Dharma continues to baffle me with his floatiness. One day he’s absolutely fine and the next he’s belly up at the surface! He’s on a very heavy vegetarian diet at the moment. My fish still get the occasional cube of daphnia, brine shrimp or bloodworms. If I’m feeling very generous, they get my homemade gel food. I’m still desperately waiting on the Kanaplex so I can start treating him just in case. I know how he feels to be honest.
Some days aren’t too bad but then there are others where I genuinely just don’t know. I’m significantly better than I was a couple of weeks ago and yet I still can’t think. When asked a simple question, I can’t tell you the answer. Ask me a fact and I can tell you, but ask for my plans and you will get stunned silence. I neither know nor care.
I’m supposed to be going home this weekend to do birthday things with my family. It was going to be a big occasion but I just can’t face it. Luckily, my mum hadn’t invited many people because she wanted to know where I wanted to go. I neither knew nor cared. I still have to go about a meal with some members of my family but it is for their benefit more than mine. I get to see some friends which I’m excited about, but there’s a big part of me that just wants to stay locked away and minding my own business. I’m about as far from social as I can be. I’m well aware of the comments, questions and criticism coming my way and I really don’t fancy it.
Aggy isn’t looking too good either. When the Kanaplex arrives, I shall quarantine her and Dharma together. I think she’s injured one of her eyes. I’ve done big water changes but it still looks like a cataract. If it was both eyes, I’d be more concerned about water quality but with just one eye looking funny, I think it is an injury.
On the plus side, at least my fish will get a decent fast!
This morning I put Dharma back in the main tank. He looked so bored and miserable all on his own. He was really enjoying playing with me and chasing my fingers around in his tub, but the rest of the time he looked more bored than anything else. He did seem to have picked up quite a bit and had had several large poops.
I enjoyed our little bonding sessions as he would come and sit in the palm of my hand. It wasn’t nice to keep him looking so bored, though.
Back in the main tank, breakfast was a slice of leek blanched in garlic water. My hands stank for the rest of the day but leeks are a great laxative for Dharma and he loves garlic. Dinner has been some savoy cabbage blanched in the garlic water, and a cube of daphnia. Bankei still struggles with things too big for his mouth so I had to improvise and add the daphnia to less cabbage.
He is still floaty but he does seem much happier to be back with his friends. He isn’t swimming upside down anymore and is happily swimming around the tank. I just wish I knew the root cause to make a big difference to his permanent quality of life…
I got to thinking last night. It has been incredibly stressful in the last few weeks with worrying about my fish. I wake up frequently in the middle of the night anyway, but I’ve been constantly checking on them, willing them to be healthy, and desperately searching Google. When it comes to anything stressful that might be playing on your mind, whether it is your own health or that of a loved one, Google is the devil incarnate! It is always a death sentence and you always feel worse than before you started. They say ‘knowledge is power’ but often it is more like a horror film. Every picture of a sick fish I see in Facebook groups now must be suffering from Mycobacteriosis (MB)/Fish TB. It is a vicious cycle of worrying, Googling, worrying and Googling.
So if I’m now a nervous wreck, how must my poor fish be feeling? Well, Jampa, Zhi-Zhi, Bankei and Bodhi who are all currently in the tub (which I’m calling ‘camp’ as though they’re on a little holiday) are all quite happy. I was hoping they’d be enjoying the castle more than they are, but on the whole, they seem quite happy. Dharma, Lotus and Aggy in the main tank, on the other hand, are having their ups and downs.
Dharma seems much less floaty than he was. To my surprise, the Interpet swim-bladder treatment seems to be helping. On a night, I often spot him sleeping much lower in the tank than he was, unaided by the plant pot, and usually at the end closest my bed. Bless his little heart, he does love his fishy-momma. Aggy is pretty much the same. I think she’s fairly chilled out at the best of times. Lotus is still spending far too much time in that plant pot, even without Dharma!
