Our original 'plastic pond' has 4 goldfish living there along with 3 koi awaiting their new home to be completed (3500 gallon proper koi pond).
The only female goldfish is exhibiting some strange (and potentially fatal) behaviour. If anyone has any ideas I'd be grateful as I would hate to lose any fish, koi or otherwise.
The small pond has a plant shelf around the perimeter. There are no plants on this shelf, just a water lilly to one side of the main pond. This goldfish lost all of its colour a year or so ago and is now a silvery pink. Yesterday I noticed it lying on its side in the plant shelf, seemingly lifeless. On closer inspection it was still breathing and I gently eased it back into the pond. It didn't need much encouragement and I got soaked in the process as it thrashed and swam back into the main pond.
I thought all was well again and it had just got stranded as the water level had dropped a bit. Unfortunately this wasn't the case as it repeatedly returns to the plant shelf and then back to the main pond. It's now a constant cycle. It end up in different parts of the shelf seemingly at random. When it moves back into the main pond it swims very fast arond the pond for a few minutes and the seems to hang by its tail for a few seconds before returning to the shelf again.
All of this is taking its toll on the fish as it thrashes its tail against the pond to move out of the shallow plant shelf and to return to the pond.
It survived last night but this odd behaviour continues this morning. I have treated the entire pond with MelaFix (natural antibiotic treatment) as a safeguard against infection although there are no obvious open wounds as yet.
I think there may be a problem with the swim bladder but why not just rest on the bottom of the pond instead of trying to isolate itself on the shelf?
I'd be grateful for any ideas!
Many thanks!
Adrian
Posted on Sep 25, 2005, 5:05 PM from IP address 82.32.152.125