#Black moor telescope goldfish sick skin

The product may be hard to obtain as it needs to be kept under refrigeration.Ĭontinue to clean the gravel of obvious dirt and uneaten food as normal to prevent additional ammonia forming, but don't aggressively clean or change any filter media. At the time of writing this is the only bacteria-containing product we know from experience to be helpful in these situations. Your fish may not be very hungry anyway so do be careful not to feed more than the fish can eat and clean up uneaten food immediately, before it rots and produces even more ammonia.Ĭonsider using S?ll Bactinettes to add back some beneficial bacteria and restart the cycle. Since fish are cold blooded creatures and don't need the calories of a mammal they can go for several days without food and the occasional fast is good for them. This will cut down on the ammonia the fish produce. Live plants can use ammonia directly, so add some cheap aquatic plants to the tank, such as Elodea or Giant Vallis.ĭon't feed your fish at all if your ammonia readings are high, and only feed bare minimum rations every other day until the tank cycles. Try asking the Local Fish Shop to look after them until your tank is cycled (after all, chances are that they got you into this mess in the first place!). If you can temporarily rehome your fish while you carry out a fishless cycle, that is the very best option - especially for more sensitive species such as Plecos, Corys or other bottom dwellers, Tetras, Rams etc. Your fish may well be affected by ich, fungus or other infections due to the stress of the ammonia and nitrite in the water, but the immediate priority is to establish the cycle and improve the water quality. Many commonly used medications can kill off beneficial bacteria. Keep good aeration in the tank both to help the fish a little and to oxygenate those beneficial bacteria.Īvoid using medications, if at all possible, until the tank is cycling. This will introduce a small amount of beneficial bacteria which will rapidly multiply. Just cram it in along with your own media. If at all possible, get some filter media from a mature tank and put it in your filter. If levels are high, do an immediate extra water change. Test the water daily for ammonia and nitrite until the values are holding at zero for several days running. Too large a change initially would shock the fish. If 'old tank syndrome' is the reason for the filter crash and you have excessive nitrate levels, start by doing two or three 10% changes over a few hours on day 1 and then move to 25% daily changes when nitrates have reduced. The filter still wont be cycled so here are some tips to try and get him through the process:ĭo a 25% water change every day until your tank is cycling (i.e. The first thing you need to do is move him into a much bigger tank with a proper filter - if a tank is out of the question a large food grade plastic dtorage box and inernal filter will do for while. This article explains about tank sizes for Goldfish. One Black Moor needs at least 140 litres (37 US gallons) but yours is only 19 litres (5 US gallons). In small volumes of water with poor flitration toxins build up too fast and can't be dealt with easily.

The second problem is that Goldfish need very big tanks because of the amount of waste they produce. This article explains about the nitrogen cycle and why tanks need to be cycled.

#Black moor telescope goldfish sick skin

If that isn't done, the fish will be swimming in toxins for the first few weeks and these irritate the skin and eys, reduce immunity and allow infections and fungus to take hold, which is what is happening here. We usually do this by running the tank for 4-6 weeks and using household ammonia as a substitute for fish. I'm afraid the problems with your Moor are related to his tank being too small and the filtration being inadequate and not 'cycled'.īefore fish are added to a tank, the filter needs to be cycled - that is aprocess for growing beneficial bacteria that will eat the ammonia produced from fish waste and process it into something safer.