Worrying about Lotus got me really thinking. She worries about Dharma as much as I do. They are inseparable. The reason they’re in the same tank together right now is because she can’t be separated from him for too long. Maybe she is stressed out? It must be horrible to see your best friend so ill and be utterly powerless to do anything. It is bad enough being the one with Google, but to be a fish?
Lots of things can cause stress in fish:
Bad water quality/the wrong pH/the wrong temperature
Massive changes in environment, like moving house, or sudden changes in the above conditions
Too much light/noise
Bullies
Actual illness
Mourning
So, in brutal honesty with myself, I considered these factors. My fish were subject to nasty water during fluke treatment because I was categorically told by Waterlife, in response to my email, not to change the water during treatment. Instead, I did my best and added more Prime to neutralise some of the nasties in there. I also rinsed out the filter media in a bucket of tank water and rinsed out the pebbles for the plants to remove excess poop.
Then, there was the massive change in environment. Four of my baby fish were removed and put in another tank, the amount of water in the main tank was reduced by half, and then there was the massive water change. I even tried adding more ornaments into the tank, in the hope that it might interest them to come out a bit more.
When it comes to light and noise, I’m working on this one. Covering the tank with a blanket will certainly help, especially at night. I could almost be tempted to move out of my bedroom for a couple of days, just to give them more peace and quiet!
There aren’t any bullies in the tank and I’m not aware of any physical symptoms of illness beyond the lethargy and hiding.
Now to mourning. Yes, goldfish are not heartless creatures and they do form strong bonds. They don’t mate for life but they do recognise when their friends are missing. The big reason why Lotus is in the same tank as Dharma while I look after him is because being without him would be too stressful. Aggy also likes to watch me and got really depressed in the translucent tub – her eyesight isn’t great anyway with her being a black moor. She doesn’t appear to have a special friend in the tank like Dharma and Lotus are to each other, but she definitely appreciates my company. It wouldn’t surprise me if Lotus was wondering where the four babies are, and worrying about Dharma.
So now I am working on ensuring as stress-free environment as I possibly can for the three fish in the main tank. Less light and noise for better rest, a good diet, water changes, and aquarium salt. The aquarium salt, I worried, would be counter productive for Dharma so I had avoided it until now. Epsom salts are the way to treat a floaty goldfish as they help ease constipation and any excess fluids. Aquarium salts don’t. They can, however, help treat a stressed goldfish and I have been known to call them ‘fishy Prozac’ for a reason! I have added perhaps a tablespoon and a half (very gradually) to the 90 litres in the tank and I did a 50% water change last night. I added in the medication for swim bladder I would have removed, and Dharma is no more floaty than he was before. He can still rest in the middle of the tank (with only slow floatiness to the top, if at all). Their diet is much more ‘fish friendly’ and I seem to be turning into the Gwyneth Paltrow of fish food. Now, it is only leafy greens and PROPER fish food for protein – daphnia, bloodworms and brine shrimp.
So Dharma spent most of the afternoon in his plant pot.
I cracked after thirty-six hours and fed him about twenty minutes ago with a frozen pea, blanched in garlic water. Now he is zooming all over the tank. Perhaps it is something to do with the little flecks of garlic handing around?
I prepared a small clove of garlic with a little garlic grater. It mushes it up more than anything else, but it releases all the good oils. I popped the garlic goop into a little ramekin, added three frozen peas (one for each fish in the main tank) and some water to the mixture. It was microwaved for thirty seconds and then the peas were peeled. Goldfish can’t eat the outer skins of peas and need then innards breaking up a bit more.
After each fish was fed their pea, I dropped the garlic mix into the water. This may sound like an odd thing to do but garlic is quite popular amongst fish keepers as a means of preventing disease. Some say it helps, some say it doesn’t. Quite what it helps with, how and why are disputed. At this point, I’m willing to try anything – even if my fish tank does stink to high heaven! On the upside, I can virtually guarantee that I wont be visited by any vampires this evening!
