Terry Schaaf

I was given a 30 gal tank 5 days ago. I cleaned the tank (It had a LOT of alge on it) and put the 4 large fancy gold fish back in. Today they are loosing finns and staying on the bottom. What do I do?

sirdarksol

Welcome to Fishlore. Sorry to hear your fish aren't doing well.

When you cleaned the tank, did you completely change the water and sterilize everything?
If so, you killed off the nitrifying bacteria colony. Check out this link http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htmif you don't know about the nitrogen cycle.
If this is the case, your fish are suffering from ammonia poisoning. What you should do immediately is a 50% water change, add something that renders ammonia mostly harmless (like Amquel or Ammolock), and maybe add some ammonia-neutralizing resin to the tank's filter. Doing this will hopefully get your fish through until we can get you to a more permanent solution.
You may want to add aeration (air pump connected to an air stone) if you don't already have one, since ammonia damages the gills first, and the fish will be having problems drawing oxygen from the water.
You'll also want to get a water quality test kit, (the liquid kinds are much better than the test strips, and on a test-per-test basis, are cheaper), and let us know what your ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and pH are all at.
For some more help, could you describe your setup a little more. 30g tank, 4 large goldfish (define large, how many inches of body, not counting tail?), what kind of filtration, any other equipment?

Good luck to you and your fish.

Chief_waterchanger

Goldfish should be kept in larger tanks than that. The very minimum size any of my responsible fishkeeping friends suggest is 20g for the first goldfish and 10g for every goldfish after that. I would however not start with anything smaller than a 55g just for swimming room.

But 4 LARGE goldfish in a 30g is the reason they are having problems. It is overstocked. Goldfish DO NOT follow that rule about 1 inch per 1 gallon. (That rule is stupid and does not pertain in MOST circumstances!) Goldfish are heavy bioload producers. (Bioload = amount of fecal matter and urine produced.)

Terry Schaaf

Thank you for your advice.
Their body size is.. one fish 5", one 4", and two, 3". Their fins are longer then there body. I am a Church secretary and the fish were given to me to put in the office. We had to move them 20miles. I put about 3 gal of their water in the tank. I didn't sterilize anything. I just washed the rocks with water. One of the fish was not doing well. It kept trying to turn upside-down in the jar it was in. So I wanted to get them into the tank as soon as possible. The lady that gave them put an antishock in their transport water. In the tank I put "Start Right with Allantion", and Cycle. There is a large water filter that uses carbon and an air stone (aerator) that sits on the whole back side of the tank. The temp in the tank is set at 75. The fish store doesn’t open until noon. ( I live in small town USA) I will get a tester then. The fish are more active this morning but still not what I think they should be. They are swimming about 3" above the bottom. Thanks for all your help.

armadillo

Hiya. Just a quick thought, as I see you're in good hands there. You didn't use any detergents, did you? I know a lot of people don't realise this is extremely toxic to the fish.

Terry Schaaf

No soap or anything else just water and elbow grease. The fish store was not open today. It is a beautiful fall day in the rockies and I guess she was out playing. But the fish are a lot more active tonight.

gremlin

It may just have been the shock of the move. You could also up the temp a bit, tho I wouldn't go above 80 degrees farenheit. are they eating ok?

sirdarksol

I wouldn't worry about upping the temperature. (In fact, once the fish are ok, I suggest that you pull the heater out. Goldfish prefer temperatures that change, and do best at about room temperature. Don't make that change until we stabilize the water quality, though.) Products that claim to aid the nitrogen cycle generally don't work. The exception is BioSpira.
I'd just read the the nitrogen cycle article that I posted, do water changes to maintain a low ammonia until the nitrogen cycle establishes itself.

Chief Waterchanger is right that there is too much fish for that tank. Goldfish require much more space than an average fish of their size. (this is why I asked about the fish's size. I was getting to it, but I wanted to make sure the goldfish made it through the next couple of days before worrying about tank size). However, I understand that you had no control over the situation that the fish arrived in. 15" of goldfish in a 30g isn't as bad as some things I've seen. The fish aren't going to be happy, but they should remain relatively healthy.
If there is any possibility, however, I would suggest searching for a larger tank. Check Craigslist, Freecycle, and local aquarium societies to see if anyone has a larger tank for little or no money. Another possibility would be to ask the parishioners if anybody has a larger tank. The good news is that goldfish really only need one piece of equipment in their tank, a filter. Lights are nice, but you could just as easily put a glass top on and put an office lamp above the tank. As I said, they don't need a heater, so that's not an issue.

