No Idea What To Do.....

[Leedsboi86]

Hey everyone.

Not really sure whats going on with my 20G tank!

I ended up taking in 2 goldfish and 3 Fantails when a friend of mine had them in a 15 Litre tank.
Now they have been with me about 2 weeks now and there recovery is still failing.

I have tested water and all seems perfectly fine, the filter is mature and can handle the fishies.
The temps fine and the water changes are 4 times a week.....

I treat the new water as it goes in with tap safe.

Now they have got white spot which I have been treating but they all seem to just stay at bottom of tank
or float at top.

Theres plenty of air in the tank and the water changes are always done correctly I even test the new water.

Really at a loss on what to do now.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[minxfishy]

With whitespot its usually a good idea to up the temp, but them being goldies Im not sure if you can, I would imagine being kept in the 15L for a while and now being moving into only a 20g (which is better I know, Im not knocking you ), is stressing them out, as soon as that whitespot is cleared up, they need a pond or a much much larger tank.

Try posting in the coldwater section as Im sure peeps down there with much more knowledge will be able to advise on treating whitespot best with goldies.

 

[Leedsboi86]

Hey

I'm not planin on keeping them just didn't want them in a 15l tank when I had a 20G that was cycled and empty.

just can't work out whats wrong with them other then stress like you say.

 

[Athena]

When you say "the temps fine" do you mean you have a heater on in the tank?

Athena

 

[Leedsboi86]

No it's coldwater no heater needed

 

[Davo86]

what are you treating with?

 

[Leedsboi86]

Atm WS3 cause they have whitespot >.<

 

[rabbut]

Is the room temerature stable? What does the tank temperature sit at? With stressed fish, a temperature bouncing arround will stress them more

A pond is out of the question this time of the year, especially with most of them frozen over here in Leeds ATM. Upgrades in accomodation to a pond will have to wait untill spring, as they won't survive the cold in a pond unless the pond is heated or they have been in and aclimated for a while

Carry on to the end of the WS3 treatment, and if that does not work, switch to Protozin by Waterlife and add 1tsp of salt per 5g to the tank (aquarium salt, not table!!). Salt can help for whitespot, and the Protozin is a hard hitting and fast acting med for it. That would be all I'd use for the problem these days, though WS3 is supposed to be reliable also The salt should be waterchanged out after the treatment, and not used long-term

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Leedsboi86]

Seems to have gotten alot worse the fish are pretty lifeless unless there eatting they just stay at top all the time near filter.
I have done water changes and tested water.

Only one seems fine

 

[Athena]

It does take longer to treat ich on goldfish than tropicals because being coldwater it slows down the whole cycle of the ich, so it takes longer for the white spots to break open (in a tropical tank, the higher the temp the quicker this happens). The white spot treatment, as you probably know, doesn't kill off the white spots whilst on the fish. It kills the parasites that emerge from these white spots to prevent them re-infesting other fish.

This is why it's important to continue to the end of a course of treatment, even if your fish suddenly appear not to have any white spots on them - you have to ensure that all the parasites are killed off that are lurking in the tank, attached to plants and substrate, multiplying and waiting to attach themselves onto further fish.

Remember that as our temperatures have been quite low recently in the UK (as low as 2 or 3 degrees where I live - brrrr!), the tank water will obviously be slightly colder, too. Goldfish, in general, do slow down a lot during winter time from what I can remember when I used to keep them. So the fact that yours are not moving about much might be down to the slightly colder temp rather than their Ich.

Of course, if you have central heating that is on most of the time in that room, the tank water may not be that much colder. If, like me, your central heating is only on for a few hours per day, then your tank water will, no doubt, have dropped in temp (especially at night). Not good when you're trying to treat Ich, but not much you can do. Any regular changes in water temp will also cause the fish to stress out and make the Ich worse.

I've never had to treat goldfish for Ich so I have no idea if there is a special way of doing it that is different to tropicals. The only thing I've read about is the use of aquarium salt, as someone else mentioned above.

Good luck and I hope your fish recover from this bout of nasties.

Athena