Immediately, I saw a little Dharma poop. When I say little, it wasn’t the usual sink-clencher! It was a reasonably sized goldfish poop. I had noticed quite a bit of poop this morning actually, at the bottom of the tank. You see, this is why I’m so obsessed with my goldfishes’ bowel movements – they really do tell me a lot about their health. The last thing Dharma ate was frozen daphnia and that was thirty six hours ago. His little poop was the same colour. With goldfish poop, the colour that goes in should be the colour that comes out. More on poop can be found here, and more on constipated fish can be found here.
He’s still whizzing around the tank and seems more active now that I have seen him in days. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, but I have hope.
Well the past week has been a strange mix! For a couple of weeks, I’ve noticed some unusual behaviour in my fish. Aggy, in particular was spending a lot of her time in a corner, at the bottom of the tank. Bankei and Lotus were too, but a bit more active. Dharma was pretty lethargic and seemed a bit floaty. Jampa and Zhi-Zhi seemed ok, but more than half my tank weren’t behaving like normal.
There’s a few things I could put this down to. It is getting very warm in my bedroom and the change in temperature may be having an effect. Given the size of the tank, I wouldn’t have expected that much effect though. Another thing is that in throwing out my sleeping pattern, I may have thrown out their’s. I had to pull an all-nighter this week to get some work finished, and I’d already had a couple of very late nights. Add this into the longer days, and they’re probably as exhausted as I am. At least they didn’t manage to eat half a tub of ice-cream on the stairs because they needed the sugar boost just to get back up the stairs! All-nighters used to be a lot easier! When did I get so old?!
Given I’ve seen a few damaged fins, another logical cause would be flukes. It would make sense if Bankei brought them into the tank with him. I wasn’t sure if his gills were a pinky colour because that was his colouration or not but it could be that he’s brought the little parasites in with him. This is my fault as I should have quarantined him for longer. That said, if I’d kept him in the small tank, he’d be far too warm and displaying similar behaviour.
I did a bit of research and came up with this. It sounds about right:
Split fins – check
Clamped fins – hmmm maybe
Disinterest in food – definitely not
Less activity than normal -most definitely
A goldfish isolating itself from the others -definitely
A goldfish rubbing or scratching itself against tank furniture, which is known as “flashing” – possibly
If nothing else, I decided to treat for flukes because I never have. It’s one of those things that you should do, but I never have because I never really needed to.
It may seem strange to at Bodhi at this point but to me, I’m already treating my tank so let’s treat him too.
I went to my preferred fish shop the other day for some medicine and advice. They’re trying to beat internet prices and I really want to support them. That said, their advice wasn’t great. Apparently, I should only be doing a 25% water change weekly on my overstocked tank. They mistook my mention of Seachem Prime with Tetra Prima pellets etc. I don’t know how good this ‘Waterlife’ brand of fluke treatment is, but at least I feel like I’m doing something. Fingers crossed they get well soon!
I’m now on the third day of treatment and, with the exception of Aggy, everyone is looking a bit more pepped up. I don’t know if she’s bored, lonely, or what. I just want them all to be happy and healthy!
I’ve also been fasting my fish a little more than usual. In no small part, this is because I’ve been so crazily busy that I haven’t had the time to keep looking at them begging in their tank. It’s also because they haven’t been begging. When they have been fed, they’re their usual crazy selves who go nuts for food. I’m constantly paranoid about Dharma’s bloatiness so this has been a good opportunity to help him. I fasted them for a day, fed them peas the next and frozen daphnia the day after. I don’t want to have to isolate Dharma but I think I may have to, if only to fast him for a few days. Perhaps some shallow water will do him good too.He’s already had an Epsom salt bath this week but another may be in order. So might some more peas!