Once again, good luck. As long as you have questions, ask and we'll do our best to answer.

Terry Schaaf

God is so good! I had a call last night and a parishioner has an empty 50g tank they would like to give to me. I will get that tank set up. Should I try to keep the old water and put it into the new tank? I read some where that you should fill a tank with water and let it filter for a couple days before you put the fish into it is this true? The fish are eating well this morning and are swimming around and act much healthier. Should I feed them flaked food or pellets? They are getting flakes in the AM and pellets in the PM.

COBettaCouple

i'd move any gravel or substrata along with any tank decor to the new tank but fill it up with clean treated tap water. You could float the goldfish in containers or large baggies and acclimate them to the new water.

you should also move the filter sponge from the old tank to the new one if you can. keep all the things you're moving wet so any good bacteria doesn't die. doing all that, i think you can introduce them to the new tank after they're acclimated.

i've not had goldies, so i'm not sure of the best diet for them, but i think they like slices of lemon sometimes in addition to their regular food.

sirdarksol

Goldfish can eat either flakes or pellets. It's good to change their diet around, so what you're going is an excellent start. If you periodically bring in a piece of lettuce or spinach for them, they'll be even happier.

That's great that you got a new tank. Still smaller than I would prefer if these were my fish, but it's far better than the 30g (and again, I understand that you are working under cost and availability constraints).

BettaCouple has a good idea regarding keeping your tank cycled (what you had heard is a simplistic and incomplete explanation of establishing the nitrogen cycle in your tank prior to putting the fish in). The bacteria already live in the filter (as well as the gravel, on any decorations, etc..., the more surface area, the better), so if you switch that stuff over, you'll be getting, at the very least, a jump on the cycle.

Glad again that things are working out so well for the fish.

Terry Schaaf

Last night I stayed late for a meeting and was watching the gold fish. The largest of them started floating upside-down on the top of the water. I ran over and poked him. He jumped and swam around. I changed out about 10g of the water thinking that maybe that would help him. I had to do something. He started to float upside-down again but at the bottom of the tank. I figured he was a goner. All of the sudden he hiccupped and a rock came out. The gravel in the bottom of the tank is larger than most but he must have ate it and that was how he got it up. I left and went to my meeting and when I came back to check on him he was p**ping a HUGE p**p. Today is very happy and active. Do they usually eat the rocks? I checked the PH level today (the store finally opened) it was 7.4. The instructions said that was the level for gold fish. What do I do if it isn't at a normal level?

gremlin

They aren't eating the rock, they are trying to suck off any algae that may be growing on it. My goldfish would rearrange the rock in my lilly pots all over the bottom of my pond so I just finally took all the rock out. You may want to look into larger river rock that would be too big for them to get in there mouths.

COBettaCouple

yea, sounds like that guy needs bigger rock - he's gotten big and strong enough to accidentally suck down the pebbles.. goldfish heimlich!

Terry Schaaf

Just a quick update. The gold fish are doing GREAT. They are happy and a real joy to anyone who comes into the church office. I added a bio wheel filter and the tank is always clear and very easy to keep clean. I added acouple of molly's and sord tails to the tank and everyone gets along very well. Thank you for all your help when I first started this "Free" fish project. I loaded a couple of pic of the fish. Thanks again

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ShaynaB

Mollies and Swordtails are tropical fish, where goldfish are cold water fish. The Mollies and Swords like it to be 78 degrees. This could pose a problem down the line. Just FYI!

I'm glad your goldies are doing better after the move, though!

Welcome to Fishlore!

sirdarksol

Yeah. Goldfish generally don't like constant water temps (they're okay with warm water, just not steadily).
However, I have had a goldfish that was living in a tropical tank for over a year. The biggest problem that they usually suffer is that they lose their coloring (this seems to be permanent, so if you particularly like your fish's coloring, you might want to be contemplating giving in to MTS and getting another tank together for them). He's now in a larger temperate tank with a koi, and seems to have suffered no ill effects from the stint in the tropical tank (other than perpetually pink scales).

Glad everything's going well now.

COBettaCouple

They are beautiful goldies and I'm glad to hear that they're doing well.