Q: fat belly fish

Answered by Tviokh on 1/27/03, 3:50 pm

A: TOTALLY inappropriate setup!

Your fish is not pregnant, it is likely suffering from dropsy.
Dropsy is usually caused by extremely poor water conditions, and with two fish that would need at least a 35 gallon tank crammed into a 15 gallon tank, it's very safe to say you have extremely poor water conditions.

Dropsy can be a sign of kidney failure or a severe bacterial or viral infection.

Treating it at this point will do no good, as the underlying cause is this tank.

For two common comet goldfish (feeder goldfish), you need at LEAST a 55 gallon tank.

For two fancy goldfish you would need at least a 35-40 gallon tank.

Goldfish are not small fish; fancies grow to between 6-9 inches in length and comets can reach over 12 inches in length.
These fish are not suitable for small aquariums and keeping them in small aquariums guarantees a few things:

1) They will be stunted. i.e. they will stay small because there is no room for them to grow. Stunted fish are stressed fish, and stunted fish do not exhibit proper color, proper fin development, or proper metabolic development.

2) They will die young. Fancies can live for 20-25 years, when properly cared for. Comets for 30 years, and Koi for over 50.

3) This tank will fail. It is simply too small for the type of fish you want to keep.

Here are some links on proper goldfish keeping; please read up on what's required to keep these goldfish successfully.
Once you have them in a proper setup, THEN you can treat the disease with some chance of success.
If you can't or don't want to get a larger tank, please don't be cruel to the fish any longer: Return them to the store and buy something more suited to the smaller tank that you have.

http://www.animalfreedom.org/english/information/goldfishbowl.html
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3503.asp
http://www.petlibrary.com/goldfish/fishcare.htm