Feces

Question
My gold fan-tail goldfish has long stringy black feces. Is this normal? He hasn't demostrated any abnormal behavior.He eats well and is swimming and acting normal. I just lost a fan-tail calico goldfish today. He also showed no signs of illness, except an hour before he died he seemed to stay at the bottom of the tank. He had no indications on his body that he had a parasite or illness. He also wasn't swimming strangely or refusing food. The only thing I noticed was the gold fan-tail was bumping him around the tank and chasing him through out the day.
Thank you for your help.

Answer
Dear Anna,
Long and stringy black feces is generally an OK sign for goldfish. But if it is forever "trailing" it could mean that goldfish is constipated. Feeding a few green peas (thawed and deshelled) will usually resolve this problem as will changing the diet and including much more variety.

I imagine the biggest question I need to ask is has your goldfish aquarium been cycled? Or established the beneficial bacterial colonies need to remove ammonia and other dangerous waste by-products.
If you can test for ammonia and nitrite please do!
As always when in doubt do a 30-50% water change. Most listless behavior in fish is directly related to water quality. A water change is the first step to always take when one of your fish seem ill or listless (Remember to always make the replacement water equal in temperature to that of your aquarium and insure it is properly dechlorinated as well)

I'm not sure exactly why the golden fantail was chasing the calico around. Maybe he was trying to spawn as chasing and bumping into one another is the way goldfish spawn and lay their eggs.

But the best thing you can do now is check your water quality, your ammonia and nitrite should always be at ZERO and nitrate no more than 20 and ideally lower.
Doing a water change when in doubt is always best...

I'm very sorry to hear you lost calico fantail...I do hope this helps and I wish you only the very best!!
Karen~