Hello everyone I'm looking for help.  I have a rather poorly Goldfish and wonder if anyone has got any ideas/solutions/any kind of help.

For the past week my Goldfish has been laying on the bottom of the tank.  He gets up now and again and goes for a little swim and then goes back to rest.  Both his eyes have started to cloud over (one more so than the other) and the one which appears worse, looks I would say kind of white spottish?!?!  He has always been a Goldfish which has been kept in plain tap water, I've never added any tap water conditioner etc to it and so far he's about 8 years old.  He is in a large aquarium tank - the 3ft long size tank so has plenty of room.  He also has a pump filtering the water.  The odd occasion he has had this before I have treated the water with aquarium salt and he was back to his normal self within a day.  Unfortunately now this is not the case and I'm getting a little worried  .  I can upload a picture if needs be. 

I would be grateful for any help as I'm desperate to make him better. 

Many thanks.
Bertsmum

Hi there Fantailer

Thank you very much for your advice.  I have just taken some pics of him which I should hopefully be able to post with this message.

No I don't handle my fish a lot, he was his usual happy self up until a week ago.  Always darting about, always racing  to either end of the tank to meet me at feeding time.  I will try the water conditioner thank you.  I did talk to the pet shop a few months back when he last had it (I think he is actually a she too) and they sold me some bacterial treatment which to be honest didn't do the trick - salt did.  As you will see his left eye is a lot worse than his right.

Any advice would be helpful and many thanks in advance.

Hi Nossie

Thank you very much for your reply.  I have got some tap water conditioner but have never used it before only because I have never used it in the 8 years he's been going.  Maybe that's why he looks old?! I don't know.  Unfortunately I'm not a fish expert so I have to rely on you guys for help.  I've worked out it's a 33 gallon tank and I think it said 1 drop per gallon - will go and check.

I do change the water yes - about a 50% change each week.  I wonder if it is the water then?  He was such a chirpy fish but just so suddenly went downhill and I can't work out why  .  I did do a 50% change yesterday so I'll see how it goes once I put the drops in.

I have fed him fresh vegetables before but at the moment have no weights to hold them down.  I've put a bit of cucumber in today, a quick blanche in the pan cooled and then put in.  I've got some broccoli and carrots - is spinach any good? I've read somewhere it is?

Unfortunately there isn't a pet shop close by and I would like to try the daphnia, blood worms etc - had goldfish many many years ago and they loved them.  I don't drive so find things like this difficult to get hold of.

I will keep an eye on him and let you know how he's getting on in a few days - hopefully he will still be around for a lot longer  .

Thank you for all your help 

Cloudy eye is a symptom that can be caused by any one of a range of goldfish illnesses, but the most common cause is poor water quality. It appears as a cloudy opaqueness over the entire eye (or eyes), or just the lens. This may sometimes be accompanied by mucus over the eye.
 Improving water quality will usually get rid of it.

Morning everyone
Thankyou very much for your advice so far. Went down this morning and I caught him having a little swim. He's still not coming up for his usual feed like he normally would but I noticed he did swim along the bottom of the tank suctioning albeit with not as much power as he normally would bits from the bottom of the tank.  I've put the water conditioner in so hopefully he WILL pick up.  Just a bit concerned as with the issue of the water condition - I did a 50% change on Saturday and although its only 2 days on the water doesn't look that brilliant - its clean but looks a bit murky!!!!  I feed him that Aquarian Advanced Nutrition flake food - I'm guessing he needs a change. I'll have a look on Amazon today for the suggested ideas.

Thankyou everyone.

Yeah I was wondering about the tank cycling too..... Hmmm...... Maybe if you put the food in your hand and held it in front of him, perhaps he would eat it then?
Let us know how he gets on Bertsmum  

Never empty the tank completely, if you're concerned you can always change out 50% of the water This is the best thing you can do for your goldfish no matter what

Do you have a gravel vacuum? Your tank might be getting cloudy because you're not cleaning the gravel regularly? I showed some pictures on how to, and how they look in the "TANK MAINTENANCE" thread linked to earlier That may also be a reason why he's acting up, the waste is simply accumulating in the tank with nowhere to go! However, note that you should always have dechlorinated water in your tank from now on, and use the buckets of used tank water to clean the filter media in once a week. You can vacuum the gravel at the same time as you empty the tank if you have a siphon

Yep, it most probably is if no water conditioner has been used they haven't been able to settle before

How is Bert doing?