Imagine your favourite food.Now imagine you have to eat that every day for a month. Do you think it would still be your favourite food? If you had chosen to eat it every day for a month, it might be a little different, but if it was effectively force-fed to you, or there was no other option, I imagine you would get fed up with it pretty quickly.
My grandfather used to joke that he could never tell my grandmother that he liked something or he’d forever be eating it. Shortly after he passed away, I fell victim to this. We stayed with my gran to keep her company, help arrange the funeral, help around the house, and then it was Christmas. We must have lived with her for a month or so. Chocolate mousse started out as a lovely treat, but by the end of that month, I couldn’t even look at one without feeling ill.Even now, I’m reluctant to tell my gran if there’s a food I particularly enjoy! A year of pesto and pasta twice a week resulted in my not being able to eat it for over a year and I don’t think I’ll ever truly love chocolate mousse in the same way.
The thing is, it’s my gran’s way of showing her love. She’s a truly wonderful lady who I love to bits. I really don’t know what I’d do without her. When she knows what a person likes, she will be first in line to give it to them. She’s kind, loving, generous and amazing company.
I’m proud to say that take after my gran in a lot of ways. We have an awful lot in common and can spend hours chatting and ‘putting the world to rights’. One way that I take after her is that if I know someone likes to eat something, I will go out of my way to feed it to them. Sometimes, this can be a very good thing. Other times, I worry that I’m getting monotonous and boring.
I’ve also noticed that I was doing this with my fish. They went crazy for the gel food when I first started giving it to them, but today they didn’t seen quite as excited. Variety is the spice of life, even if you’re a goldfish.
I have lots of different types of food in stock to feed them so I should be able to give them a good variety.
I have flakes which I don’t like to feed because of the quality and that they would gulp at the surface and swallow water. For particularly tiny fish, like Aggy and Jampa when they were babies, and before I learned how to syringe pellets, flakes were a great way of getting them to eat.
I have Aquarian pellets which I didn’t like to use because I thought they were making Dharma particularly bloaty. I swapped them out for Hikari Oranda pellets as I had heard great things about the brand, wanted to improve wen growth, they were more nutritious and I hoped would help Dharma’s tummy trouble. I’ve since started putting the Aquarian pellets in the gel food for the vitamins they contain so they wont be wasted.
I have Hikari algae wafers which were another attempt at laxatives and variety. These prove very popular with my fish! They were a great thing for them to eat while I was away for Christmas as they were a clear portion for my housemate to drop in the tank.
In the freezer, I keep frozen Daphnia and frozen Bloodworm. Daphnia, otherwise known as ‘water fleas’ are a great source of food for goldfish and they love to chase lumps of it around the tank. It also helps keep their tummies moving. A great link to information about daphnia is here. One day, I would love to cultivate my own daphnia, but for now, I’m quite happy with the frozen variety. Bloodworms are the larvae of midges – those pesky little bugs that bite in the height of summer (not mosquitoes!). They’re a great treat but both of these frozen foods I probably only give once a week, or so, each. I’m also a little concerned about bloodworms as it is possible to have an allergic reaction to them and develop allergies to them over time. If I’m ever going to grow live food, I’ll stick the the daphnia!
My gel food has been a real hit, but I’m really pleased that I made two varieties!
I keep several different live plants in my tank, in the hope that my fish will eat them. They love the marimo moss ball, and I’m beginning to see more leaves being eaten on some of the plants. Plants offer a great way to filter out nitrates (although not a lot, so changing the tank water is still a must!) and a little something for them to nibble on, should they feel peckish.
Fruits aren’t something I really like to feed to my fish as they tend to be quite high in sugar. I do like to give them vegetables though. They don’t seem to know what to do with leafy greens like spinach, but they love blanched peas (with the skins removed), brocolli, leek and the occasional slice of cucumber. The carrots I tried weren’t blanched enough and didn’t go down well at all. Sometimes, I’ll pop in a whole slice of cucumber and watch as they chase it around the tank. Other times, I’ll chop it into smaller pieces (without the skin), and let them go to town on it. It can also be weighted down with a fork (ensure the tines of the fork face the bottom of the tank to avoid injury to the fish!). Peas and leeks tend to be the ones I go for if I suspect any constipation as they really seem to get things moving.
