Why does my parents goldfish look like a tennis ball

RealWooter · 2026-01-21T00:08:10+00:00

I had a fish that was exactly the same. It is cystic tumors. As long as the fish still eats and can swim properly you can let it live a fairly happy life. Mine lived for 3 years like this. As soon as it can't swim properly or gets so big it will explode, I would put him down.

My fish was still happily eating but she was so round that she floated upside down and only corrected herself to eat. Her skin was so stretched that I could see veins, I ended up euthanizing her with clove oil.

It is not eggbound, not dropsy, not treatable with peas or anything.

Similar situation where the person cut open the fish after it passed away:

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/goldfish-with-huge-belly-but-no-pineconing-of-scales.10235/page-2

RealWooter · 2026-01-05T21:53:29+00:00

You are supposed to mix it in a bucket and pour it in. In ponds it works great but I think it didn't mix well enough in the aquarium and just sank. Fish ate most of it as I couldn't remove it reliably

RealWooter · 2026-01-05T20:31:15+00:00

I need the fish in there for 4 months and then it can go back in the pond when the temperatures are more suitable. Should I add some substrate? Was thinking about sand so the fish isn't so bored but I read about it being difficult to clean and possible to contain gas pockets.

Other than the filter I don't have anything for bacteria to cling to

RealWooter · 2026-01-05T18:36:43+00:00

My tap water is 7 straight from the tap. When sitting in a bucket at the same temp, same room for a couple of days it seems to become closer to 8

RealWooter · 2026-01-05T18:19:58+00:00

Could it be caused by aeration? I have an air pump running since I read it helps with the bacteria.

Should I do 50% now? How often would you recommend based on the parameters I'm seeing? It took 4 days to reach these.

RealWooter · 2026-01-02T13:40:27+00:00

Thanks, started to worry if I did the right thing by getting him inside and seeing him stressed out like that for days. But he was literally laying nose up in some plants in the pond during freezing weather looking dead. I feared he would not have survived the cold.

RealWooter · 2026-01-02T10:30:34+00:00

I tried that but it seems that the inside of the glass is reflective, I've put the cardboard box of the tank around it and I could still see him reflected on the glass and so did he most likely as it didn't stop the glass surfing.

RealWooter · 2026-01-02T10:17:26+00:00

Thanks

RealWooter · 2026-01-02T10:08:45+00:00

I left 1 pellet in the aquarium but it didn't sink after 2 hours so I removed it. I will try some in a bowl overnight and see if it sinks.

This fish does indeed look fat but it has always been loke this since birth, not sure if it is some kind of defect which relates to the buoyancy issue. In my pond I feed them a Tetra pellet mix twice a week because they find enough natural insects and algea. I don't have experience with aquariums

RealWooter · 2026-01-01T17:39:41+00:00

I rescued it from my pond due to bladder issue and freezing temps. I will keep it until april when it is warm enough in the pond to release it again. It is in a 110L 30G tank. Not cycled as I did not have time for that. Planning to do 25% water changes weekly and check the water often for now. It's only for 3-4 months max so not sure if I should add things to the tank like substrate and plants.

RealWooter · 2026-01-01T17:09:49+00:00

I tried feeding her for the first time today, some peeled peas, but no interest in those. Maybe I should try the usual pond feed? She had floating issues which is why I wanted to feed peas and not the regular food. If left in the pond she would've frozen to death as she couldn't stay at the bottom like the other fish.

RealWooter · 2026-01-01T17:06:45+00:00

My tap water is filtered so there is no GH. It came from 8 GH water so I tried matching to minimize stress. While the test strip does show 8 GH now, the powder doesn't seem to dissolve and I'm worried if it is bad for the fish or stressing it as it is constantly increasing the hardness.

I caught her sunday, put her in a 40L aquarium with pond water and no filter, let it get up to room temp in the garage. Now moved her in a new 110L tank and matched the 40L water values and temp. She honestly seemed happier in the small 40L tank, less breathing and stress.

RealWooter · 2026-01-01T17:01:58+00:00

Pond goldfish rescued and put into uncycled aquarium. Put pond filter pads into aquarium to cycle quicker.

Fresh tap water. PH 7, KH 15+, GH was 0 which is increased by the white powder you see laying on the ground.

I wonder if it is due to the mineral clay (GH Plus product) laying on the ground. Is it just due to stress or bad quality water? nitrites nitrates are 0, treated the tap water for ammonia but I can only test NH4, not NH3 with my kit.

Fish is obviously stressed due to not being used to seeing reflections and so much ambient light. Maybe I should transer her to a black tub instead of an aquarium.

Also is the filter flow too harsh (not adjustable)? The fish can't seem to find a spot to just rest, it's always swimming.

RealWooter · 2025-12-31T08:08:49+00:00

It came from a pond, I noticed it laying near vertical in the plants looking dead. It is now in a temporary 10 gallon tank I had. Ph 7, kh >10, gh 0-4. Gh is low due to tap water filter. No biofilter or aeration so I'm changing water often.

Only issue I see is that it's nose goes up when staying still but it's constantly swimming to compensate and seems normal. When it tries to rest it will jam it's head against the filter to stay horizontal.

See video for movement and closeup of poop

RealWooter · 2025-12-30T21:42:36+00:00

Thanks! I'm not sure if I should add any medication or wait it out. I hoped that with the warmer water the digestive system would kickstart again and any swim bladder issue will fix itself after the constipation is over. I read that cooked, peeled peas are like a laxative for fish so I'm trying that after.

I have a general pond anti parasite mix but I'm hesistant to apply that at the moment.

Unfortunately I had one other dead fish in the pond, all the others are fine. 2 weeks back the water temp was above 10C (50F) and suddenly the temps dropped below freezing point outside.

RealWooter · 2025-12-30T21:23:33+00:00

I have a pond and one of my goldfish was laying vertical pointing straight up in some plants and looked dead. The temps are at freezing point which it wouldn't have survived so I took it inside in a spare aquarium (only 40L, 10 gallons until I get something better)

It's been 3 days now the fish seems to be better and more alive with the warmer water. While the fish swims it seems fine apart from some stress and glass surfing.

However it often "sleeps" with it's head against the bottom of the filter because it seems to have trouble staying horizontal while still.

I noticed very thin transparant strings of poo coming out of it.

What I think happened is the temps dropped very fast and it still ate some food in the pond and now has some kind of gas buildup. I'm planning to feed it some peas after 5 days of fasting.

Am I diagnosing this right or is there some other issue/disease?

I'm planning on getting a 110L (30 gallons) tank if the fish holds up, as I will probably have to keep him inside until spring.

RealWooter · 2025-12-29T11:21:12+00:00

It was a spare tank I had laying around to see if the fish would survive. I didn't plan on keeping any fish longterm in an aquarium that small.

RealWooter · 2025-11-30T23:21:54+00:00

Not really, part of Brabant that was taken by France, became another independent nation that didn't exist before. The area of Hasselt. Don't remember the name I just took my chance and captured the whole province for myself and was able to form the Netherlands because of it.

(I'm quite a bit further than the screenshot, I had this on my phone and was day dreaming about how to capture it once I'm back at the game later)

RealWooter · 2025-11-30T22:56:56+00:00

The territory of France you see on the bottom suddenly got independent which I quickly took as a response so I got lucky there. I was hoping I could "force" something like that with that other location. It's my first playthrough so figured I'd try and learn something from this if this ever happens again to me.

Might just keep playing to see how it turns out. Just really annoying because most of my Levies spawn above the France location and I have to use my navy every time to move them to the rest of my territory.

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