# Help for Wotsit!



## Staysee (Oct 19, 2009)

So last night i posted in the Rainbow Bridge section thinking Wotsit was a gonner.

Swim Bladder i believe it to be!

I was up til 2am watching him and decided i had to sleep, but couldnt just leave him in the tank with the minnoes, so i went downstairs and got a small tub out, filled it with bottled water and then carefully transferred him to it and put him safe and high from the cats.

If he was gonna die i know he'd pollute the tank so i thought if he dies its best in a seperate container, but also if the tanks bad then getting him into fresh water may help.

The tank still has minnoes in by the way and all are fine!

So he is still going this morning, so i tried a frozen pea, popped into boiling water [from the kettle] for a few minutes and tried to feed it it him but he spat it back out the two times he took the food from me.

As for his tank, i believe it to be this one from [email protected]
25 Litre Aquarium Black by Ciano Aquariums (Available In Store Only) | Pets at Home

It has him and i believe 6 minnoes, he has lived in smaller tanks before and always been fine, but i like to buy new tanks every so often and this one i've had since the start of May, i've not used the filtration system but i have it in my room and should start using it really!

Is there anything else i can do for him? I am gonna go down to pets at home later so if i can get him a certain food, a medecine etc then i will!

p.s I dont have any nitrate or any readings for the water cos i dont have a kit.


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## Staysee (Oct 19, 2009)

I also feed them a mix of....


Pets at Home own brand flake food.
Freeze dried Daphnia
Freeze dried Tubifex


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## ameliajane (Mar 26, 2011)

A 25L tank is _far_ too small for a goldfish. They need ponds or large (3-4foot or more) aquariums.

They also need excellent filtration - i'm not sure if i've understood properly but as i read it your tank has _no_ filtration.

Setting up the filter now unfortunately will make no difference as the filter will only be effective once it has become fully colonised by bacteria (a process called cycling) and this can take weeks.

The best thing you can do for Wotsit now is to put him/her into the largest body of water you can - the water must be treated with aquarium dechlorinator/tap water conditioner first - and then do regular (several times a day if possible) large water changes (also with treated water).

If he/she semms to be surviving this (which i'm afraid is unlikely) you then need to rehouse into a large tank or pond.

The minnows also need rehousing into a _much_ bigger tank that has a fully functioning/fully cycled filter.

Pets At Home will probably sell you all sorts of medicines that are likely only to make things worse. Unfortunately there is a lot of very poor advice given out by those who sell fish - i too once bought a small tank like yours on the advice of a pet shop 'expert' who told me it was fine to put goldfish in. In fact a tank of that size is not really suitable for any fish at all.

Sorry there isn't an easier answer to this


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## Staysee (Oct 19, 2009)

ameliajane said:


> A 25L tank is _far_ too small for a goldfish. They need ponds or large (3-4foot or more) aquariums.
> 
> They also need excellent filtration - i'm not sure if i've understood properly but as i read it your tank has _no_ filtration.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the advice, i dont really have the room for a huge tank, cos its in my room and sits on my chest of drawers, so i am a little restricted to space.

We have a pond, but its not treated with anything and at the mo i cant afford to get it a better filter so it could take fish as its currently a wildlife pond plus the thought of him out in the cold and at the mercy of wild animals upsets me! haha

I have moved wotsit out of the tank and put him into a 'Hospital' after reading advice online it was suggested that fish go into something shallow [ish]....im not sure why? But i did that and well he's still going!

I tried the frozen pea trick which he took but spat out, so i thought i'd try some blood worms just to see if he just didnt want peas but i spat that back out, so i tried the pets at home flake food and he did actually eat a little, not alot!

right now in his hospital he is like, laying on the floor of it, still trying to swim round but not having the best of luck when your shaped like a half moon! Bless him.

I cannot put him out of his misery, cos he's part of the family, so i guess its just a waiting game....if he can hold on a bit longer then when i get paid i can get the biggest tank i can for him. He has lived in larger and much much smaller, this one is probably middle sized tank out of all he's been in.

