Baby goldfish laying on bottom of tank

[Jesper]

Hello everyone,

A couple of months ago my goldfish lay eggs and I hatched a couple of them. I have four baby goldfish left and they are coming along nicely, however, the smallest of the fish is having some trouble.

He can't swim properly anymore. He keeps going upside down or on his side. He keeps sinking to the bottom of the tank and he just lays there. The other fish are all quite a bit bigger too.

First I thought maybe he was having problems with his swimming bladder so I fed him some peas. That has not helped yet. I'm trying if fasting for 3 days will help but he doesn't seem to get any better.

I would really hate to lose him because I love watching them grow up. Does anyone know what the problem could be or what I can do to help? I'm really struggling to find answers specific to goldfish fry with this problem so maybe someone has some experience with this? 

Thank in advance for the help!

[FrozenFins]

Its probably swimmers bladder.

Swimmers Bladder can be caused by a few things:

-Overfeeding

-Bacterial Infection

-Born with it (very, very unlikely).

Because you fed pees to your goldfish, its probably  a bacterial infection.

Meds like, API Melafix, parizquantel may work. i have only treated swimmers bladder when the cause is overfeeding, so i'm not sure, but anti-bacterial infection meds may work. I have heard of swimmers bladder being very difficult to treat when its a infection.

[AdamTill]

Few questions if you don’t mind.

What are you feeding, what’s your water test out at, and how often do you clean your filters and gravel etc?

I ask because food quality, water quality, and tank care all heavily factor into infections of the swim bladder in goldfish in my experience.

In our growout tanks we tended to be careful to clean the filters of mulm frequently, ran bare bottom, and were very careful about water quality and feeding with young fish. That got rid of all our issues on growout for the most part.

Adult fish are more forgiving, but especially warm water babies are not as much.

Also feeding peas is borderline pointless. We talked to the vet that first mentioned that in a paper, and even they were shocked at how it’s misused. It might have some utility with a slow gut, but can equally likely cause impaction.

Edited December 16, 2020 by AdamTill

[Jesper]

I'm feeding them brine shrimp because I read that normal fish food isn't good for baby goldfish.

Nitrate: around 50

Nitrite: 0 

Chlorine: also 0.

I clean the filter every other week. I read somewhere that water quality can be a cause for this type of behaviour so I put them in a bigger tank and I'm checking water values more often. Could it be that the water quality in the previous tank they were in was bad and that made him sick? Will he get better now that he's swimming in clean water if that's the case?

Thanks for the info about the peas. I'll stop using them from now on. 

Should I take out the gravel? 

[Jesper]

11 hours ago, AdamTill said:

Few questions if you don’t mind.

What are you feeding, what’s your water test out at, and how often do you clean your filters and gravel etc?

I ask because food quality, water quality, and tank care all heavily factor into infections of the swim bladder in goldfish in my experience.

In our growout tanks we tended to be careful to clean the filters of mulm frequently, ran bare bottom, and were very careful about water quality and feeding with young fish. That got rid of all our issues on growout for the most part.

Adult fish are more forgiving, but especially warm water babies are not as much.

Also feeding peas is borderline pointless. We talked to the vet that first mentioned that in a paper, and even they were shocked at how it’s misused. It might have some utility with a slow gut, but can equally likely cause impaction.

I'm feeding them brine shrimp because I read that normal fish food isn't good for baby goldfish.

 

Nitrate: around 50

 

Nitrite: 0 

 

Chlorine: also 0.

 

I clean the filter every other week. I read somewhere that water quality can be a cause for this type of behaviour so I put them in a bigger tank and I'm checking water values more often. Could it be that the water quality in the previous tank they were in was bad and that made him sick? Will he get better now that he's swimming in clean water if that's the case?

 

Thanks for the info about the peas. I'll stop using them from now on. 

 

Should I take out the gravel?

[AdamTill]

The brine shrimp option is a good one while they’re little. It’s not that they can’t eat adult foods, it’s just the protein profile is off for growing bodies. Here’s another good and healthy option to consider: 

Steamed Eggs for fry and young fish With the additives like dried blood worms - The Goldfish Council

THEGOLDFISHCOUNCIL.ORG

---

By Gary Hater Introduction In North America and much of the EU, raising fry has become a regiment of hatching brine shrimp and gradually converting to gel food, frozen food, or micro pellets. Recently on...

The nitrate is a bit high, so if you could keep it to no more than 40 that would help. Ideally even a little lower with the littles.

In terms of cleaning, it really does help to keep the organics low with a clean tank when raising babies. Fancies in particular are pretty sensitive to it. So I personally chose to go without substrate, but if you kept it clean it might be okay. Eating pebbles is another reason to potentially avoid it.

