Goldfish gulping air - perfect water

[chub04]

Just had a quick question. I have four fancy goldfish in a 75 gal. tank. After feeding two of them will gulp at the surface for a little while and the other two won't. The water parameters are absolutely perfect. 0 ammonia 0 nitrite and below 20 for nitrate. Ph is also in the correct range for goldfish. The tank is well aerated as I have two airstones and two HOB filters that break up the surface really well. Any ideas as to why they're gulping at the surface? Anyway to stop them from doing so? One has swim bladder issues every once in a while and I believe it's because of the gulping at the surface because I don't over feed them and I feed them Repashy Soilent Green. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[myswtsins]

Sorry you are having this problem. Thank you providing test results and not just "correct range" answers! Sounds like you have a grasp on what you are doing and doing things correctly (fancy goldfish are prone to swimbladder problems, I don't blame you for that). Goldfish are little pigs, could they just be begging for more food? It looks like gulping for air so just wondering. What temp is the tank? What do you do when the one has swimbladder problems? You are feeding a great quality food but variety is important too. Including some fresh veggies and fruits could help eliminate the SB problems.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Chub04, my goldfish do the same thing. I've got one comet and three fancies in a 55g. They pop their whole face, eyes included, right out of the water when I feed them. It's only for the first few bites though, because I feed them sinking pellets, so the rest of the time they root around in the gravel to get the rest. One of my fancies gets way too buoyant at times as well. It comes and goes. Best you can do is keep nitrates nice and low with your weekly water changes. I never do less than a 50% and have yet to see 20ppm nitrates given these fish are pretty small yet.

 

[chub04]

Thank you both for the replies, yeah I've been keeping goldfish now for about 5 years so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of things, but I just have no idea why they're doing this. I feel like I'm feeding them enough, but maybe they're still hungry. But I don't want to feed them too much more especially with their swim bladder problems. And they do this for about an hour after feeding, even if they can't see me watching them. The tempature is around 70-72 F, just depending on the room temp. I used to keep it around 75-76, but no longer have a heater in there (have had the heater out for about 8 months now).

Usually I don't do much when I see the swim bladder problems because it usually goes away by the end of the day, but if it gets worse I usually fast them for a couple days then feed them some peas. Maybe I'll try some other fruits or veggies and see if that works. I tried giving them watermelon before, but they didn't seem to like it.

But yeah I do at least one water change per week, never less than 40-50% to keep the nitrates down as much as possible.

When they gulp at the surface after eating it doesn't really look like they're looking for more food, they just sit in one spot and gulp.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Why the heater? Goldfish don't need them. My tank runs @ room temp that can vary from ~65-80F depending on the season.

 

[chub04]

That's why I took it out. I realized I didn't really need it. I used to have a pleco in there as well so that's one reason why I added a heater to warm it up a little for it. But it got too big so I got rid of it and took the heater out along with it.

 

[myswtsins]

even if they can't see me watching them.

Creeper alert! lol No, I get it and do it myself. If they see me they act completely different and usually beg for food (this goes for ALL my fish). Goldfish will beg for food even if they are exploding so I wouldn't rule begging out. But you don't seem to think that is what's going on.... I don't know what else it might be though and beside the occasional SB problem there isn't any issues so I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[chub04]

Haha yeah I creep on them all the time so they can't see me! I used to feed them flake food that would float at the top, so maybe they're just used to searching the top for food and will take some time for them to stop that habit. I just wanted to be sure there wasn't anything I was missing or anyway to prevent it from happening