, 'fine' doesn't tell us enough And if the test results aren't too chipper ask the shop what they expected to happen when they recommended you add two messy fish to a small tank with no mature filter

Then find another shop