On the slightly unusual side, if you can get hold of some potassium permanganate that can really help keep a tank clean. The discus folks use it a lot in hatcheries, and we did too. It’s a bit out there compared to normal practice, but especially as medications become harder to obtain being familiar with things like this will become important: 

The Power of Purple - The Goldfish Council

THEGOLDFISHCOUNCIL.ORG

---

*This article is a revised and updated version of the original article “Steps in a Crisis”, by Matt Lyon, which originally appeared in the Nov/Dec, 2003 issue of The Goldfish Report In this article, I would like...

 

Recovery is pretty up in the air too. If it’s a disease process it might resolve in better conditions, but some also have structural issues that just don’t get better. My wife paid to have surgery done on one of hers that just just loved too much to let go, and it helped for about a year, but that was not cheap.

Good luck!

 

[Jesper]

On 12/16/2020 at 3:50 PM, AdamTill said:

The brine shrimp option is a good one while they’re little. It’s not that they can’t eat adult foods, it’s just the protein profile is off for growing bodies. Here’s another good and healthy option to consider: 

Steamed Eggs for fry and young fish With the additives like dried blood worms - The Goldfish Council

THEGOLDFISHCOUNCIL.ORG

---

By Gary Hater Introduction In North America and much of the EU, raising fry has become a regiment of hatching brine shrimp and gradually converting to gel food, frozen food, or micro pellets. Recently on...

The nitrate is a bit high, so if you could keep it to no more than 40 that would help. Ideally even a little lower with the littles.

In terms of cleaning, it really does help to keep the organics low with a clean tank when raising babies. Fancies in particular are pretty sensitive to it. So I personally chose to go without substrate, but if you kept it clean it might be okay. Eating pebbles is another reason to potentially avoid it.

On the slightly unusual side, if you can get hold of some potassium permanganate that can really help keep a tank clean. The discus folks use it a lot in hatcheries, and we did too. It’s a bit out there compared to normal practice, but especially as medications become harder to obtain being familiar with things like this will become important: 

The Power of Purple - The Goldfish Council

THEGOLDFISHCOUNCIL.ORG

---

*This article is a revised and updated version of the original article “Steps in a Crisis”, by Matt Lyon, which originally appeared in the Nov/Dec, 2003 issue of The Goldfish Report In this article, I would like...

 

Recovery is pretty up in the air too. If it’s a disease process it might resolve in better conditions, but some also have structural issues that just don’t get better. My wife paid to have surgery done on one of hers that just just loved too much to let go, and it helped for about a year, but that was not cheap.

Good luck!

 

So after a few weeks of handfeeding the fish and treating it with some antibiotics and adding extra vitamins the situation is still the same. It's like he can't go straight up anymore. While all my other little fish are doing great and keep growing (they are even starting to get more of a goldfish shape) the sick one doesn't seem to change one bit. He isn't growing and spends most of it's time laying around at the bottom of the tank. 

I don't think he's going to get any better at this point. What should I do with him? I don't feel it's humane to just let him continue like this for the rest of his life but I don't really know what to do with him. Do you have any ideas? 

[AdamTill]

10 minutes ago, Jesper said:

So after a few weeks of handfeeding the fish and treating it with some antibiotics and adding extra vitamins the situation is still the same. It's like he can't go straight up anymore. While all my other little fish are doing great and keep growing (they are even starting to get more of a goldfish shape) the sick one doesn't seem to change one bit. He isn't growing and spends most of it's time laying around at the bottom of the tank. 

I don't think he's going to get any better at this point. What should I do with him? I don't feel it's humane to just let him continue like this for the rest of his life but I don't really know what to do with him. Do you have any ideas? 

On the extreme end of helping, we’ve sprung for swim bladder aspiration surgery. It was hundreds of dollars expensive, but helped for a couple of years until the fish passed. Was only because my wife was incredibly attached to the fish in particular. Xrays showed it only had one swim bladder, which was part of why it was so tough to regulate buoyancy.

Otherwise, humane euthanasia is a responsible choice (we used clove oil when needed). The stupid life jackets and wheelchairs are fish abuse as far as I’m concerned (they all die from contact sores).

Edited January 18, 2021 by AdamTill

[Jesper]

32 minutes ago, AdamTill said:

On the extreme end of helping, we’ve sprung for swim bladder aspiration surgery. It was hundreds of dollars expensive, but helped for a couple of years until the fish passed. Was only because my wife was incredibly attached to the fish in particular. Xrays showed it only had one swim bladder, which was part of why it was so tough to regulate buoyancy.

Otherwise, humane euthanasia is a responsible choice (we used clove oil when needed). The stupid life jackets and wheelchairs are fish abuse as far as I’m concerned (they all die from contact sores).

I guess I have to start thinking about euthanasia then. I don't like it but I don't think he's having a very nice life right now. Thanks for the help!