Goldfish's Eyes

[HB112203]

My Goldfish is an lionhead, and I've had him for about 5 years but he's never had popped out eyes until about a year ago, and one eye popped out at a time. What caused his eyes to pop, or poke out like this? http://home.comcast.net/~spamness/sammy2.jpg:confused:

[mr gerbil]

Tank size?
Water parameters?
Other fish in the tank?

Sounds like a bacterial infection at a first guess.

[dog mad]

I've heard of a desase called pop eye desease before i know tropicals can get it but I'm not sure on goldfish. It might not be this it's just a guess personaly all I know is that the desease causes the eyes to pop out.

[Gums]

Hi there HB. My first post, I'm a relatively new fish keeper, but, it sounds like a disorder called dropsy, or pop eye. dont take it as read, but as far as i know lion heads arn't supposed to have goggle eyes. Like mr gerbil says, dropsy is a bacterial infection. The only thing that makes me question this is that you've said this happened about a year ago? If it was bacterial, unfortunatly it would have probably killed your fish by now. Only a sugestion, but is it possible that your fish has a bit of celestial in him? As his eyes appear to gaze upwards, and juevenile celestials dont have that large eyes to begin with, but as they get older they "pop" out a bit more and gaze to the stars! Hope this helps. Gums.

[mr gerbil]

Dropsy and popeye are different :).
What exactly does the eye look like?

[HB112203]

Well, he's in a 30 gal tank with 4 other goldfish, he's about 6 inches in length and the others are 4inch,4inch,3inch,and 3inch. The water is very clear and I have a little but of nice looking green algae growing. He's only had problems with ich in the past 6 months, and that was once and minor. I don't know if he's mixed or what, but it doesn't seem to harm him.

The eyes are extended out and there seems to be a buldge under each eye out of the eye socket. He can move them just like the other goldfish.

[mr gerbil]

By water conditions I mean the ammonia/nitrite levels.
It could be that he's a hybrid fish. Do you have any info on his past?

[Shrelana]

You might want want to look into either a bigger tank or a pond for your guys too....they should have at least 100 gallons if not 150 gallons....good luck with him though...

[mr gerbil]

You do need a bigger tank/pond. 100 gallons minimum with good filtration.

[Gums]

Hello all. Just a bit puzzled, I would have thought that a tank of 30 gallons would have been well up to the job of 5 goldfish. I know the size of the fish is very important, obviously, a large fish will consume more oxygen than a small one. How big are your fish HB? I asume its filtered and airated?

[Gums]

Sorry for being thick! You did say how large your fish are, Its been a long day!

[mr gerbil]

Lol, although my day's just started ;). Seriously, though, golds do need big tanks, although stereotypical belief goes against this.

[HB112203]

I guess I've always been told that one gallon per inch of the fish. Again, it doesn't seem to be bothering him, he's quite active and rarely gets sick. If he has the pop-eye disease then wouldn't the other fish have gotten it already? Plus, I thought that fish grew to the size of their tank. ??? Man, if I had to get a 100 gal, I'd be putting way more fish in there. In this same tank I had 7 fish in there once and they were all fine... until the filter quit on them over a weekend when my sister was watching them... the poor things. Yeah, I have a filter and the tank is airated, but I'm soon going to be getting a new filter since this one is getting old. I keep an eye on them. I guess I'm not all into testing the water weekly nor changing the water frequently, since changing the water tends to make them sick, so I only do it if I absolutely have to.

[Spudnik]

On the occasions that you do change the water, how much do you change?

[mr gerbil]

quoting "until the filter quit on them"
My filters are down for long periods sometimes and the fish are fine. The tank would have been overstocked...

The 1" per gallon rule doesn't work. Tank stocking relies on a great deal of factors, such as level of filtration, fish types, fish swimming levels, behaviour types, etc.

As for fish growing to the size of the tank:in a nutshell, no, they don't. Or rather they grow as much as the tank will let them and then die.

If you got a 100 gallon tank you could add a couple more golds if you had good filtration.

"changing the water makes them sick": er, no, changing the water stops them dying. Unless you change it so infrequently that the shock of fresh water is too much for them. You should gravel vac the tank once a week and change 25% of the water with fresh dechlorinated h2o.