My fancy goldfish

Question
Hello Ron, I know you said that you are not an expert on gold fish, however you may know the answer. My fancy gold fish with the orange crown and fancy fins all of sudden started floating to the top of the tank, I changed the water, changed the charcoal in a very large filter and vacuumed the tank. He currently shares a 20 gallon tank with another fancy gold fish. After the one night of floating, I noticed that his fins were quite tattered.The next day he looked better and seemed to be able to balance himself although he was struggling with his tattered fins.

I recently changed the food to TetraFin Goldfish crisps. I am going to go ahead and change about 30% of the water again and vacuume it while I'm at it. I soak the fish food prior to feeding it to the fish. I was told if the food sits on the top of the water, that they can get an air bubble and this may cause them to swim upside down. What do you suggest.

Answer
Hi Lori,
 I have not kept goldfish but I have heard that they are susceptible to swallowing air which then gets trapped in the digestive system. This seems rather unlikely to me, but I guess it is a possibility. How to remove such air is an interesting question.  One suggestion would be to try to get the fish to eat some thawed, frozen peas.  These are good at cleaning out the gut and maybe that might move the air along???  

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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