Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi guys, can anybody out there tell me what's happening to my goldfish. In the photo you can see how bloated this fish got. We took it out of our solar ap system ( which has been running fine now for some time) when we noticed this and put it in our inside aquarium.It died pretty much straight away.We have now noticed some of the other goldies are starting to look the same. This first fish died about 1 month ago. None of the fish have been eating very much for about 2 months now but i put that down to the cold water temps. Any ideas how we can save the rest of the fish?

Did you open up the one that died.

yeh but it was the first time i've opened a goldfish.Bit hard to know what's normal. The only thing different was 2 'airbags'. Almost like the airsac you get in sea fish when you pull them up fast from deep water. This however wasn't near the fishes mouth and was only small. Don't really want to cut up one of the good fish just to compare. Certainly haven't seen this before

Don't know about gold's but if tropicals get too much protein they can get bloat which is quite often fatal.

I am no expert but I had goldfishes before many years back and have seen such condition. Did a bit of a search, and I now recall that it is a condition that seems to be called Dropsy.

Unfortunately google provides results to many forums regarding "Dropsy" so I cannot be sure whether the advice given there is accurate or not. You might need to make up your own mind when you googled it.

The link below seems to provide some general description.
http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/dropsy/

Thanks,will have a read tonight, unfortunately haven't got much time to do much about it. Lots to do b4 going away to work for 2 wks tomorrow arvo.

Pregnant

How big is that fish? If it's less than 6" I doubt it was pregnant...and it's bloating is in the wrong area. They also don't usually have eggs until the water starts to warm up. My guess is that you fed it too much if the water is cold.

pretty sure it's not pregnant, the one I cut up didn't have eggs. Same about the over feeding. I've only been feeding about once a week and then just a tiny sprinkle to see if they're going to eat it.Most of the time they don't. The silver perch in the other system were'nt eating either till a couple of weeks ago, water temps didn't get above 12 deg ( nowgetting 15 or 16 )

I'd say dropsy too. I had a couple with the same - their scales start sticking out making them look like pinecones. Apparently feeding peas may help them lose some of the fluid, but the general consensus is that by the time you notice the issue, it's too late. That being said - they kick on quite a while till they can kick no more.

definately not pregnant, definately is dropsy. My reccomendation would be to cull all the fish with any signs of it, then see how the rest look in a week or 2. Once they show signs, there is pretty much no hope for recovery.

Looking at it with more sober eyes, all I can say is ewww!