Help!! My goldfish are sick and I don’t know what to do
Good evening everyone. I'm reaching out because I have some sick fishies that seem to not improve after medication.
First picture (Dorito) was the first goldfish to show symptoms. He was laying on the rocks and wasn't swimming much. I need to admit that because of life happening i wasn't attending to my fishies like I should have in water changes (WC). When he started to show symptoms, I tested the water and my nitrates were through the roof, at 80 or above while ammonia and nitrite was at 0. I did a 60% WC.
I was allowing AI to help me (horrible idea in retrospect) because I was stressed and it told me to do another large WC the same day, because my nitrates were still at 40 after the first WC. After the second WC it went down to 20 but I noticed that Dorito was struggling to stay upright afterwards and hasn't been able to recover since then. He would sit on the floor and swim up to gulp air at the surface very excessively. He would bolt up at least every 5 seconds for the first 2ish days. I have enough oxygenation, one HOB filter for approx 50 gal and 2 air stones being run by 100 gal air pump. At first I believed Dorito was shocked by the excessive WC that day so I kept monitored him every day for about a week and doing WC's everyday, as per AI.
He became really uncoordinated and struggled to get food and maybe 3-4 days into him gulping and bottom sitting, he developed red streak in his tail, that have since disappeared. Eventually however, he stopped begging for food and I knew there was something really wrong. At first I thought it was because he was just stressed out and his appetite would come back but it hasn't and it's been a week.
Eventually my other 2 goldfish began to bottom sit and only one other one began to gulp at the surface rarely, beginning last night. (At this point none of my fishies beg for food however, when I drop food they will still eat but Dorito is very uncoordinated to catch any, and he has been too skittish to get hand fed from me)I went to a mom and pop store to get my water tested and get more advice about the situation. They said my water was perfect so they don't think it's a water issue but possibly an infection/sickness. I was really hesitant in beginning meds because I was afraid but I didn't see any improvements. So Saturday April 4th,2026 at 7pm I began poly guard by seachem per the pet store's employee recommendation because we didn't know what the sickness could be.
Additionally, I started to add aquarium salt that same day, Saturday, at 3pm and added 1 tbsp every hr until I reached roughly 1tbsp per 5 gals. I know l might be too early and wanting to see an improvement right away but I want to be sure if I'm doing things correctly. I will be medicating the next dose today at 7pm. And then changing the water Friday April 10th. I'm just not too sure what to do also after April 10th? If there is no improvements, I was recommended to start kanaplex by seachem?
But I don't know if I should start it right away or medicate polyguard for another week?
I want to know if maybe anyone knows the symptoms that my fishes could be experiencing and what they could be sick with?
If I'm doing anything wrong or if there's something different that I need to do?
Is it normal for them to seem to not improve and get worse?
The second pic I have is my other 2 fishies that began to show symptoms later, they were bottom sitting but about 20 mins after medicating, they began to swim up and respond to me instead of swimming away. Is this normal? Does it mean that maybe it was working?
Pictures 3-6 is a picture of them today, looking very stressed, hiding from me, and just laying on the gravel.
Today's water parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate about 30
It's 3 goldfishes in a 20 gal tank, they are about 4.5 years old. I have a 75 gal waiting for them but I was told that I should wait until they get healthy again to move them to try to reduce stress.
Please if anyone can help and let me know what I can do to bring my fishies back to normal, I would greatly appreciate it!!