So like humans, goldfish love to mix it up and try something different. A less healthy treat is perfectly acceptable every once in a while, but not at the expense of healthy eating. I say this like I eat healthily – which I categorically don’t! Healthy food doesn’t have to be boring or tasteless. I’ve made some delicious food for myself that can be considered very healthy, and it is quite clear that my goldfish love my cooking. Keeping dinner times healthy and interesting, at least for my fish, is a real winner!
So Wednesday was a day of ups and downs. I attempted making my own gel food, I did a water change, and I started to notice some changes in my fish.
On the plus side, Bankei is really making himself at home. He has also worked out how to eat peas. When he was in quarantine, he didn’t seem to understand that they were food. Perhaps now he is under the fins of his big brothers and sisters, they are teaching him that peas are tasty! Actually, today he’s going at the leek too and loving it!
Another plus side is that Zhi-Zhi has stopped with the really gassy poops! Her poops were twice as long as she was and I genuinely couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. She seems to be much better in that respect. It is quite difficult to get the right amount of food to each fish, given they are all different sizes. With Zhi-Zhi and Bankei being so small, I worry that they are going to get drastically overfed. Jampa manages just great but Aggy was never too great at finding her own food and I worry that I have been overfeeding her too.
Aggy has been bottom sitting for a while now. I have absolutely no idea why as she has no other physical symptoms. Initially, I put this down to being in the plastic tub I had to use when I thought my old tank was leaking. One very long poop the other day did make me think she might be constipated so, along with every other fish in the tank, she is on a diet. They really don’t seem to mind though as they love their peas, leek and daphnia. She still bottom sits though. I know this is how she likes to sleep, but she’s been doing this more and more. I worry about the health of all of my fish and I would really hate to lose any of them. In desperation last night, I considered it may be an internal issue and not constipation. The colour of her poop was the same as what I had fed her earlier that day so constipation didn’t seem to be much of an issue anymore. Instead, I did an aquarium salt bath with her in case there were any internal bacterial or parasitical issues I couldn’t see. It didn’t really change much though. One minute she’s quite happy and swimming around, the next she’s bottom sitting. I’m keeping a close eye on her in the meantime…
I’ve been making a lot of use out of my turkey baster. I’m not overly impressed with my new filter. It may filter nine times the tank capacity every hour but it isn’t so great for the debris! Having the outflow aimed into the tank just creates a massive current and the poop still stays at the wrong end of the tank. Having the outflow directed at the wall of the tank (so my fish don’t get exhausted! isn’t massively helping either.
Even though I did a big old water change yesterday, the amount of poop produced by my fish was amazing! To be fair, I had given them peas so they had a really good clear out. I use the turkey baster to collect any excess debris I see on the tank floor. At the moment, it is particularly useful because I don’t want my fish overeating by eating poop! The quantity of poop and how often I seem to be using my turkey baster makes me realise I am committing the sin of overfeeding. I don’t like to admit it, but I am.This is one of the big reasons for trying gel food.
My attempt at gel food didn’t go very well. it is still in the fridge but hasn’t really set properly. Looking at it, it is surprisingly orange so I’m thinking I may try again with more green veggies. This can only be a good thing for them anyway so I’m not too disappointed.It was fun and messy to make but I think I should have mixed more gelatine with more water, rather than just adding the gelatine to the mix. I thought it was liquid enough but apparently not.
Finally, in my mixed bag of a day, Lotus got herself stuck under the filter! After everything I said about Dharma getting himself stuck next to the filter, I couldn’t believe that I’d been daft enough to allow her to get stuck there. She’s perfectly fine about it though, and seemed to brush it off very quickly. So did I, actually. I knew she couldn’t have been there for very long and I knew from Dharma that it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It is another thing to think about in the future though!
