I've got a regular gold fish, nothing special.

However he has stopped swimming these days unless he absoultely has too. He just sits at the bottom of the tank, motionless. Somedays I have to prod him to check he is still alive.

He is 5 years old, he's got a pretty big tank, there used to be 3 of them but the other 2 died, the water is changed regularly, its got a filter and small air pump. The tank as a few decorations but nothing overwhelming.

Is it possible he is bored without the other fish?

Is he old and dieing?

Your ideas would be apprecaited.

Thanks

He certainly isnt old and dying, he isnt even half way through life yet. The filter in the tank, what type is it and how do you clean it? Also, how big is the tank?

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Sounds like you are doing everything right, my suggestions would be get another gold fish in there, see if he perks up at all, apart from that im pretty stumped, have you tested the water?

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Jonny.



Current Pets:
2 Cats (Norman and Lady)
4 Crested Geckos (Bert, Bob, Winston & Freckles)
2 Rabbits (Dave and Smudge)
4 Corn snakes (Flow, Poppy, Rambo and Asriel)
1 Royal Python (Rose)
6 Leopard Geckos
R.I.P Clio (Crested gecko)

And one lovely girlfriend

Maybe add some more oxygen to the water? Is he struggling to swim?

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Reptiles
1.0.0 Corn Snake - Kiwi
0.0.1 Albino Black Ratsnake - Baldrick
1.0.0 Banded Cali king - KitKat
0.2.0 NEW Baby Leopard Geckos - Spyro and Yoshii (Original :P)

Fish
0.0.46 Tropical Fish (4 Platies, 15 Red Phantoms, 3 Angels, 1 Albino Cory Cat, Brown Hoplo Catfish, 2 Dwarf Gouramis, 5 Clown Loaches, 12 Buenos Aires Tetras, 2 Small Gourami Things, 1 Betta Splendens, (Named Betta cos he's betta than all the rest))
0.0.2 Goldfish - Fluffy and Mr. T

Domestics
1.1.0 Cats - Holly and Cola

<3
0.1.0 Mental Girlfriend - Lucy

Sounds like you should get a bigger tank with bigger filtration. Goldfish are very messy and need large filtration.

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Here are some pics of the fish.

I think the tank is 35 litres, well it takes 4, 8 litre bucket fulls to fill it.

Here is the fish with a wide shot to show how big the tank is:



Here is a closer shot of the fish so you can see he is health;



And here is what he does for most of the day, sits on the botton in this position.



The pet shop (Pets at Home) advise against putting another fish in with him as he is so big now in comparsion to the little ones, and he may overwhelm it, not sure about that myself, but thats what they said.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that tank is far too small for a common goldfish.
Goldfish need a lot of swimming space and your tank does not provide enough room. The minimum tank size would be round 50 US Gallons.

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Indeed far too small.

I had to laugh at your old and dying comment, goldfish live longer than dogs, there was one on the news recently that had made it past, 15yrs. People are often under the impression they dont live very long simply because so many people dont keep them correctly, and assume that when they die it wa being they were old rather then sick and ill housed.

Marina

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Yeah, there's a goldfish in the news atm and people seem to think it's a miracle that this old woman has a 15" goldfish, when really that's just normal sized lol

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Hi you need to get a bigger tank and when you clean it out only change a quarter to half max of the water not all of it.Do you use water conditioner?