Why isn’t my goldfish eating?
I purchased my common goldfish little (named Fish Lightyear) over three weeks ago. Everything looked like it was going well until I had to move him and the tank back home on Friday. I did a 100% water change that same day because the water was really cloudy from the tank moving around so much. Now my little guy seems to have stopped eating. I tried to feed him this morning and he put some of the flakes in his mouth, but then spit them out. He keeps erratically swimming around the tank and towards the edges. Once, he settled down near the bottom of the tank and I saw one of his gills wasn’t moving. It started moving again, but he is still acting strange.
He is in a 1.5 gallon tank (which is more tall than it is wide) with an air filter and light. I put multicolored gravel and a plastic plant in there to enhance his environment. I even tried giving him a slice of orange to eat, but he is not paying any attention to it. I am very new to this so I keep trying to look up different things, but there are so many possible answers that I just don’t know what to do. I’m afraid that if I don’t figure out something soon, he is going to die. =(
If you need more information please feel free to ask me any more questions and I will do my best to answer them.
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The 1.5g is the problem, the stress of moving and undoubtedly poor water quality will be caused the lethargy. If you tried to filter that tank enough to support a Goldfish it would be like putting the poor thing in a washing machine!
Common Goldfish are BIG fish. Here is one that’s only a year and half old!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUtajoVi8qw
That thing’s tail wouldn’t even fit in a 1.5g!
Common Goldfish are pond fish that ideally need at least a 55 gallon over filtered tank for one. A 1.5g tank will kill your fish. They are often marketed for small tanks, but this is very very very very wrong! They are actually pretty high maintenance and expensive fish to keep.
As for the 1.5g tank, I personally wouldn’t keep anything in such a tiny volume of water.
you should avoid doing 100% water changes it shocks the fish and can bring on all sorts of problems.
did you treat the water with a dchlorinator before adding the fish (or stand it for at least 24hrs) if not then the fish may be suffering from chlorine burns.
and im assuming that the fish is housed in such a small enclosure only as a temporary measure as it should have a minimum of ten gallons to avoid stunting and early death.
you might like to do a search on cycling a fish tank. There is a lot of info out there.