upside down goldfish

Question
Hi, I have a small orange fancy goldfish. I was haveing problems with very high nitrates, and high amonia. I have since fixed this, although, I lost 1 fish, and one has fogged eye, and the small orange fancy gf has pop eye, he has not ate in days, he was getting picked on by the others, so his gills look not good, he also is not swimming right at all, I found him on the gravel yesterday a.m., and since then, he is on the gravel upside down a lot, if I push him a bit, he will swim, but his belly wants to go up, so he is upside down a lot, its been 24 hours since he began to not be able to swim well, and today he seems much more weak. He looks like he is very close to death, mostly on the gravel now, and belly up. Is he going to die? should I flush him and let him go? I had put a med called melafix in yesterday and today, and took the carbon filter out, I also seperated them with a plastick lid in the tank so the other fish will leave him alone. But all efforts seam to not be helping at this point. He's really not even trying any more, but I can see he is breathing, thats it. What should I do??? would you go ahead and let him go??? or could he come back to life???

Answer
hi Heather,

Your goldfish is currently suffering from a condition known as Swimbladder Disorder. Unfortunately there is no known cure for this condition. However, it's not all bad as SWD is often confused with Constipation; which is also common in Goldfish.

Try putting him in a different tank and dropping the water level to 4-5 inches, warm the tank to around 20C (coldwater accelerates the condition) and feed him chopped earthworm, live Daphnia and blanched shelled peas.

If he is suffering from Constipation then he should improve, if it is Swimbladder disorder then it is highly unlikely that he will ever recover. A mild salt dip may relieve the symptoms although euthanasia is often the best way to go I'm afraid.

Tom