How do i do this "cycle" then? Cos i dont have room in my room for a second huge fish tank....also how much do filters cost to run? Cos we're on an electric metre, so if it was gonna cost too much then i'd have to end fish keeping, which is sad cos i've had fish since i was about 14 years old, few years without them between then and now but i just adore them all.

Im no expert, i just do the best i can with the knowledge i have, try to give them varied food, water changes, check the every day, chat to them....thats all really, guess im not that great a fish owner if after all this time i still cant get it right.


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

Sorry to hear your much loved pet is poorly. Sorry I can't really offer any advice as I'm a total newbie when it comes to fish, but I hope your Wotsit gets better.


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## Staysee (Oct 19, 2009)

He died unfortunatly


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## NaomiM (Sep 22, 2012)

Sorry to hear that :-(


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## jenniferx (Jan 23, 2009)

Staysee- I am very sorry to hear about Wotsit. My fish are as much my pets as my dogs and tortoise are, so I know that it is painful to lose them. I have owned one of my fish- Francis, for longer than any of my other pets. The others I have I bred myself. 

Unfortunately keeping goldfish correctly- or any fish for that matter- isn't actually that easy, well, it's not so bad once you know all the right conditions that have to met but these things (a cycled tank) are non-negotiable if you are to have healthy fish. Firstly water isn't just water- it is made up of lots of minerals and components that determine it's hardness and acidity. Goldfish are quite adaptable, ideally they need a pH of around 7.2 and the water needs to have enough hardness so that the pH is stable. Stability is most important of all. You need dechlorinator that will bind the chemicals that comes in our tap water so that it is safe. You can buy test kits in your pets/aquatic stores that enable you to monitor pH/hardness. 

Next is the filtration system- think of it like this- your fish tank is an entirely contained ecosystem- it has to have ways of biologically maintaining waste loads so that they are efficiently removed and not harmful to the fish. The way this is possible is through a colony of bacteria that live in the filter sponge. Your filter basically draws water and debris in through the inlet holes at the bottom, the poop catches on the sponge and ferments and the water is pumped out the outlet pipe. These bacteria take time to build up and 'feed' on the fish waste in the flow of water and help break it down into a non-harmful form (it goes from raw ammonia> nitrite> nitrate). You can't actually see ammonia- most people think of the bad stuff as a the faeces they can see but ammonia is what is going to do the damage, it's clear and you won't know it's there until you use a chemical test. The filter needs to be kept flowing because without this oxygen the bacteria will die and the ammonia the fish produce will not be processed- so once you have your filter on it should never be switched off. It is this that keeps fish healthy. Without filtration the waste (ammonia) is not processed. This is extremely harmful and very often deadly to fish- if your tank was not filtered then it is highly likely that he died from ammonia poisoning or nitrite poisoning. Hardy fish like goldfish can go longer than most in poor water conditions but it will catch up with them eventually. It's made worse by the fact that goldfish are a carp species with a large body mass and produce a lot more ammonia than many other species. 

All of this is called the nitrogen cycle and it is recommended that before you get any fish you carry out a "fishless cycle" by adding an ammonia source to an empty tank daily until the filter has built up enough bacteria to handle your fish stock. You can find out absolutely LOADS more about this if you google fishless cycling. Again you can buy test kits which enable you to monitor ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels in aquatics shops. 

I'm sorry that your shop did not tell you about all of this when you were starting out. Or about the tank size either. The little goldfish of an inch or two you see in shops are only little babies, probably in their first months of life. They are shipped out from Asia en masse from breeding farms. They should live for very many years, into decades, and they grow to a foot in length if they are to reach adulthood. Some shops are getting better with this- I know that my local aquatics store will not even sell goldfish unless they are going into ponds.

