Fish novice - help!!

[FauxFox]

I have a couple of fancy looking goldfish (fat bellies and lonk swishy tails and fins) and one has a swim bladder problem and has gone all floaty. I went to the petshop and they gave me Interpet Swimbladder Treatment which I have dosed into the tank but I had to take the filter out so it didn't filter out the medicine. My question is should I put the filter back in without the sponge thing in it or leave it out altogether or what???

TIA

Yes, put the filter and sponge back in quick! The filter will not remove the meds. Some meds can knock out a filter though, but it will say on the instructions. Interpet treatments are not very good and 'swimbladder' is a symptom rather than a disease in itself so you'd need to find out the cause before you can successfully treat it.

With fancy goldfish, the easiest thing to rule out is constipation. If you feed them the soft, inside part of a pea all mashed up then it will get things moving.

As well as altering their diet, you should check the water quality. If you've removed the filter then all the good bacteria will probably have snuffed it so the tank will need to cycle again. This is risky for your fish so you'll need to test the water every day and do lots of extra water changes. This will give you more info.

If the swimbladder problem is not caused by diet then it's likely to either be a bacterial infection (which you'd probably need antibiotics for) or it could be a genetic defect which is quite common in fancy goldfish because they're so inbred.

You might also want to have a read of this but sit down with a big glass of wine first.

Hope that helps a bit, let me know if you need any more help.

Thank you very much Eau I was reading some of your other posts and hoped you would turn up to help me :0) I have put the filter back in - it has only been out for 30mins and is still all wet so hopefully the bacteria will survive

I will get some peas. And read the scary link.

Thanks so much

Tiddler seems much better now not floaty and sideways...maybe the tesco finest petit pois did their job!