Hi, I am hoping someone can maybe help me as I am worried!
We moved into our house 6.5 years ago and acquired with it a pond with a few goldfish in. We've maintained it by filtering, cleaning etc and lost a fish sometime over last winter. We noticed about this time last year that one of the fish had become very fat around the abdomen. I consulted fish books etc and ruled out dropsy as the scales aren't sticking out etc. She was eating fine once we started feeding them again. We took her to a local aquarist who examined her and checked our water. He said the water was fine - no disease and correct ph and said that the fish was eggbound but had no obvious blockages. He recommended seeing what happened over the coming weeks. Nothing happened and the other fish was fine so we contacted the aquarist for help and he suggested getting a few new fish to see if they might encourage her to lay. We did this and still she remained fat. We don't see much of the fish over the winter as they hide but they have now become active with the warmer weather and the fish is still fat. She is spending long periods of time lying on her side either in plant pots or on the floor. She will swim off if disturbed but I am worried about her. I've looked on the internet and seen suggestions of maybe adding salt or antibiotics but I have no idea how to do this. If anyone can offer me any advice that might help her without affecting the other fish then I will be eternally grateful. I'm a bit soft and am worried that she might be suffering!
Thanks very much in advance.

Hello, welcome to FK

Any chance you could provide a picture? A picture is worth a thousand words etc etc also any other info you could give us like a rough idea of how big the pond is and how many fish you have (a rough guess is fine, it can be hard to count in a pond).

Hi and thank you Caz for replying. I just tried to take a photo but she is lying on her back on the bottom at the moment. I also have a bit of pondweed at the moment so that doesn't make for good photos. I've attached what I could get though and will see if I can get a better one. The pond is about 18 inches deep, abut 7 feet long and about 4 feet wide. We're planning on remodelling it as the previous occupier built it and it is just a liner in a rectangular hole!
There are definitely another 4 fish and possibly another small one that we saw last year on and off. There was a tench but we haven't seen it for some time. We now have a net over the pond to protect from cats. I know it sounds silly but the other older fish we have seems to be acting concerned around her.

Thanks again for your help.

Just moved you to ponds

Oh my...that is a fat tummy, hopefully the experts will be on later to help you

Oh dear, may be worth dropping a pm to longhairedgit asap...

Seem to remember a similiar problem in a goldfish on here a while back that had hyper-obesity. Perhaps this is the same, or egg-binding as has been suggested. LHG is your man.

Thank you all. I have pm-ed 'longhairedgit' to see if he/she can help. I just hope there is something I can do as I feel bad seeing her like this.

LHG is one of the most knowledgable fish keepers you'll ever meet. If there's something you can do he'll tell you how to go about it. He's a bit of a night owl though so you might get a reply later.

Fingers crossed for your fish. Try not to worry in the meantime.

That's great. What a friendly and helpful bunch you all are!
:)

Hello evenflow can I ask if you know for sure this fish is female with you suggesting it may be egg bound, I had a large male goldfish which slowly swelled up like yours and it was diagnosed as a tumour "see photo below to compare" hopefully LHG can maybe confirm this or not later

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldy/27 ... in/set-72057594137009852/