My Goldfish is darting around and staying on the bottom of tank

[dzap79]

I have two Goldfish in a 20G tank with a AquaClear Power Filter hanging on the back of the tank. Last night I came home late and went over to my fish tank as I usually do and one of my little guys freaked out and started to dart around the tank very suddenly. He was in the corner on the back side of the tank swimming into the gravel. It almost looks like he is trying to escape. He is doing damage to his scales because of the way he is moving around.

All the water levels are good. I have been checking them everyday lately. I had one of those gravel filters that hook up to the air pump and you fill without Activated Carbon and foam. I recently removed it and replaced with some ornaments that plug into the air pump for nice bubble effect. I am pretty sure this has nothing to do with anything but thought I should tell about it.

At this point I have no idea what to do. The other fish is fine. It almost looks like it will just pass and maybe he is just stressed or feeling under the weather. Any help or suggestions would be great.

[MustLuvMutts]

This post was made a while ago, so I'm sure you probably know the outcome by now. I hope your fish survived, but I had a betta that did the same thing and unfortunately died. I went into my room, turned on the light, and went over to say hello to him. He began darting around his tank like mad and then he was nose-diving into the gravel. It was too painful for me to watch. When I checked on him a few minutes later, he was dead-with his face in the gravel and is body sticking straight up vertically. I don't know what caused it. I researched it, but I couldn't find a straight conclusion. The tank didn't have a filter, because many say bettas don't like filters. I fear the water might have poisoned him because I used tap water that I had simply let sit out for 24 hours or so. I'd done that before for all the fish I've had and nothing bad happened. Most of my fish have lived several years. I didn't check the balances of the water or anything. In all my years of owning fish, I've never done that. I was never told to do that. I'm sorry I can't give a good explanation. If your fish is still with you and/or if you want to find out what happened, I suggest googling some fish forums and asking there. They're very helpful and there's bound to be people there that have gone through the same thing.