stagger lee Posted December 16, 2005 Report Share Posted December 16, 2005 ok, this is a bit of a long story so bear with me... My flatmates work has 3 large goldfish. The guy who ususally takes care of them/owns them has gone on holiday for a month so their boss declares that my flatmate will be responsible for them and take them home over the holiday period. The boss knows that i keep fish and thinks its as simple as popping them in one of my tanks and thats the end of the story, no arguments. Well i keep tropicals and am not very happy and explain to the flatmate why on so many levels this is not going to work... we had a long conversation... So on Thursday night she comes home with the goldfish in the bucket, their tank and most of the water from it (thankfully). We set it up and put the goldfish in and this is the first problem: The tank is a Jebo R760 tank, not sure of litre i guess around 100. It is a half circle shape. There are 3 goldfish in it, the biggest one is approx 6inches from head to start of tail, the other 2 about 5 inches. Add the tails to this (i think they are veil tails??) and they are big. They looked real cramped so the first thing i did was take out the big sunken ship decoration. Now they have a bit more space...There is no heater, some live plants and a bit of drtiftwood. Ammonia = 0 Nitrates = 80 Ph = 6! I did some reading in the net, realised ph was not so good for goldfish. Yesterday i got the flatmate to change some water and add a little ph up. She also bought an oxy shell and added that. Today i tested ph and it is 6.2 Amonia and nitrate the same. Here is second problem: yesterday i turned their light on and all three fish are showing signs of ich/ick with white spots on their gills! Here is third problem: last night flatmate went away for weekend and won't be back until Tuesday! :evil: I am broke, flatmate didn't leave me any money, so can i use the salt treatment on goldfish with white spot? They don't even have a heater so i can't turn up the tempreture... Should i even bother doing anything about ich now? or wait to it gets to it's free swimming stage? which could be weeks? Should i keep slowly adjusting the ph with ph up? I don't think the fish looked all that healthy to start with, some of thier scales look a bit beaten up... should i add some melafix? i don't know much about goldfish, and consider myself still a beginner with tropicals... I have spent the morning searching this site and reading the net but i really need some straight foward advice. Any help would be much appreciated (And sorry if this post should be in the diseases section) (and sorry that it's really long :oops: ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted December 16, 2005 Report Share Posted December 16, 2005 You can use salt on goldfish. Stop trying to adjust the pH. Goldfish are tolerant of a wide range and they will be used to that. Lots of water changes should alter it slowly and help the fish recover. Are the white spots only on their gills? If so, it is actually possible you have 3 males ready for action rather than a case of white spot. I rescued some fish in a pond the other day, brought them and the pond to my place. They got a total water change as the water was dark green and stank. As soon as they were in the fresh water they started chasing the female and get very active! Melafix will help the fins. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoezealand Posted December 16, 2005 Report Share Posted December 16, 2005 well i think i am still a beginner to, and i have no idea wat to do about the ick, but they would benifit from a bigger tank if you have one available (or convince you boss to give them to a pond or something) goldfish are coldwater fish, so even being inside is a reletively high temp, no heater is nessesary im not sure about the ph, but if they have been in a low ph for a long time, then i dont think that is an immediate problem (i never test for ph as goldfish are quite hardy (depending on type)) just an after thought, male goldfish will display white spots on their gills (when in breeding condition) so are you sure it's ick? dont know if that will be any help, and please feel free to correct me (im still learning!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoezealand Posted December 16, 2005 Report Share Posted December 16, 2005 lol caryl, you posted that will i was writting mine! (so i basicly repeated wat you said) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted December 16, 2005 Report Share Posted December 16, 2005 The male " white spots" look like little pimples and they usually have them on the leading edge of the pectoral fins as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jo1 Posted December 17, 2005 Report Share Posted December 17, 2005 Sounds like males to me. Ich is more like salt shaken over fins and tail moving to body as it get worse. If you are going to raise PH it should be done very gradually. Baking soda will do raise PH too but I am inclined to agree that if they are used to that PH don't change it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stagger lee Posted December 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 17, 2005 great! thanks for the advice, basically i am not going to worry about it at this stage... possibly they are all males. One does maybe have spots on it's tail but have decided to just see what happens. As for ph: good to know they will be fine. thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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