Fantail goldfish problem

[teagansmama]

I've been trying to research this myself for about an hour but now I'm just confused...

I had one fantail goldfish this morning, and this afternoon I went out and bought a bigger tank and a friend (another fantail) for him/her.

I've had the first fish for about a year now...his buddy died a week ago.


I had already prepared some water for the tank (de-chlorinated, room temp) last night so I fixed up the new tank and put the fish in together.

They seemed to be doing fine...and then I noticed that my older fish was hiding behind a plant and without realizing what was going on, I tapped the glass to get him out from behind it and the new fish starts chasing my older fish.

It doesn't look like the new fish is being particulary aggressive. It really looks like he's pushing and ramming into my other fish more than nipping at it. But I can tell that my older fish is terrified. It's hiding behind plants and the filter...and the other fish comes over to bug it all the time.

I seperated the fish, I put the newer one in my old tank and left my first fish in the new tank.

So here are my questions:

- Is my new fish attacking my older one, or trying to mate? If he's attacking it, what should I do? Will it stop attacking the other fish? Do I need to buy a divider (my new tank was supposed to include one but was left out of the box)

- My older tank (where the aggressor is being held) has nothing in it anymore since I removed everything to put in my new tank. It has no gravel, no plants or anything. I stuck an air tube in it to help oxygenate it...but that's all he has right now. The tank has an undergravel filtration system...but since I have no gravel, the grate with the tube attached will not stay down. It's too late at night to go out and buy more gravel, will it be okay just having the air tube in there? (I hope I didn't confuse anyone there...heh)

- Should I have even seperated them?

 

[NinjaSmurf]

How big are they? Personally it sounds like the one's is a bit in the mood, I've had goldfish do this but it was in a pond and the plants blocked a lot of it from view, so I can't be absolutely sure that's what they are up to. If they are big then I would suspect mating... if they're pretty small then I don't know... hope it's a little helpful

 

[teagansmama]

How big are they? Personally it sounds like the one's is a bit in the mood, I've had goldfish do this but it was in a pond and the plants blocked a lot of it from view, so I can't be absolutely sure that's what they are up to. If they are big then I would suspect mating... if they're pretty small then I don't know... hope it's a little helpful

Well, they are both pretty small...

But I am assuming that they are adults since they have been in small spaces and haven't had the room to grow to their full potential...I have no idea if that affects if they are able to breed or not.

I ended up putting the new fish back in with my other one, because he was showing signs of stress (he had his fins against his body and lying on the bottom of my other tank). They were fine for a few hours, I watched them closely and they stayed away from eachother. Although my older fish was acting strange...what seemed like it could be "flirting", it was swimming around a lot more than normal and doing loop-dee-loops in the tank. Anybody know what this means? It looked to me like flirting but it could be a stess sign...I dunno.

But then a few hours later my new fish was at it again...and I'm still not really sure if it was chasing my other fish to mate or if he was pecking. It seemed that small bits of tail were missing from my other fish, but if pieces were missing, it's not very obvious and it could have been like that before and I'm just looking into it too much.

So I ended up seperating them again until I get more advice here, or I may call the petstore tomorrow for advice, and to see if I can exchange the fish I bought for a different one if they say it's attacking my other one (do pet stores allow this?)


I had specifically asked the lady at the pet store if the new fish will attack my other fish and she said that it's rare, but it happens sometimes and if it happens to feed them and they'll stop. So that's the first thing I did, of course and it halted briefly...and I was concerned because I know you're not supposed to feed a new fish for 24 hours after introducing it to a tank.

Any more advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[The-Wolf]

But I am assuming that they are adults since they have been in small spaces and haven't had the room to grow to their full potential...I have no idea if that affects if they are able to breed or not.

that is a misnomer
although the body will only grow to the enviroment the internal organs will continue to grow to their full size, this will lead to deformed fish and eventually a painfull death.
for goldfish, of any type, you need 20 gall for the first fish and 10 gal for each additional fish. please find a pond to put them in.

 

[ryan]

Danio 2004 and is correct in his statement.

You say you got a new tank did you cycle it? By placing the original fish and the new fish both into new enviroments neither will feel as confident and the stress of the move may have taken a great hold on the older fish and the new one could have taken advantage to assert its dominance, which fish was in the tank first was it cycled?