Help please - Goldfish woes

[Boobonman]

Hello, we bought a pair of goldfish who live in a bowl for the entertainment of our 18mth old son, and very happy they seem too.

That is, until recently. The paler on of the two has quite a distended belly, and seems a tad lethargic. What concerns me in the more orange one has taken to chasing the other one (Fatty) around the bowl. He seems to just be headbutting him up the backside. Anyone seen anything like this before?

[myvision]

Could it be Dropsy.

http://thegoldfishtank.com/dropsy-does-your-goldfi...

[Boobonman]

Yeah, thank you. Having read that it would appear dropsy is probably it. Depressingly, the article says that by the time the symptoms are apparent it is normally too late. Should I scoop him out now and save his buddy the trauma of his imminent death or just wait?

[Bungleaio]

Please tell me you've got a filter on your bowl.

Goldfish need quite a large tank, how big is yours? If it's small, for their well being please think about getting a proper sized one for them

[Boobonman]

It is quite small.

Will have to get a larger one. Fatty staged a recovery, slimmed down and the other one stopped butting him, but now he has puffed up again and is getting rammed.

[BritishRacinGrin]

I have managed to treat buoyancy issues in several tropical and cold water fish by giving them very very finely diced lettuce. No idea why it works, could be coincidence I suppose... Can't even remember where I got the idea from.

As above, contrary to popular belief a bowl is basically unsuitable for fish, the Bio Orb ones aren't so bad but even they aren't ideal as it is very easy to overstock them as the surface area at the top of the bowl is small. I hope you have some kind of filter?

[DeanR32]

Hope no one minds me jumping on this thread, but I have a couple goldfish too. One dumpy thing, and a black moor which is bigger than the dumpy one.

What sort of size tank do they need? I'm talking in minimum litre terms.

And my moor butts dumpy around the tank too. Usually when we feed them. Dumpy doesn't seem too happy, and looks to be always swimming to stay low in the tank (like he has too much air in him, bless).

Sorry to high jack, but seems both me and the OP have similar issues

Edit to say, he isn't dumpy all of a sudden. He was bought like this from a tank of them around 18 months ago

Edited by DeanR32 on Monday 24th November 08:16

[otolith]

Fancy goldfish with their deformed bodies often suffer swim bladder problems as a result of constipation. Lettuce or tinned peas can help. In terms of water volume and filtration - more than you think. I would think at least 100 litres for two small goldfish, preferably more, and a decent external filter. And they will outgrow that size of tank eventually.

[Bungleaio]

DeanR32 said:

What sort of size tank do they need? I'm talking in minimum litre terms.

Edited by DeanR32 on Monday 24th November 08:16

According to http://thegoldfishtank.com/do-goldfish-need-a-big-... you need around 300 litres but I bet very few people actually have this size