Please Help Quickly

[jacksonbrowndog]

Hi
I hope someone can help me with this.
My mom is in an extended care home. In this facility there are many fish tanks.
I'm sorry I don't know what the fish are technically, so I will describe them briefly. Please have patience - I don't know about fish, but I DO know they are suffering and the people there aren't doing anything to help them.
They all seem to end up with the same fate.
Here are the symptoms, I hope someone out there can help.

The fish are mostly the type that look like fat large goldfish with the popped out eyes and the long wavy tails. They are lovely.

First they seem to start to swim funny. First they start out by swimming through the tank while lying on their sides.

Then they float either to the top or the bottom of the tank, and just lie there, breathing with difficulty.

This is what I saw today, in two different tanks: fish CANNOT seem to right itself. It is floating at the top of the tank upside down with its belly slightly out of the water. It will struggle and swim straight down to the bottom of the tank, but as soon as it stops swimming, it just floats quickly to the top of the tank, all the while being upside down.

They go through this over and over until they are exhausted. And within a few days they are gone from the tank.

WHAT can I do to help these guys? They just keep replacing them, and within weeks, the same thing happens. Swimming sideways, then swimming upside down (and struggling) then floating to the top and trying to swim down only to be quickly floated upside down to the top again.

Sometimes they don't float to the top, they lie at the bottom and soon die.

We complain to the staff, who couldn't care less. Somebody help me so I can help them.

Thanks

Jack

 

[dzsigmond217]

I had the same symptoms with the first batch of goldfish I got. I put too many in for the size of the tank and they created so much ammonia that it ended up killing them. Perhaps the filters are not large enough to filter out all the waste that they produce. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will be able to help you more.
Good luck!

 

[Tolak]

Sounds like a swim bladder problem, which is an internal bacterial issue in most cases. Prevention is usually easier than a cure, which is probably the case here. My father is in an extended care facility, you are lucky if they half care about the residents, much less some tanks of fish.

In situations such as this there is usually one larger tank, in a main area, that is maintained by an outside person or company. Having many tanks in a situation such as this is a real job to keep a handle on, probably near impossible in some situations.

Here's a little form to fill out that will give us some of the info needed to properly diagnose the situation;

Tank size:
pH:
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):

Volume and Frequency of water changes:

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:

Tank inhabitants:

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):

Exposure to chemicals:

Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[jacksonbrowndog]

I had the same symptoms with the first batch of goldfish I got. I put too many in for the size of the tank and they created so much ammonia that it ended up killing them. Perhaps the filters are not large enough to filter out all the waste that they produce. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will be able to help you more.
Good luck!

 

[Tolak]

It could be a number of things. Filter size, filter maintenance procedure, and water treatment used come to mind. Goldfish are generally messy fish as this is what it sounds like you have from the description provided. They need a larger water volume, with good filtration, and a good maintenance schedule.

 

[shelly007]

Hi
I had the floating problem with my fancy gold fish, I was very upset but, I found out it could have been the way I was feeding them. Recently perchased 8 Rosy Barbs which are similar to gold fish within a week they all started floating after I fed them, I was horified so I looked on the internet and I foud a site that said some fish such as gold fish take in alot of air when they are fedind wich can leed to swim bladder problems, so I starved the fish for a few days and then I soaked the food so it sinks and they can't swallow air and none of them float anymore. Unfortunately the fish you describe could be prone to this desease I often see them floating in the shops. But if you found out the food was floating on the surface you could get them to make it sink and it might help.

Good Luck!

 

[scottm1985]

hi , fancy goldfish suffer from this problem when people feed them flake food and air gets in to the swimbladder.only normal goldfish should eat flake.i suggest getting some floating pellets because fancy goldfish are quite slow and cannot always get sinking pellets fast enough.

 

[rdd1952]

Goldfish are very susceptible to constipation which results in the same symptoms as swim bladder. In most of those cases, feeding them a cooked pea with the hull removed will cure the problem. If you have access to the tanks, it's worth try.