New goldfish with wonky looking mouth

[ThemeNights]

Please help. We got two goldfish 2 weeks ago. One is fine, the other was also fine until 2 days ago. Now it looks decidedly odd.

I noticed it wasn't eating. When we put food in the tank it would kind of swim towards it but not eat it. I scooped it out into a small bowl and had a look and it's head and mouth look deformed. It doesn't look as if it has lips at all.

The fish both come from the same place and don't seem to bother each other.

Is there any hope?

Got a photo of it? What are the water parameters and ha are you feeding?

Has it got something (gravel maybe) lodged in its mouth?

If I can get a photo I will. I don't think it's got anything lodged. I've been googling and it's returning results about fungal infections.

We have followed all the instructions re water treatment etc but are novices so maybe we're doing something wrong.

Have you done any tests on the water? Amonia/nitrite/nitrate/gH/pH?
How long did you leave the bank to cycle before you added fish?

Sorry for so many questions but can't give you a better idea until we can rule some things out.

Who gave you the instructions and what did they tell you? A lot of fish shops are actually pretty crap at giving advice, but it's not your fault- being a novice you'd think that would be the first place to go for advice. You might have got lucky and found a shop that knows what they're talking about.

We bought all the kit from one shop who are good and the fish from another place which was maybe not so good. I brought the fish and a water sample into the first place and the water was fine, but the fish wasn't :( he had a big injury to his mouth so the kindest thing was to put him to sleep. DD (5) is distraught.

They couldn't tell me how it happened, it might have been an existing injury that got worse, I don't think that the other fish was picking on him

We are going to do our best to look after the remaining fish.

Oh no, poor fish and poor DD :( Sounds like there's nothing you could have done.

Did the shop tell you to cycle the tank before adding fish? That would have meant setting it up and leaving it empty for about a month. If not then your fish is in an uncycled tank and you need to keep an eye on the water parameters. Either way, having your own test kit is an essential when keeping fish. Keep the water in good nick and the fish should follow suit.

How big is the tank? Goldfish grow absolutely enormous, and most shops won't tell you that the tiny baby fish you see might reach ten times that size.

Goldfish make lovely pets that can live for a long time (20 years!), but they do need the right environment.

Here is a link about the nitrogen cycle in fish tanks and here is an article about goldfish, they should help you out a bit.

Aww, sorry to hear you had to let him go.
Do lots of reading up, fish are tricker than you might think, and you other goldie should be with you for many years to come.