I have two goldfish - one is about three years old and the other is about one. The older/larger one has been turning white over the past few weeks. His (or her?) face is completely white and patches of his body are turning white too. It isn't just small specks, and his body looks normal (no lumps) other than the colour. However the patches don't look healthy - his scales are looking duller than usual. I've had a look at white spot pictures on Google Images but it doesn't really look like that, and I'm worried about treating him for something he hasn't got. The younger/smaller goldfish has three white scales, but I think he may have been "attacked" by the larger one yesterday. Other than that he looks perfectly healthy.

I think the fish probably need a bigger tank, although I can't afford one just yet. Could this be the cause (the tank isn't tiny, but now the fish is getting big I think he could do with an "upgrade")? We cleaned the tank thoroughly a few weeks ago (I think it was just after this that he started turning white, although we only used tap water to clean things, and we added drops to the clean water we filled the tank with so that we could put the fish straight back in).

Any advice is appreciated, thanks

Goldfish do change colour, and they also grow quite big. A tank is never going to be big enough for a goldfish - they belong in ponds. How big is your tank?

I've had goldfish change from black to red and from orange to cream.

Your best bet I think would be to ask at your local pet shop they might be able to give you a water treatment if there is something wrong with them.

most goldfish turn white with age, colour is very unstable in goldfish, with black being the most unstable.

doing a full tank clean and letting any untreated tap water come into contact with substrate or filter media will result in a bacteria die off though, so your tank may well be at the beginning of a cycle again. you should never ever use untreated tap water to clean anything in your tank. you best bet is to use syphoned off tank water to swill your filter media in to clean off the majority of the gunk, and use a gravel vac to clean the substrate. these are very cheap from most pet shops, and are in my opinion essential to keeping goldfish healthy as they are poop machines!

if your goldfish are common streamlined types with single tails, they will need at the very least a 5ft tank, they should easily be 6inches long in their first year and are very fast energetic fish. if you fish are the fat bodied fancy types, then a 3ft tank will do a pair for life, but even these smaller goldfish types can grow to 6-8inches, or more if given the correct care from day 1. at the moment, our largest fancy is just over 10inches long and still growing.

if you cannot provide the correct set-up for your pets, ideally you need to find them a new home. as said previously, a pond home is best for the common/comet/shubunkin types, a large pond with good filtration. at this time of year with things getting colder, either upgrade to a larger tank or find a new home in someone elses larger set-up until warmer weather.

if you are anywhere near us and feel you need to rehome for the best interests of the fish, we do take in goldfish from small set-ups, we have a 6ft tank inside and an 11ft pond outside purely for goldfish with stunting and health issues.

I always find 4mins each side under a medium grill does the trick..





Sorry