Tilted goldfish

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gmcb

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Sep 28, 2008
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Hello. It seems I am having another goldfish challenge. (I lost my copper-colored goldfish November 12).

Even then, I thought all of them seemed sluggish/bored and hiding when I came up to the tank.

Now, the oranda is swimming slightly tilted to one side as if one side of his body is heavier. He's not swimming head down or tail down.

My water is Ph 6; Nitrate 5; Nitrite 0 and Ammonia .25. (API). I am going to do their weekly clean up now.

Any ideas?
Thanks.
 

Lupin

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Sep 21, 2006
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Hmmm...It must be the light angle. What light do you use and is it positioned well to the center? Fish can tilt sideways in response to the light.
 

gmcb

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Sep 28, 2008
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I still use only the lights that came with the tank; so they are overhead. I haven't changed anything. I've been watching him since I posted and he seems okay now. Thanks for the reply.
 

kelly82

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Jun 1, 2007
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:iagree: my goldies tilt when the sun shines in through the window in the morning before their lights come on.
 

Beaux

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you may be "mini cycling" your tank once a week by cleaning too much too good it sounds like to me. im not a real technical guy unless im building something..lol. but i kind of take turns on cleaning stuff. the amonia is what tips me off into thinking this. you can take a perfectly cycled tank with everything in it (has happened to me several times in the 20 or so fishkeepin years, once recently n my jewels are still not quite recovered from it) and do a gravel vac, then clean filters n such and inadvertently remove or kill off alot of the bacteria in a tank. at least thats what im thinking i did anyways. alot of the way i do stuff comes from my personal trial n error..lol. wasnt alot out there when i started. also it could be overfeeding causing the amonia spike either way the amonia is best at zero, and once cycled far as i understand should remain thereabouts. i personaly overfeed my ciclids..lol. i KNOW i do this so this is how i compensate, what i do is to add an extra filter to the tank, then this is kindof my maintenance routine....this week, 20-30% waterchange only,next week wchange pluss vac half the gravel, nex wk clean 1 filter n do water change nex wk vac other half gravel n do wc, etc. this way something is left to repopulate everything else w new bacteria. just some ideas ya may wanna consider. good luck.
Beaux
 

Lupin

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The pH can inhibit the bacteria which is why there is ammonia there but at this point, ammonia is nothing to be concerned about. Most of it would be converted to harmless ammonium.
 

Inka4040

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Mar 31, 2008
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IME, goldfish really do much better in basic water. Common types are able to withstand a wide variety of conditions, but I've noticed that with fancies, my buffered tanks have had much fewer issues overall than my non buffered ones. I'd check the params of your source water (rested overnight to outgas) and see if the low ph is from dissolved organics or if it comes out like that. That aside, their sluggish or sulky behavior when you approach the tank strikes me as a much more pressing concern than the tilting. Healthy goldfish will be active/alert the majority of the time, and timid behavior from them is hardly ever a good sign. Flukes are often touted as the cause of lethargic behavior, but are far from the only thing that could bring about such symptoms. I would heartily reccomend picking up a cheap microscope on Ebay if you don't already have one, and doing a gill/body scrape to check for their presence. Below, is a link to a pic of what to look for. If you do indeed find flukes, praziquantel is a great, safe, gentle, and relatively effective treatment.

http://www.worldwidekoiclub.org/boggen/july_newsletter/clip_image007.jpg
 

gmcb

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Sep 28, 2008
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Pennsylvania
Thank you, Inka. To get a scraping I must lift the fish out of the tank, right? I've never done that.
I think I am overly conscientious about by fish. They are swimming around quite a bit and seem happy enough. I think they're bored.

As far as cleaning, despite two filters running the gravel is always dirty when I vacuum and I only do half a tank at a time. My water parameters are fine; low ph.
 
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