For the past week, I’ve noticed a lot of strange things about Zhi-Zhi’s diet. Firstly, she’s been fasted, given peas and daphnia (both laxatives) and an Epsom salt bath and yet she still is pooping like crazy!
I mean, where on earth is it coming from? We’re talking about dookies twice her size… and then she keeps on pooping! It just keeps on coming!
I’m actually getting quite worried because these are real signs of constipation – her poop is very long and there are often air bubbles in it. The problem is that she still keeps on with the poop! Goldfish are really messy fish and produce an awful lot of waste at the best of times. That she poops really often is, in that respect, a very good thing. The length and the air bubbles really do concern me. So trying to put her on a diet doesn’t seem to have done much good and I’m taking matters into my own hands.
I noticed she was spending a lot of time sifting through the substrate in the pots holding my live plants. This is a perfectly normal thing for fish to do but it can also harbour a lot of waste. I can only imagine that Zhi-Zhi is finding the cheats to her diet in the substrate. Yep, goldfish eat poop.
Today I popped into the city centre and picked up some large pebbles from a local shop. They were inexpensive and I’ve since come home and replaced all the gravel in the pots with these pebbles. Normally, I wouldn’t do such a major change as all the surfaces on the gravel support the beneficial bacteria. There are still all the surfaces on the live plants, pots, ornaments, tank walls, filter and filter media etc though. I just had to do something!
I have since seen the little sod go and nibble at the underside of the filter! I imagine she must have found a nice little stash of poop there!
I am armed with a turkey baster and I know how to use it! I see poop, I go in and suck it up! There is nowhere for the poop to hide and be eaten later as a cheat!
I also picked up some vegetarian gelatine, some baby food and some tuna in spring water. I’m going to look up some gel food recipes and try those. They should really help with getting the right nutrition to my fish and add plenty of veggies into their diet to avoid constipation in the future.
I finally found some glass marbles too! Shockingly, having bought my fish this new toy, they couldn’t care less…
I feel like I’ve raided her fridge and cupboards, removing anything that isn’t salad…
Having mentioned constipation in another post, it seems only right to give constipation its own post. It is something that my goldfish have had long standing issues with. I think Dharma is genetically predisposed to it and I’m a sucker for the ‘but Mom! We’re hungry!’ dance.
I really enjoy spending time with my fish so I’m quite aware of how often and how well they poop. Because fish poop is such a great indicator of health, I’m really glad I do this!
If I suspect any issues with constipation, I will do my utmost to fast them for a couple of days. This is often easier when I’m out of the house or away at my boyfriend’s for the weekend because I can’t succumb to the ‘feed me dance’. It’s lovely that they spend so much time watching me watching them, but it is torturous to feel so mean! I also try to cut down on feedings in general.
Ever heard the phrase ‘killing with kindness’? Well that’s what a lot of people do with fish. They see the ‘hungry dance’ and feed their fish. Instinctively, we may want to care for and love our fish, but feeding them isn’t the only way to show love. Remember how Lenny in Of Mice and Men has a habit of petting mice so much that he kills them? Yeah, it’s like that with fish and feeding. It is done with the best of intentions but really isn’t healthy.
(EDIT: JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR, DON’T TRY TO CUDDLE YOUR GOLDFISH!)
In the second instance, I will give them a treat of peas. I don’t really like to eat peas but I still keep a bag of peas in the freezer just for the fish! In fact, most of my drawer in the freezer is filled with food for the fish…
Take one pea per fish and pop it in a mug or other heatproof container. You may wish to defrost the pea in a little tank water but I choose to put some boiling or warm water over it. After a minute or so, I remove the peas which should now be defrosted. I then remove the outer skin of the pea and break it up into smaller pieces (depending on the size of the fish) and add to the tank. The fish go crazy for it!
