Ok, Mopy is so prone to this it is retarded.

Any ways, levels are all normal, feeding has not changed; water was changed (30% as usual) on friday; added new fresh water last night, as we had a bout of dryness and the tank evaporated like an inch since friday, but that water was out of my bucket so it was pristine and perfect.

So the story is, her floaties are getting bad again. Looked in on her and she was suspended in the middle of the tank, belly and tail facing up, paddling around every few seconds. She was asleep and while she sleeps she really floats. I am asumming this is because she isnt awake to right herself. So shes being her normal self now that i have awakened her. But this is a problem.

I have lowered the temp in the tank to stop breeding behavior as she was getting quite bound up. So i know it isnt the eggs this time. There been no change in food or new fish or anything so it isnt a fungus or anything, theres just no way for it to get in. Added a few drops of broad spectrum bacterial med just to be on the safe side, but all in all, shes just going to be like this forever.

How can i help her out? I get worried about her when i see her floating belly up, lol, its a bit scary. she only gets that bad when shes sleeping tho, and she sleeps alot, its as if shes showing old age. Shes fat and likes to sleep. lol Thanks in advance!


Editted for typos and spelling mistakes.

How low did you take your temperature? The reason I ask is, as cold blooded creatures, a goldfish's bodily functions slow with cooler temperatures. If she is eating normally - most gold fish do for they are little piggies - the food may not be moving through her system as fast as it should. Food sitting stagnant in her intestines can start to decompose and releases gases as it does this. This fermenting mass of decomposing food can make a fish floaty.

Having an egg bound fish is even tougher - I have not been able to save one yet. But, if you can, I would raise the temperature to at least 72 F or higher if possible. A good treatment for SBD is to go to 78 or so. Then fast her for a day or so.

I think I would like you to check your nitrate levels again. I know that I do my water changes regularly, but sometimes the nitrate just gets away from me. If it goes to 80ppm over the week a 50% water change will only bring it to 40ppm! I think I am doing fine, but the fish are floaty. It takes another 50% change to bring that to 20 ppm, which is even too high for my floating susceptible fish, so I change again 50% to get it to 10ppm. That is 3 water changes following each other, each with a 50% change to get the nitrates down. Even then, it can take 24-48 hours for the fish to respond.

Finally, I would suggest that you might try some medicated food like MediGold. I have had a great deal of luck in helping a flipped fish with a combination of heat, fasting, nitrate lowering and MediGold.

Good luck. Silly fish.....

Shes not egg bound now thank god. But she is very prone to it, luckily i have nipped it in the bud every single time. (Or maybe impacted is whut i am thinking of daryl? Whut ever it is, she gets it.)

My temperature is now at 68 down from 76 (from attempted breeding). It gets warmer in the morning, as the sun is right in my room in the morning, so it goes up to about 70. All winter it was at 60-62, and she was at her best.

She gets alot worse as the temp rises. She has gotten so bad as to stay on her back, too exhausted to flip herself over, and the warmer the tank gets, the more stressed and constipated and floaty/flippy she gets. I am hoping this summer is not as humid as the last, one of her tankmates died from the heat, and her problems started.

I feed her a mix of rice, peas, corn, carrots, and shrimp. With soaked wardleys sinking goldfish crumbles. I feed the mixture 3 times a week, and crumbles 3 days a week, however this is inconsistent, as i do skip a day every so often, as well as every sunday, i believe a good fasting every once in a while is all but benificial. She is the only one who will take food from my hand, so i make sure shes getting enough, but with the smaller much faster fantail and the shubie, she barely gets any of whuts plopped into the tank. So its not a problem of over eating.

Sorry for being long winded, I am just trying to give as much back ground as possible on her. I tried treating her for SBD, with meds and a 80 temp, and she was really taking a turn for the worst. It really seems as if heat makes her worse. She will become lethargic and gasp at the surface whilebeing unable to get to the bottom, sometimes even lying on her side. When its colder she sleeps more, but she is alot better.

She is a weird little fish, It makes me quite worried about her. Every weird problem she could have shes had it. lol nothing as simple as ich or something. lol

I would start over and fast the fish for 3 days. Then I would use just the rice/peas mixture for 2 or 3 days. Then begin adding the regular food. This is what I did, and now I feed a little bit of the rice/pea mixture and then a couple minutes later, after they have eaten all the rice up and have a minute to get it into their system. I then feed ProGold pellets that I have soaked and mashed up. I do this everyday. They need the nutrients that are in the regular fish food. But I think feeding the rice mix first, helps their digestive system process the regular food. And I think if you just have the peas in with the rice they get more of the rice. I am sure corn is good for them, but I don't know how well it works for swim bladder? And like I said I would feed the rice mix every time you feed the regular food so every day, instead of every few days. The one time I tried feeding regular food with out the rice first my fish was floating within 5 minutes. So that’s why I do the rice everyday. Let me know if this helps at all.
Good luck!
Emily