Hello all,

We've had some good advice here in the past so I'd like to run this scenario past the experts and see what you all think.

We've had two fancies, a black moor and a telescope eye, in a 215 litre tank for a little over a year. Aside from some initial teething problems that led to nitrates and nitrites all over the show, things have long since settled down. We use Prime as a treatment for 20% water changes every 7-10 days and the test readings are perfect (ammonia is slightly high on the API test kit but the Prime takes care of that; an AmmoniaAlert sensor confirms this).

The problem is that while both fish seem otherwise healthy -- no sign of any problems with scales or fins -- the telescope eye has had serious balance issues for several months now. It spends much of its time lying on its back, except when food is added to the tank when it perks up dramatically and is quite capable of propelling itself about the tank. But it also tends to become exhausted quite quickly and gives up again.

We've read various bits of advice on dealing with balance problems and we've tried all of the diet-related stuff, including limiting feeds, using sinking pellets instead of flakes, and feeding cooked peas as an emetic. We even tried not feeding for nearly a week, followed by peas. The result was a lot of green poo, but no improvement to the telescope's buoyancy.

At the moment we're using a combination of Tetra Japan Gold and FreshDelica gelled daphnia every other day, with peas two or three times a week. The black moor is thriving on this diet (and the limited feeding is helping with water clarity too) but the poor telescope eye is still struggling.

Aside from the behaviour the only thing that might indicate a difference between the healthy and non-healthy fish is that the healthy one produces much more poo. In fact it's rare to see the other one pushing out more than the smallest amounts. This might suggest constipation (even though the starvation and peas didn't help) except that it's been like this for months. I would have thought a fish fully constipated for that amount of time would have shown more overt signs of sickness by now (or even died from toxicity).

It's now reached the point where medication seems to be the only thing we haven't tried. I've bought some Interpet #13 swimbladder treatment which I intend to administer next week, but the directions say to use it in conjunction with aquarium salt and I'm a bit alarmed/confused at the doses suggested.

If my maths hasn't failed me the instructions are recommending a dose, for a 215 litre tank, of over a kilogram of salt to be administered over two days. That seems like an awful lot of salt. That's two milk-carton sized boxes.

Furthermore some of the advice I've read here suggests that those instructions are generic instructions really meant for coldwater fish other than goldfish, and that dosing goldfish with salt is rarely a good idea unless it's a really last-ditch rescue effort. Obviously in our case we don't want to risk harming the perfectly healthy black moor while trying to help the telescope eye.

So my questions really boil down to:

1. Is that dosage of 1kg salt correct for a 215l tank?
2. Even if it is correct, do goldfish experts recommend using it at all or should I just use the medication? Is the medication likely to be as effective if not used in combination with the salt?
3. Are there any other dietary or environmental things we can try, to mitigate whatever buoyancy problems are afflicting the telescope eye?

Thanks,
Kev

Before you do anything else can you tell us how your nitrAte levels are in the tank and your tap water?

That sounds like a lot of salt. I would think about 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons was more the norm, but someone with more goldy experience may correct that

What level are nitrates reading in the tank? Fancies can show swim bladder issues when nitrates are higher than 20ppm so that may be a factor.

EDIT: Sorry, cross-posted with Cathie

Latest tank readings were:

pH: 6.6
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

I haven't checked the tap water for ages but the last I looked nitrate was about 10ppm.

Noodle's comments about nitrates is interesting because the tank level has always tended to fluctuate between 20 and 40 and we've been unable to get it any lower. It's only a couple of days since the last water change so it's relatively low at the moment but I'd expect it to creep up before the next change.

pH is also at the low recommended range for goldfish but I don't know if that's a factor for swimbladder or even how to control it. It's just something that's slowly drifted down over the life of the tank and settled between 6.6 and 6.8. It started around 7.5 when the tank was first establishing. I'm reluctant to use one of those pH control chemicals in case I end up sending it the other way.

As for the salt dose, the instructions on the salt itself says 1 rounded tablespoonful (nice scientific measure) per 19l of water which is 11 spoonfuls -- quite a bit. The Interpet Swimbladder instructions say 5 grams per litre, which is 1.08kg! Those instructions are referring to Aquilibrium salt (Interpet's own brand) but aside from the addition of a pH buffer I can't imagine it's any different to the API salt I have.

I also read somewhere that temperature can be a factor in swimbladder problems. The tank is currently at 21 degrees C. Might it be worth raising it by a degree or two, or is that likely to cause problems elsewhere?

If it was just the one problematic fish in the tank I'd be more inclined to experiment, but since the black moor seems more than happy I'm reluctant to start playing around too much in case I end up with two unhappy fish. We have neither the space nor the funds for a quarantine tank, so what one fish gets they both get

Assuming that you don't have bogwood in your tank dropping the pH, then it is likely that the products of metabolism have caused your pH to drop. A pH of 6.6 tends to stall the nitrifying bacteria from reproducing much which thus might explain why after a year you still have detectable ammonia present. The low pH helps protect the fish by shifting the total ammonia to ammonium which is why your Seachem Ammonia Alert is not showing a problem. The solution is to start doing daily PWCs to bring the pH up and increasing water hardness. This should allow the nitrifying bacteria to start reproducing again but might cause the ammonia to shift to the free toxic form. You can continue to use Prime to mitigate this, or, do a larger percentage of water change. All these water changes should drop the nitrate levels for you.

No bogwood in the tank but we do have a handful of moss balls that I put in there to try to control algae four or five months ago. They have achieved this (and the fish enjoy the occasional nibble on the moss) but they may also be responsible in part for the pH drop. I hadn't made the connection with the pH until Zsr mentioned it, for which I'm kicking myself. It should have been obvious.