Another thing I sometimes do is to add a little freshly grated garlic to the water and let it sit for a few minutes. I will then add the peas and let them soak up some of the garlic goodness. Garlic is a natural antibiotic and while I wouldn’t put a whole clove in the tank, I might add a little of the garlic water too.
If I’m really, really worried, I might add some epsom salts to the pea water and let them soak up some of this water. I will then add this water to the tank too.
Epsom salts are a really handy thing to have around the house. They are a natural laxative for humans and fish, but are also great if you have any aches and pains. Adding a little to a bath can really help sore muscles. It is also very inexpensive and available from most pharmacies/chemists.Trying to explain what you’re using it for can lead to some interesting conversations too! I may add a tablespoon or two to the tank (180 litres) or I may give my fish what I call a ‘spa day’. This is the same as the salt dip Solid Gold does but this really helps relieve internal pressure, particularly on the swim bladder, and helps the fish with their ‘movements’. I will put in a tablespoon or two in half a bucket of tank water and leave the fish in there for a little while -perhaps five or ten minutes. The video for this is here:
Epsom salts aren’t something I do regularly, except with Dharma. Because I suspect genetic problems with his swim bladder owing to his floatiness, I might do an epsom salt bath on him once a month or so, or whenever he seems especially floaty.
AQUARIUM SALTS WILL JUST MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE! AVOID IF YOU CAN!
A varied diet is a good thing for fish and humans and I like to give my fish all the variety I can. Frozen daphnia acts as a laxative and has a little more nutritional value than peas so my fish get this at least once a week. They also have live plants to nibble on for fibre although this is really neither here nor there as they don’t really eat them. Dharma is a big fan of the marimo moss ball (the most expensive plant in the tank, of course) but otherwise, they don’t really tend to eat the plants.
Sometimes I might take a slice of cucumber and chop it up into fish-mouth sized pieces and add that to the tank. They really seem to love that! A slice of cucumber can also be added to the tank attached to a dinner fork. I would make sure the tines are facing downward though, to avoid any injuries to your fish. Spinach said to be popular with some people’s fish but mine just can’t seem to get the hang of it. Carrots did not go down well… I will mention that episode another time.
Algae wafers are a favourite in my tank. I tend to break them up into smaller pieces and distribute them around the tank so everyone gets a turn. They really are that popular! I’ve seen Dharma hiding them behind ornaments and plants so only he knows where they are.
Sinking pellets and avoiding flakes help with constipation as gulping at the surface for food will add air into the digestive tract and can cause constipation. If you see air bubbles in the poop, there is probably a constipation issue!
So actually, I’ve spent a long time contemplating my fishes’ poop. I’ve mentioned before that there are lots of life lessons to be found keeping pets and it may sound strange but I really think there are several in goldfish poop.
Firstly, shit happens. It’s normal. It’s natural. n fact, it’s healthy. Without poop, the fish would die. As I love my fish, I love their poop. I want them to live long, happy, healthy lives and their poop is a part of that. Sometimes bad things (in that respect, poop) will happen but without them, I couldn’t appreciate the wonderful things my fish bring to my life.
A lot of it is a question of attitude. I’m a big fan of Ajahn Brahm and he is the reason I got goldfish to begin with.Sometimes I take his Dharma talks in the abstract but my goldfish have taken some of these and brought them completely into my life. One story is the simile of the chicken farmers. What we do with the poop that life brings us is important.
Another story he tells (at 30 minutes but I really recommend watching the whole video!) is about his attitudes to his own poop. It seems like a really silly story and not necessarily something you’d want to talk about at Google but he does make a really good point.
GOOGLE POOP
Cleaning out their tank and their filter is my way of showing them love. I give them all the very best I can but in the right amounts. There is being kind and there is being mindful but when the two are combined, they produce the very best results. Another of his talks on what he calls ‘kindfulness’ is here:
This is why I love my fish… I learn so much from them!
