Problem With My Goldfish

[Guest Zoe44]

I have one 2 inch goldfish in a 3 gallon tank, with an undergravel filtration system. It has been running for two months. I feed the fish Wardley Goldfish Flakes once a day. I change all the water once every two weeks adding Wardley Superchlor Plus to eliminate chlorine.

The fish has become lethargic, has white puffs around its mouth, spits its food, and opens and closes its mouth rapidly over the past week.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Gold Ryu]

Your goldfish need more room then that.It's 10 gallon for a fancy and at least 15 for a comet or common.So your goldfish needs more room.And do you soak the food?When your fish goes up to eat it swallows air which can cause dropsies(not good...)You can also give treats like once a week.Bloodworms,brine shrimp,earth worms are all good.(make sure they are clean)And veggies,.fruit.And your fish is probally gasping for air.Try putting a airpump.So your main problems are just that your tank is too small,and a better diet is good for the fish.And changing water daily is important.Did you cycle the tank?Almost forgot Welcome to Koko's.

[Fishmerised]

Hello Zoe and

First of all, Gold Ryu has made the most obvious point. It is very difficult to keep goldfish in smaller tanks. I strongly recommend that you consider upgrading your fish to a 20 gallon tank with a filtration system that turns over ten times water volume, ie. 200g/ph. Also, in my opinion, ugf are not the best type of filtration for goldfish, simply because goldfish are soooo messy. The ugf gets glogged up, doesn't operate properly and in exteme cases can actually poison your water.

Another hint about changing water. Goldfish prefer small regular changes rather than infrequent large changes. In a 3g tank I would recommend changing 30-40% of the water on a daily basis. I gather that you don't have any water test kits but you can take a sample of the water to your pet store and they usually test it for free.

I can tell you right now that your fish is badly infected by columnaris (cotton mouth disease), it is quite serious once it becomes internal. There are plenty of medications available at your petstore, so give one of those a go.