Well the great news is that after taking the advice given here and trying the Wardley shrimp pellets I am now seeing thicker tan colored poop from Freckles (sorry if this is TMI but after 2 months of the white stringy air bubbly stuff I am thrilled ). I can even feed much more normal size meals - several soaked pellets a couple times a day - and he seems ok. Before I was down to 1 ProGold pellet or half a pea - bad, I know.

A couple questions though - what is different about the shrimp pellet food that helps when the other foods and meds I tried didn't? It does seem to have lower protein (30%) and higher fiber(10%) but I tried peas and spirulina which also have a lot of fiber and those did not help. Also is it ok to feed the Wardley shrimp pellets exclusively (it does not say "goldfish food")?

As a test, after several days of normal looking poop yesterday I went back and fed some soaked ProGold and Omega One flakes and the air bubbly poop and floaty behavior started up again. I am going to revert back to the soaked shrimp pellets today but am curious as to why they work and if it is ok to feed exclusively.

Thanks much, sea

I don't know why Wardley's shrimp pellets seem to be tolerated by some fish when they can't eat other foods. I discovered this by accident when feeding Morgana, my floating female ryukin. I was doing tests of foods, and discovered that she could eat soaked shrimp pellets without floating. I recommended this to a member of a goldfish e-mail list that I am on, he tried it, and it worked for his fish, too.

It ia great that it is working for your fish. I have been feeding Morgana shrimp pellets for 1 1/2 years now, pretty much exclusively. I do also feed her a bit of soft, cooked zucchini on occasion. She can tolerate zucchini, but can't tolerate peas. It is very strange. She has been very healthy on her shrimp pellet and zucchini diet. I only feed the zucchini about once per week. The only thing about the shrimp pellets is that she turned completely orange. She was orange and white. She is a gorgeous colour of deep orange, though

Just like you, I have tried progold or other foods just as an experiment, and as soon as she eats those, she is floating at the top, even though she hadn't floated for months on the shrimp pellet diet.

Thanks much for the info - I am glad that Morgana is healthy on this diet. Freckles loves peas and took them from my fingers which was really fun but unfortunately can't tolerate them either. I still need to try zucchini and maybe some type of gel food.

While I am less concerned about the possible color change than the health issues it is a really good thing you mentioned it. Freckles is white and orange with some black freckles and if he started to turn more orange I would probably freak out thinking he had septecemia or something (I tend to be paranoid about these things ) His tankmate, Nugget, is bright orange anyway so no changes there!