my fish has ammonia poisoning?

Question

we bought some new fish, i have a 75 gallon tank , four fish all together the past two days they have been sitting atthe bottem of the tank and turninga deep red color i tested my water and its right , what else can i do?

sorry , they are gold fish, one is very large. and s sucker fish which is also large. my ph balance is 7.0 and my brother in law tested the rest and all i know is he said the strip came back in the limit. lets see, i have had the two large fish for 3 years so they are fairly large and i have never had a problem to we upgraded our tank to a 75 gallon, two days after we did this he was spinning at the top of the tank breathing funny, now he just sits at the bottem and does not eat or move.. we changed 50 percent of the water and he is moving more today but i still have no clue what to do

also if it helps he looks kindof bruised, liek hickies all over his body and his tail is turning red like blood.... theother tow fish are acting ok , but the lady atpetco who sold us these fish said they were able to be in the tank with gold fish my brother in law said they are warm water fish and are gonna die..so im confused..the other two are a shark fish and graumy(sp?) anyway , any advice would be appriciated

Answer 1

That does indeed sounds like you may have high ammonia levels, but other things can cause this too. The first thing I would ask is what type of fish are they? That will be rather important in determining the cause. In the mean time, look for anything else about their appearance that seems odd other than the color. Also check the temperature of the tank and the pH is possible. Also when you say the water is right... that's good but please include the readings from your tests. That will help as well. Please add these details to your question by using the little pencil icon and I'll check back shortly to add to my answer.

ADDITION:

You said you upgraded the tank size. If this was in the last few days to a week then ammonia poisoning is quite possible. De spite the test results, I would recommend a large water change of about 50%. Test strips can be easily damaged and are actually somewhat unreliable, so it's possible that the ammonia level is actually higher than the test results indicate.

Since you mention blood red in the fins, that is a classic sign of one of many blood borne bacteria diseases that are lumped together and called septecimia. These are generally not easy to treat as they are internal infections and may affect several different organs at once, but you can attempt treatment with one of a few antibiotics. Furanace would be my first choice if that is available to you. If not, then Petco does carry Tetracycline which is another reasonable choice. I would also suggest feeding the fish medicated fish food for the treatment of bacterial infections. This is also available at Petco. Treat as directed on the package, but continue the treatment for 10 days to 2 weeks and feed the medicated food for about 3 weeks.

The bruising appearance as well as red gills and red in the fins are all signs of septecimia and I would certainly lean more to that diagnosis than ammonia considering all of the fish are affected and the test did slow no or low levels of ammonia.

Hope this helps and feel free to email me if I can help further. You can email me through the link in my profile.

MM

Answer 2

first of all, goldfish are coldwater fish. you also said you had shark fish and a graumy (im guessing you mean gourami)? the gourami and "shark fish" (knowing the species would help) are tropical fish. the lady at petco was wrong. goldfish and tropical fish cannot survive in temps out of their range.

are you adding dechlorinator to the water before putting it in the tank?

it very well could be ammonia poisioning. usually the gills turn a bright reddish color and the fish looks like its struggling to breathe. you said he looked bruised, might be a bacterial infection. the red on the tail is most likely tail rot.

all of these occur when levels are out of control. do not trust test strips. get a liquid test kit to be sure, since strips cover such a wide range, and liquid test kits show small amounts. aquarium pharmecuticals master freshwater test kit is the best. test for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. ammonia and nitrite cannot exceed .25 or .50 at the very highest, even there it will cause damage. nitrate is toxic above 40.
do an immediate water change. if you have an extra tank to isolate the injured fish, that would be best. dose the hospital tank with melafix and stresscoat. (if you do not have a hospital tank, dosing the whole tank with the other fish in it would be fine) the melafix will help with the tailrot and skin "bruising". stresscoat will replace the slimecoat and help the fish deal with the stress of being sick.

i highly recommend getting another tank for the tropical fish, since they should not be in temps lower than 74, and goldfish cannot be in temps more than 65.

goodluck and email me if you need anymore help or if his condition worsens.

Answer 3

Since they hang at the bottom and ammonia forms at the bottom, it would be at the bottom.