Fancy goldfish upside down?

[chibi]

Hello there. I bought my boyfriend a fancy goldfish about a year ago, and he keeps it in a small aquarium with a filter and light. He bought a second one, which is calico colored and has always looked a little bloated to me. He replaces the stone part of the filter often and cleans out the tank regularly and feeds them daily. So basically he takes great care of them, in my opinion. But this calico one often is at the top of the tank looking half-dead. Today I thought for SURE he was dead, i said oh, go get him out of there.. and as he walked up to the fish, it freaked out and swam all over, and it struggles to stay upright. If it stops moving, it just goes belly-up again. Anyone have any idea what is wrong with it? We feel really bad to see him like hes suffering or something =( hes always kinda done it but now its bad

[DarkShade14]

swim bladder

[Mari]

you might want to try this question at www.fishforums.com
they have a few experienced people there that helped me a bunch. Sounds like it could be the swim bladder, or dropsy...but give the forum a try

[shev]

hello, I am a member at fishforums.com, its a good place.

I would first try feeding some duckweed, or peas. both will clean out their system, and they will hopefully start swimming upright again. for feeding peas just take of the skin.

[Jiffykat]

Shev, like peas from a grocery store? That probably sounds very stupid, but I have never fed my fish anything other than fish food, so finding out that you can feed fish produce is kind of shocking to me.

[shev]

yup regular peas from the store. just cook and peal them. a varied diet is very important to fish, and goldfish are gluttons. Other things you can use are boiled romaine lettuce or boiled spinach. since goldfish are so willing to eat all the time it is easy to overfeed, which may be part of the problem of the bloated fish. goldfish have been known to eat themselves to death.