It is hard for people to sometimes accept any of this when they think of goldfish as such basic, cheap pets but a filtered tank and matching the appropriate water conditions/tank size for the species is the absolute cornerstone of all fishkeeping. Everything else comes second.

Good grief this is a long post! But if it helps inform anyone who didn't already know about fish husbandry it will be worth it!


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## ameliajane (Mar 26, 2011)

So sorry to hear about Wotsit.

Unfortunately keeping fish is quite complex (see above!) and the people who sell them very rarely tell you this. I confess to killing several poor goldfish and numerous guppies when i first started because i didn't know what i was doing and i relied on the advice of the 'experts' in the aquarium shops. The reality is that many of these people are just sales staff who have no idea how to keep fish. If you want to keep fish you really do need to do a lot of research online first.

The good news is that there is a lot you can do to make life better for your Minnows 

Try to have your minnows transfered to a fully cycled tank.

If this is not possible:

Put the filter into the tank right now. It wont be cycled so it wont do much to help for a while but it will gradually cycle and wont make things any worse in the meantime. While i would _never_ advise starting a new tank in this way - _always_ fishless cycle first - this is a damage limiting measure as your fish are already in an uncycled tank. Make sure your filter contains some kind of filter medium - in a small filter this will usually be a sponge. I don't know how much a filter costs to run but i cant imagine a small filter costs very much at all.

Do daily water changes (about 25% once a day using treated water) for a few weeks and then reduce to once a week.

Get a gravel cleaning syphon to remove the fishes' waste from the bottom of the tank.

Don't clean anything else in the tank - leave the inside of the glass, plants, ornaments etc. These will already be colonised by bacteria and will be acting as a filter themselves - which is probably why your fish have survived up to now. If you have a problem with algae just clean one section at a time - don't clean everything at once.

Dont add anymore fish to your tank.

Give very small feeds - a fish's stomach is really tiny - if you look at the fishes' eyes and imagine their stomach is about the same size and give enough for each fish to fill it's stomach you'll be doing ok. It may seem a very tiny amount! Just crumble up the flakes.

If you can, upgrade to a bigger tank - 60L is sometimes considered the minimum size. Although it is possible to keep certain fish in smaller tanks it is difficult as it's much harder to keep water conditions/chemistry stable in a smaller tank. The bigger the body of water the more stable the conditions will be. If you do upgrade get a test kit that measures ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and fishless cycle the tank before transfering your fish.

Go online and read, read, read!

I wish all this were much simpler 

_PS: I think you have the makings of an excellent fishkeeper because you clearly love your fish and genuinely care about their welfare - which is the most imortant thing_


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## Staysee (Oct 19, 2009)

Thanks for all the advice, i have been looking at getting a new larger tank and starting this 'fishless cycle' but not read up on it yet, just felt so useless that i couldnt save him, hell i was hand feeding him up until a few hours before he died...peas to see if it was constapation, flake food, bloodworms...all the food i fed him normally and he wanted it but kept spitting it back out.

Minnoes are still going well, so i will in the next few weeks look at a larger tank and move this one eventually downstairs so i can set up a new tank in my room on my chest a drawers, i'll try and get as close as i can to 60L due to size restrictions of course.

I miss having a goldfish now, seems wrong looking into the tank and not seeing a flash of gold swimming about.


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## ameliajane (Mar 26, 2011)

It's very sad he didn't make it. You clearly cared about him and did all you could.

I hate going into aquarium shops now because every time i do i hear terrible advice being given out by the staff - advice that will mean almost certain death for the poor fish. I managed to kill several Goldfish and lots of Guppies myself when i first started out, as a result of relying on this kind of 'advice'. 

They really ought to be telling customers that Goldfish can grow to a foot long, live as long as a dog or cat and most need a pond.

And i'm sure they'd make more money if they explained about fishless cycling. They would be able to sell expensive test kits, larger tanks and if new fishkeepers were successful they would keep returning and are likely to want to upgrade to bigger tanks with more equipment, instead of giving up at the start because the fish keep dying.


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