Tonight I did a 50% water change (backbreaking!) and raised the tank heater to 22 degrees C. The heater is at one end of the tank and average ambient temperature tends to be about a degree lower than that set. 21-22 degrees is at the upper recommended range for black moors but I've read that swimbladder issues can be exacerbated by low temperatures and I'm trying to do everything possible for the fish with the buoyancy problem.

Tomorrow I'm going to start the swimbladder / salt treatment. I'm going to use an arbitrary 1/2 of the suggested dose of salt, on the grounds that some is probably better than none but 1kg in 215 litres seems insane especially for goldfish.

Once the swimbladder treatment is done -- I don't have the instructions to hand but IIRC it's a 12 day staggered course -- I'll be doing 10% daily water changes for a week or two to eliminate the salt so I'll temporarily remove the moss balls at the same time to see if it helps bring the pH back up.

Do you have a reference to this amount of salt? It seems an awful lot unless you're doing a short salt bath?

This is a chronic problem, why not wait until you've corrected the water parameters. I gather it can take weeks to correct swim bladder problems.

Quote:

This is from the API aquarium salt (old batch):




This is the ever so slightly modified version from a new batch:




And this is from the Interpet 13 bottle:




(The last sentence here is BS. There are no further instructions on the carton and the table on the enclosed fact-sheet is simply a conversion chart from tank L x W x H to litres volume).


Quote:

It may not be clear from this thread in isolation because I don't post running commentaries unless I feel feedback is required, but we have spent the best part of a year trying to sort out this tank. Some details can be found in other threads under this profile, but the potted version is that from a chaotic start we have managed to obtain a fairly consistent, if less than totally perfect, environment.

Ammonia is not zero and never has been. However it is trace compared with the crazy spikes we saw at the start, and using Prime as a treatment is locking up what remains. Nitrate is non-zero, which is unfortunate, but apparently something we have to live with. Even daily 20% water changes over a prolonged period did not lower this below 10-15ppm, and it normally sits at between 20 and 40. This could be a local water issue, or a consequence of the type of tank/filter we have. If this is the root cause of the swimbladder problem (almost impossible to determine) then there's little that we can do.

There are two important things that need to be remembered here. First, this tank contains two fish that are very similar in breed, requirements and body shape. One of them is perfectly healthy and has never shown the slightest sign of buoyancy problems. The other one, once it reached a certain size, always had issues. Clearly whatever is going on here is as much to do with that fish as it is to do with the environment (or perhaps the other one has above-average resilience; either way the result is the same). We have tried, as far as is practical, every environmental and dietary change suggested and while there have been brief times when things appeared to be improving, overall nothing has really changed.

I could spend the next five years chasing parameters up and down the chart and never see an improvement in the second fish. This swimbladder/salt treatment is literally that last thing we have available to try. I won't be overly happy even if this works (I prefer prevention to cure) but we have to try.

(Incidentally the number of people, including supposed pet lovers, who have told us to stop wasting time, simply kill the "annoying" fish and buy a healthier replacement is shocking. Some of the means of euthanasia they've suggested are even more so. Housebricks, lavatories, you get the picture. But we're not giving up until we've tried everything practicable).

Secondly, unlike some of the amazing folks on here whose tenacity and dedication I admire greatly, we do not eat, sleep and breathe fish 24/7. The history here will show that, as with many other first-time owners, we began with almost zero knowledge and a completely inappropriate tank. We've learned much and come a long way, but this was never meant to be a full-time hobby for either my wife nor myself and it never can be. We have only limited time and funding to apply to the tank, it's as simple as that.

Does that mean we should never have started with fishkeeping? In retrospect quite possibly, but it's a done deal now. Are there long-term things we could try, perhaps involving large frequent water changes over extended periods or trials of different or additional filter types? Again quite possibly, but it's never going to happen. We don't have the time, and we don't have the money.

If I sound defensive and angry in this post I apologise, and assure you that despite jumping off from a Zsr quote my frustration is certainly not aimed at any one individual or individuals. It's just that a lot of advice we see in this and other forums, both in threads I have started and in others that we've found in searches, seems to be given under the assumption that people with problems a) haven't already exhausted many of the available options and b) have limitless resources.

For us, neither of those is the case. To say it's frustrating would be the understatement of the year.

Anyway, sorry to have banged on for so long there. What does everyone think of those salt levels?

The reason I asked for a reference is because I have used tonic salt in the past, and the instructions you quote are the same as on my bag, which is for a gold fish tank, 1 tspn for 8 litres.

So, for 215 litres, that is 215 / 8 = 26 teaspoons. A teaspoon of table salt weighs 6 g, but tonic salt I guess is less, because it is not as fine. So, let's say 5 g.

So, 26 x 5 = 130 g. Your suggestion is out by a factor of 10. One or both of us is wrong!

I've not seen a 5 g per litre suggestion before but short term high salt baths can be used for some conditions. I don't think I'd let my goldies live in it.

I think there are still 2 things you can do before you try the medication as it is rare for buoyancy issues to be caused by infection.

1. As you have suggested, a heater set to 22. It may not come on very much, but will prevent fluctuations in tank temperature (esp overnight) and this can help.

2. A nitrate filter to be used on your tap while filling buckets for water changes so that your tap water is as low as possible in nitrate. THIS ONE is cheap and simple, it just needs the correct fitting for your tap.

Once you have got stable temperature and low nitrate sorted along with feeding (nb strict weekly water changes would normally be required for goldfish) if nothing improves then you are on to the last resort of medication. Perhaps a 3rd person will check the maths before then as I also think that sounds far too much salt!

Sadly it will probably turn out to be a genetic defect that is not present in the other fish even though they look similar externally