Goldfish's dorsal fin always flat?

Question

I bought a small common goldfish the other day for $0.28 to go with my other one. I noticed that his dorsal fin is rarely upwards. Is he alright?

Answer 1

A clamped fin is usually a sign of a disease, but a clamped fin alone is not enough to make a proper diagnosis. I am guessing that your goldies are probably commons and are probably rather small right now, but nevertheless, even the smallest goldfish require a minimum of 10 gallons of water per fish and filtration at the rate of 10x the gallons per hour times the size of the tank, plus proper cycling, proper water changes and tank cleaning or they will start getting diseases. I am hoping that you have a 20 gallon tank for your two goldfish, but I'm betting you don't. Please read up on the proper care of goldfish so that your goldies don't die and they can be happy and healthy and live a long, long time. In the meantime, you may wish to go to the pet store and get some aquarium salt and add a little to the tank according to directions. This might help with whatever is wrong with your fish. Take a look at the link to diseases, see if you can recognize some other symptoms your fish might have.Good luck!

Answer 2

If a goldfish is healthy the dorsal fin should be up. But it's difficult to say what problem it has. I would not keep it with other fish until it looks healthy as it may have an infectious decease.

Answer 3

No he's stressed about something. You may have ick develop in a day or two. Not enough info to help you at this point. Healthy GF swim about relentlessly all day looking for food or this and that. They also have erect fins and are alert with clear eyes. Watch him closely for a while, check your water, list these things in your next question and maybe I or some else can help you. Things like tank size, filter, any thing odd you see the fish do or has on its body. Temperature ect.

Answer 4

Yep, that sounds like ammonia poisoning! decrease back feeding, do an emergency water replace-like 50% (use conditioners) and use between the ammonia chance-free products to on the on the spot help. AmmoLock works highly sturdy for the couple of minutes period emergency circumstances. For maximum suitable outcomes use distilled or bottled water for the water replace (may also help in making positive you've a decrease pH which permits the ammonia to regulate to a a lot less poisonous type). you would possibly want to do water transformations and therapy daily until eventually the ammonia is 0. when you've taken emergency steps, eliminate the reason of the ammonia. Is your tank cycled? Are you doing too drastic of water transformations (causing mini-cycled once you regulate the water)? Are you overstocked? Have suitable filtration? Feeding too a lot? discover the reason and take action to circumvent this contained in the longer time period. I used to apply Methylene blue to counter the outcomes of poisoning, yet in a separate tank (it stains each little thing blue). a bath for the affected fish in Methylene blue might want to correctly be efficient. it fairly works for ammonia, nitrate and cyanide poisoning.

Answer 5

you say you bought this goldfish for 28 cents? sounds like you may have bought a feeder fish. feeder fish aren't meant to be kept as pets, and are rarely in good condition. it may be sick, or it may just have a physical defect.

make sure it has enough clean water. goldfish needs lots of space, about 20 gallons per fish, and their water needs to be changed (max one quarter at a time) at least twice a week.