Can a goldfish live upside down?

[Theonewiththehair]

I know you are all serious about your fish and I don't want to seem trivial but my dd won a fish at a fair 6 years ago and she loves it. It has had various times of being on it's last legs but always seems to recover. This time it is struggling to stay on it's front and keeps rolling over. What can I do to help it? Is this the end? Thanks in advance.

Sounds like swim bladder disorder. I think you can get some stuff from aquatics shops to treat it with? Go to a proper place, not a big pet shop chain like pets at home etc.

I think that can mean its been overfed. I heard something like that on OI

Thank you Bertie. I will try that. She could recover then?

Actually from more googling it does look like overfeeding can be the cause - and water quality.

Definitely go to an aquatics shop for advice, the stuff online seems to be copied all over the place but none of the sites seem that convincing.

Definitely not overfed. Sometimes the opposite though :). Dd Is 8 and is learning to take care of it herself. Needs lots of reminders from me atm.

Yes. Could be the water.

Thank you to you aswell Coco.

Swim bladder issues can be caused by a number of things, overfeeding and constipation can be one of them and it's easy enough to fix if that is the case so you could first try adding some roughage to her diet- skinned, squished peas usually have the desired effect! After that you could add some veg to her diet every couple of days.

Infections can also cause swim bladder problems, if this is the case then you'd be best speaking to an expert. This may be an aquatic shop but more than likely a local aquatic club or online fishkeeping forum is the best way to go. Aquatic shops are not very reliable on giving advice and it can be hard to tell whether they actually know what they are doing.

If she's a fancy goldfish (one of the fat round ones) then it could be genetic. They are bred to look a certain way and this is often at the expense of health- think pedigree dogs but worse. If fish become stunted by being kept in a too-small aquarium then swim bladder issues are often one of the first signs of stunting. How big is the tank?

The tank is small. Just a round 10" bowl really. She's not really fancy and she came from a fair so I don't imagine she had the best of starts.

I got something called swimbladder treatment from an aquatics centre so will give it a try.

How big is a tank supposed to be for 1 goldfish? She's about 2 1/2 inches nose to tip.

Also how do I add veg to her diet? I have just always given her fish food from the supermarket. Is that very wrong? I'm now wondering how I've kept her alive for the last 6 years. .

Typing one handed so sorry for typos.

Goldfish can be tough but they live an awfully long time if cared for properly.

They can eat all kinds of veg, just blanch it ffirst to help soften it up a bit. Romaine lettuce goes down pretty well. You can weigh it down with a teaspoon or buy clips for it from an aquatic store or ebay if you want. Whatever veg you give just make sure it's rinsed and soft and remove tough skins from peas, sweetcorn etc. Flake food is OK as a staple but it's good to supplement it.

Make sure you're sitting down when you read this about tank sizes.

Can't rehouse it or dd will be devastated. Also I don't think I know anyone that could fit a 4 foot tank in their house. I will get a bigger one but that seems excessive for one goldfish.

Thanks for all the answers though and I am going to start adding veg. It makes a lot of sense.

A four foot tank!!!

It does seem excessive at first but once you've seen a healthy fully grown goldfish you begin to understand why they need that space! It's not just the space either, it's the water volume- goldfish put out a lot of waste and the water quality drops pretty quickly in a small tank.

Take a look at these beauties-

Common goldfish

Fancy goldfish

They may not all get that big, but the certainly all have the potential.

Obviously it's your call about whether or not you can give your fish what she needs but there's not much point treating any illnesses with medication because it's pretty likely that the problems are caused by stunting and water quality issues, neither of which can be remedied without a larger tank. Sorry if that's not what you want to hear :(

Thanks EauRouge. You've actually been great. Think I just need to get my head round the fact that I have been cruel through ignorance and now I need to do something about it.

I also thought that when people say fish grow to the size of the tank that it didn't do any harm. Feel a bit thick now actually. .

I will let you know how I get on. Think it's time dd cleared some space in her bedroom!

You are by no means the first or last to do this, that's how pretty much every fishkeeping career begins. I remember moving my poor old goldfish into the tank size they needed after they were living in what I thought was a palatial huge tank (it was less than half the size they needed). The difference was incredible! They were so much happier and healthier.

I wish shops would do more to warn people about how much goldfish need to be healthy :( Don't blame yourself, it happens so often and it can happen to anyone.