Hello from a newbie aquarist,
before 6 day I have bought a young shubunkin goldfish from my local pet store. I have a 17 gallon (60 lt) aquarium for nearly a month. Inside of it i have 2 other common goldfishes about 2.7 inc (7cm). I make nearly daily water test and I try my best to make my fish be happy even though i struggle a bit with ammonia(0.25ppm or 0.5) but I make daily waterchanges (about 30-50%), I also have 2 airstones inside and 2 live plants (lilaeopsis brasiliensis and echinodorus rose(newly added in the 4th day after the shubunkins arrival) . So yesterday (5th day in the aquarium) i did a small water change and i cleaned the water filter and i changed the activated carbon. Instead, of putting these carbonated sponges I replaced them with a little net filled with activated carbon (BOYU brand). After a few hours my fish was standing still in the bottom of the aquarium moving occasionally from the other side of the aquarium to the other avoiding the contact with the other 2 fish. He was very quiet and in the beginning i thought that he was just a bit stressed because he is the smaller in the aquarium and i have also noticed that he still was swimming happily when i was about to feed them and he was coming at the top of the tank. This day because of that weird behaviour i checked the water parameters twice. I had 0-0.25 ppm ammonia , pH 8 and zero nitra(i)tes. The next day i saw him standing in the same spot he was 6 hours ago. I tried to feed the fish and he still came in the top to eat. He ate like 2-3 flakes and after 3 mins he vomited them. I did a search in the internet and i decided to put him in a small medical aquarium that i have. This aquarium is about 5 lt (1.3 gallons). I checked beforehand the water parameters in this new tank, i put the conditioner temp (20 C /68 F) and i went to buy 2 api products trying to help him ( aquarium salt and stress coat+) which i put in the water according to their instructions. I moved the fish there and i was watching him for about 3-4 hours. He is still standing still occasionaly moving very sloppy for a tiny distance , or swimming with his face facing down and his body being up struggling to get horizontally. I also saw him making some sudden fast moves around the tank hitting his body in the glass. Now he stands down idle and just breathing. He has no appetite. For the record, my other 2 goldfish are healthy and happily swimming raround the bigger tank scavenging. So, what happened to him and the most important, how can i help him more?
