Two fish looking ill all of a sudden

Hey. Looking for some help please.
I have a 63 litre tank with 5 cold water fish.
I have one black moor, two standard goldfish and two fish which are white in colour with fan tail.
I started the tank in July and a few fish died at first. All these lot are there since the middle of august and have been doing well.
However this evening all of a sudden i noticed the blackmoor was lying sideways near surface of water. He is breathing fine and swimming around fine most of the time but every so often lying sideways on top. AN hour later i noticed one of my white fan tails doing similar. Infact this guy seems to be going completely upside down and swimming that way a bit then turning around and going right for abit.

Two days ago I did notice a problem with my tank. When feeding them I noticed there was no force coming from the filter. On checking with my hand there was nothing coming out. I fiddled around wit it and it came back on. I'm not sure what happened and for how many days it was not working right. I suspect it was not working right for a few days, maybe 3 or 4 max.

So anyway straight away when I noticed the two guys looking a bit ill tonight i decided to do a water change. It had some algae to be removed too. SO I scrapped the algae off and did a 10% water change. I treated the water with aqua safe and an goldfish all rounder type treatment i have in hope of saving the two guys. Do you think this will help or any other suggestion to what I can do? I suspeact teh water quality may not be great if the filter was not working for a few days?! This is a brand new filter by the way so no idea what went wrong.....

Could it be swim bladder? Looking the the tank whole time the last half hour and the white fan tail is completely upside down most of the time now.

hi there! welcome to the forum and sorry to hear about the situation you have; if you suspect quality of water is doubtful go get a water test kit- its great to tell you your water parameters.

if your filter was out of action few days; chances are the bacteria in it will be of no use anymore...so the tank might go thru a mini cycle and you can have ammonia in the tank which will lead to fish deaths;

if i were you i will clear the whole tank and start all over again with the initial proper cycling of the tank.

look thru some advice on the forum; loads of knwoledgable and helpful people here.

all the best.

Hey,Welcome to the forum. Id also start again but first lets see if we can save the goldfish... Goldfish may seem like the best fish to start with but they do nothing but cause problems for a beginners. Their better off in large tanks or ponds. Minnows are the perfect beginner cold water fish.

If the filter was off for a few days then its deff the water causing the deaths... Goldfish foul up the water very quickly. Best thing to do now is do a 20% daily water change. As andrew said your tank may cycle again so daily water changes is a must to keep them alive...

A test kit would help a lot. It's the only way of knowing how bad the water is and let you know if you're doing enough water changes....

Here is an Article on goldfish from this site...www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/content/view/86/30/
I'm sure there is an Article on cycling too if you're not familiar with the term....

ok let's start wit the basics, you had a lot of fish for that size tank, these get fairly big but more important they create a lot of waste. you say the filter is brand new, how new is it? a filter sould be run up to 6weeks to establish the bacteria needed to convert the ammonia from the waste into nitrite then to a safer nitrate. there are products to speed it up which i'm not familar wit, others can help on this. TEST KIT is a must have

i'd do larger water changes, normally i would suggest 10% daily but wit your stock i'd do around 30% every day, testing everyday. it could well be swimbladder but that is just a problem caused by another problem, in normal situation i'd recommend feeding veg, blanched deshelled fresh pea etc etc... try it but you gotta get on the water issue.

amazing the fish most tend to start wit, goldfish, guppies, neon tetras can be nightmares for beginners. i would suggest if you don't save the others (which will need a new home either way), invest in a heater, look up the nitrogen cycle and get yourself a nice little community of tropicals. head to the nearest sponsor and ask tons of questions on the fish before purchasing them, wat ph do the fish require, wat heat do they like, wat size do they get, how many should you keep, wat fish are they compatible with, wat diet do they like, basic questions but a sponsor loves to know the fish are going to a good home and loves to hear them. and even wit that info explain to the chap or chapette that you would like to think about things, head home get online and study a bit about the fish or even ask here, the folks on here can be very helpful. oh the most important thing you will ever buy, and i'm sure a lot will back me up on this, a decent digital camera as you will be hounded for pics.

anyhoos welcome to the forum, it's a great place for info. Darren

Welcome to the forum, Darren has covered it all there in a nutshell. Ask questions, research and then ask more questions on here. We all started the fish keepin similiar to your story but but when u get it right its well worth it.

Mick.....

Hi Fishy,
Hope things improve.Darren has covered it all off there I think. One other alternative, where are you located,someone could give you some of their tank water and seed your filter which would speed up the cycling process. Secondly I think the tank is overstocked,goldfish grow big but are very messy fish and will produce alot of water.10% per week won't cover it off,you will need to increase frequency and more water being changed. Finally the most important thing you can do is to buy a test kit and read up on the cyling process of a tank.(type it into the search bar on this forum and there are lots of discussions about it).

These fish may or may not get through this,however I would urge you not to lose faith and to keep at it.(you will see from my next post that we all lose fish from time to time).Just research abit more.Darrens advise is solid about asking your nearest sponsor shop etc..

Welcome along to the forum,and let us know how it goes.

Gavin

Hi Everyone !

Just got an email form this forum this morning! had lost my password before and then had laptop problems so only getting back now !
So grateful for all the advise thank you all so much!!
I lost all the fish in the end!
Have not restocked or done anything about it yet.
Had read up on the nitrogen cycle etc when i started this but realise now i think i had tank overstocked. The golldfish i had were too big.
I ways though I'm reluctant to get back into it as it's far harder than i thought.
I had goldfish years ago in bowls and this tank that lasted years and it seems things are far harder now adays LOL
Thanks for all the sound advise. I have been thinking exactly what a few of you have suggeted- to get heater and go tropical.
I will do some research.
My tank is roughly 2 foot long, just over a foot high and a foot depth. So I want to make sure whatever i get this time is small and won't grow too fast or need much room. If any of you have any recommendations i'd be grateful.
I think I'll clear out the tank. Add some more plants.

Regarding gravel sand at base of tank is one better than the other? I have gravel but prefer look of the sand as it seems so briht and reflective.
Regarding changing water i have used containters to do it all along. Should i really invest in one of those gadgets in the pet stores that you put in and it sucks it up from the bottom? Also are those gravel cleaners any good?

Anyway hope to get back to it soon and thank you all so much for the advice! A great help!!

Bad luck there, happens us all in one way or another in fish keeping.

By the symptoms you mention and the suddenness of the deaths, I reckon it was a combination of Ammonia and oyygen deprivation, with Ammonia poisoning flashing usually occurs off decor as the gill vessels get damaged and this can take some time to kill gold fish when water changes occur, what will kill em as fast as you have lost em and make em swim with lethargy is oxygen deprivation.



Good luck with the next fish you decide to keep and do lots of research on them and ask many questions on ITFS:)


Mark

sand is nice but requires delicate syphoning with a gravel cleaner as you will suck it all out when cleaning, then you need to stir the sand in case of any trapped gases and the poo sits on top of the sand and you'l be cleaning it every two days, great for the fish but a royal pain in the swiss roll. i dumped my sand and got gravel back, it's better for the oul plants as well.
yeah get the gravel cleaner you need to clean the bottom
and i'd say get the tank cycled, throw in a betta and after a few weeks throw in a few tetras neons glowlights or cardinal it would look lovely planted and with a dark gravel bed