Goldfish poop can be one of the best ways to tell the health of your fish. My friends would tell you that I have an unnatural obsession with the poop of my goldfish but the truth is that I’m just concerned for their well-being. On several occasions, I have dubbed myself the ‘Gillian McKeith of goldfish poop’ because of this alleged obsession.
There was a TV show here in the UK in the early 2000’s called You are what you eat (presented by said Gillian McKeith) and never has a truer word been spoken. My diet is very student-y but my goldfish have a healthy and varied diet to ensure they poop. Even then, we still have some issues.
(Above is an image of Gillian McKeith!)
Dharma has always worried me in terms of his constipation. Recently, with the change of filter (oddly), he seems to be much more inclined to poop. Zhi-Zhi is also pooping an awful lot but there are lots and lots of air bubbles inside which makes me think she is constipated too. The others seem to be very healthy in their pooping – especially Lotus whom I have dubbed ‘the queen of dookie’. I don’t know how she feels about this but I intend it as a compliment.
Goldfish poop should look exactly like the food they have ingested and should sink. If they have been eating veggies or live plants, the poop will be green. If they have been eating pellets, it should be the colour of the pellets. If they have been eating frozen daphnia, it will look a little paler than normal. If they have been eating frozen blood worm, it will look like they’re pooping blood worms – which looks horrendous!
If in doubt, try a big old water change. I’m convinced that my fish wait for me to do a big water change before emptying themselves! It’s like washing your car and knowing that it will be used as target practice by the local avian community! Improving water conditions is always the first thing to do if you suspect a fish isn’t healthy. Adding something like Seachem Prime or Seachem Safe also really helps with stress. Yes, fish get stressed too! However, if you suspect constipation, swim bladder problems or dropsy, DO NOT ADD AQUARIUM SALT! While it may help stress, it will make these problems worse. Epsom salts would be a far safer option.
Try fasting and observing your fish for a few days. They will give you lots of attention as they beg for food! ‘But Mooooooom/Daaaaaad! We’re hungry!!!!!!’ will be in their eyes. Don’t be fooled! Goldfish are perpetually hungry anyway (or think they are) because they don’t have stomachs as such. They are always rooting around for some tasty morsel at the bottom of the tank and this is normal.
After a couple of days of fasting, you could try a little pea and see how they respond. Peas are great fish laxatives because they’re full of fibre. I try not to give them peas too often as I still want them to be absorbing nutrients from their food, but they make a great treat. A pea can be dropped in a little boiling water for a minute or so to defrost it and/or soften it. The outer skin of the pea is then removed and the pea can then be broken up a little (consider the size of your goldfish’s mouth) and fed to the fish. You might also consider adding a little epsom salts to the water to infuse into the pea. If you suspect a bacterial issue, you might also consider adding some freshly grated garlic to the boiling water and letting the pea infuse in that for a few moments. Garlic is an excellent natural antibacterial. It makes the tank water smell a bit bizarre, though!
I think an extra post about constipated goldfish may be in order! If there are still issues with the poop, you might consider medication but, for me, this is always a last resort.
Zhi-Zhi is quite greedy and I worry that she overeats. Her diet is varied with pellets (sinking using the syringe method mentioned elsewhere), veggies (specifically peas and leeks), frozen daphnia and frozen bloodworms. So at this point, all I can put it down to is over eating. The difficulty is that I need to put enough food in the tank for all the fish to eat, without overfeeding her. This is something I really need to work on and I am trying to think of safe ways to put her on a diet without compromising the others.
Dharma is a big fan of the marimo moss ball. Some goldfish owners worry about their fish eating the live plants but, aside from this moss ball, mine tend to leave them alone. It is typical that they’d go for the most expensive plant in the tank! For me, anything I can do to give them a varied diet and provide a little interest in the tank is always a good thing…
Goldfish Fables 