Alzado

I bought my 4 year old daughter a 2.5 gallon tank with two goldfish to get her started being interested in fish. she loves it!


but, the other day she turned the light on in the little tank in the morning. i didn't notice it until i got home from work that night. by that time, the water was up to 88/89 degrees. both fish were swimming like they were hanging on for dear life, not interested in eating and acting very fatigued and sick. the edges of their fins were a deep red/brown, as were the edges of their gills.

since then, their activity level has improved dramatically and they are eating well again. however, the color issue has gotten much worse. their bodies are developing brown spots that seem to spread a little bit more every day.

are they dying? will this eventually just go away? any body seen this before?

Lucy

Hi welcome to Fish Lore
I'm sorry your goldies aren't doing well.
Unfortunatly, 2.5g isn't enough room for goldies, they create too much waste for that size tank and need more space to grow and swim. Leaving them in too small a tank can stunt their growth causing all kinds of problems for their internals.

It's also hard to keep a consistant temp in smaller tanks especially when the light can also heat up the water.

My suggestion would be to look into getting them into at the very least a 20g, preferably a 30g.

sirdarksol

Welcome to Fishlore.
The red/brown you were seeing was probably ammonia poisoning. Fish produce ammonia, which is highly toxic, as waste. Ammonia causes blood vessels to rupture near the surface. Fins and gills are often the most obviously targeted. In nature, the nitrogen cycle (click on the words to read about it... it's good to know, and it would take a long time to explain here) turns ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into nitrates, which are far less toxic. We can set our aquaria up to do the same thing by "cycling" the tank.

It's going to be very hard to keep even one goldfish healthy in a tank that small. Goldfish get really big (6") and produce a lot of waste for their size. They also get mentally stressed by the lack of swimming space. The general suggestion for healthy goldfish is 20g for the first one and 10g for each additional.

Edit: Ninja'd by Lucy.

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore if I didnt welcome you already....im sorry your goldies arent feeling well...

I can see a few things going on ...first off, the tank is not nearly enough for the goldies and they are probably being overloaded with ammonia and slowly dieing...goldies at least need 20 gals for one to keep the parimeters in check....do you know the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate reading?

next issue is goldies are cold water fish and like the temps usually 68-76 ....the higher temps probably had a huge effect on their metabolism and it has less oxygen the higher the temp...so recovering from that could be a water change...
check out craigslist to see if you can find a decent tank for a decent price because those goldies are not going to make it in a 2.5 gal tank

3 way

Alzado

wow, thanks for the replies. i realize that 2.5 gallons is a small tank, but the tank is fully cycled (started it in early February) and everything was going fine until this incident with the light.

i've got a nice little 10 gallon community tank going right now. if I buy another tank, I'd like to use it for something other than the goldfish, but you guys are right. they're suffering right now.

sirdarksol

It is quite possible that two goldfish are producing too much ammonia for the filter to be able to convert it all.

My suggestion would be to return the goldfish to the pet store. Let them know that they had been in a too-small tank, and that you just want credit for more appropriate fish. A betta would do okay in a 2.5 gallon (not great, but much better than goldfish would), and the bright colors might appeal to a child.

One other thing you could do is check craigslist. You can usually find small tanks for very cheap. If you can get a 10g tank, you can probably use some of the equipment from the 2.5 (if the 10g doesn't come with stuff, as they often do). You could stock it with white cloud mountain minnows, which come in a couple of different varieties, and which don't require a heater (the most expensive piece of equipment for many tanks).

Good luck and let us know if you have any other questions.