Another swimming sideways question!!?

Question

I have a large Orinda (about 4 in.) that I got about 2 weeks ago. When he is going to the bottom of the tank he goes over on his side when he gets near the bottom of the tank and then rights himself. The whole process takes about 2 seconds. When I asked the store where I got him they said the tank he was in was too small and he will grow out of it. Otherwise he is healthy. What's the deal? I have done a water change and salted the tank, 1 Tbsp. to 5 gal.

Answer 1

I can see a few possibilities here.

First, it could just be a combination of your fish's coordination and the water flow. If the flow from your filter is too strong, it may tend to "blow him over" and it takes him a moment to compensate by changing his position in the water. Your filter should have a way of reducing the flow rate, either by a knob on the top of the uptake tube, or by turning the entire tube if you have a power filter. If you use an undergravel filter, try aiming the flow toward the closest side so it diffuses the flow, or use a valve to control the flow of air through the tubing.

If that doesn't help, your fish may be developing a slight swim bladder problem. The swim bladder contains air which is used to help them maintain their position in the water. Too much or too little air makes them "heavy" or want to "float". There are a number of reasons why they have this problem, including getting too much air as they eat food from the surfae, eating old/poor quality food that ferments in their digestive system, infections, and others. Round bodied goldfish like your oranda seem to have the problem more often than slender-bodied varieties like comets, and this may be due to their body shape - the internal organs can be compressed from the rounded shape.

If this sound like it might be your problem, you might start by giving him a cooked pea with the skin removed to act as some fiber to "push" food through the digestive tract. This will help if the problem is caused by fermenting food and gas trapped in the intestines. Also be sure you have good water quality for him with regular water changes of around 25-30% of the tank volume each week, using a gravel vacuum to keep debris from accumulating in the gravel. This alone may solve the problem.

If he still has a problem after 2-3 days, or he has more of a problem keeping his position, he may have an internal infection.

As far as the tank size, an oranda can get 8" or so as an adult. It should have at least a 20 gallon tank, so you can compare that to what you currently have it in. If he's still a small fish, you have a little while to upgrade, but a 10 gallon is a good start for a goldfish tank. They can produce a lot of ammonia, which is toxic to them, and if you have too small of a tank, this will make it necessary for you to do water changes a lot more often to keep him healthy. See this link for symptoms of ammonia poisoning: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/ammoniapoison.htm

Since he's relatively new, you should also know about cycling your tank, if you don't already know about this: http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm This is where bacteria in your tank break down the ammonia and convert it to nitrite (also toxic), then to nitrate, which is safer for your fish. But too large of a fish in too small of a tank, may not have all of the ammonia converted, since there's only so much room (in the gravel and on the filter media) for the bacteria to colonize.

See these links for more on swim bladder disorder:

Answer 2

It sounds like your fish has some sort of swim bladder disorder. If it's showing up only when he goes to the bottom of the tank and not at any other time, it's probably minor and still treatable. Has your fish been pooping a lot or at all? He may be constipated. Goldfish are prone to constipation as they have no stomachs and when constipated their swim bladders may get squished and cause them to have difficulty in swimming upright.

Try fasting him for 24 hours (feed NO food) and then give him the inside of a steamed or frozen green pea, mashed up in a little bit of tank water. That will help relieve his constipation. If something else is causing his swim bladder problems this will not hurt him and will still do his digestive system some good.

P.S. Salting the tank is a good idea for most things, but won't do any good for a swim bladder problem. Water changes on the other hand, never hurt. ;)

Answer 3

First, I don't know what size tank you have for your goldfish. But, if you do want to take proper care of him, and the fish store tells you that you need a bigger tank, then get a bigger tank. Goldfish get to be rather large fish and need a lot of room to swim.

It sounds like he might have a slight swim bladder problem. Although, I don't keep goldfish myself so I'm not sure if you should be salting the water. I know it can benefit some fish but I don't know about goldfish. I have included the link to a page where you can learn about goldfish care if you would like. The whole site itself is very good, I've looked around it and there is a lot of good information there. Check it out if you get the opportunity.

http://fishlesscycling.com/articles/caring_for_your_goldfish.html

tina

Answer 4

I had the same fish. I loved it. He suddenly started floating on the bottom of the tank, very slowly. I asked the store and they told me the same thing. However, he then stopped eating. and was just on the bottom all of the time. He was sick and I didn't know it and finally he died. Maybe you should have him checked out... I know that's alot to say about a fish but if you value him that much, maybe you should...