Oh no, oh no, oh no!
I gave my fish a pellet stick food to eat and unfotunately one was too big and now my goldfish is choking on it!
He's swimming around fine still, but I can see the pellet stick stuck in this throat and he keeps gagging. Sometimes he coughs out a peice but I'm afraid he won't get enough out in time!
I don't know what to do, I've never had anything even similar to this happen before!

I hope I can either get some adrice in time or he manages to spit it out.

Ugh, well after a good 20 minutes of watching and worrying, I think he's going to be fine.... I turned on the air stone to make sure what water did pass over his gills was high in oxygen, and watched very carefully.
I think the air stone helped, because ever so often he would swim across the top of the bubbles and he seemed to calm down. Two of my other fish were jerks, though, and kept pecking at him as if saying "Spit it out and share, damnit!" Oh, they ticked me off!
I don't think he was chocking TOO bad, though. Ever so often when he'd manage to spit out a peice, he'd try to eat it again, comletely forgetting the fact he was choking! I was so mad about that!
After all that I think he finally managed to spit out enough to eat the rest. And he emidiantly went to pecking at the bottom in search of more food. >< He JUST recovered from nearly choking to death for about 20 minutes and the first thing he does it look for more food! ARGH!

So now that this dissaster is over, for future reference, IS there anything I can do if my fish is choking besides watch, wait, and pray for the best?

Wow, Nakita, what a frightening experience! Thank goodness your fish made it okay.
What I would do in the future is breaking those sticks into smaller pieces, and then soak them in a tiny container with some water for a few minutes. That way the sticks become softer, and easier to manage for the fish....
Just out of curiosity, what kind of fish do you have?

Hey Nakita,

I had a freak-out attack the first time my goldfish got a hold of a shrimp pellet. It took him a good 15 minutes to get his down, too. He'd finally spit it out, just to go at it again... it was so frustrating.

However, he's done it a number of times now, and I have come to believe that he's not choking. Goldfish "chew" by grinding food in thier throats (or so I understand), and I honestly believe it's just too hard for him to grind through very fast. He does the same thing with peas, but he's never once appeared stressed out about it. I think he just doesn't want to spit it out and pick at it off the ground because he's such a selfish pig and doesn't want any of the others stealing his food!

yeh sqee is right the GFs throat are the grinders and if you notice the goldies dont have teeth. But i would only worry if they choke on a rock which may REALLY do some harm.

Yeah, I never really thought these little pigs would even try to do something like that! But there were about three going at it at the same time and I guess he just became so greedy he swallowed all of it!
I have four goldfish, all of whom have very different and interesting personalities.
And are all bottomless pits!

That's very interesting.
And I only thought goldfish inhaled their food like greedy vacumes!