Hi,
I have a gold fish about 6 inches and about 3 weeks ago she layed some eggs. however she is getting more bloated every day. I have looked up on the internet about this and i have read she might be egg bound. It has been suggested to soak her in epsom salt to help release the eggs. Should I do that? If so, how much salt to how much water? Also how long should I leave her soak? Should I try to squeeze her, or would that hurt her? Thanks so much

dont touch the fish let alone squeeze it.

Hi Tommy,
Why not touch her? What about the salt? I am affraid that she will explode. I read that if she can't get rid of the eggs she could die.

i would never touch a fish. it will explode if your are squeezeing it. when i was 4 i touched a goldfish and it was fine when i did and it died the next day. its never a good idea to touch a goldfish. If you do soak her in salt (which ive never heard of) i would use aquarium salt and for a little while. But dont do anything until robyn approves because im not sure about the salt soaking. read over robyns web site and stuff.

My pond fish tend to brush against my hand/arm when I'm doing pond maintenance. In fact, they seem facinated with my arm and often come running when I get to messing around. It never seemed to bother them, much less hurt them, though it is them doing the touching and not me. I suppose that might make a difference. :unsure:

my pond fish like so bite the hairs on my arm, picking up and squeezing a goldfish is different.

I've picked up goldfish many times, always with wet and clean hands (usually to move them or during emergencies, etc.). Expressing eggs out of a female is another thing all together. If you don't know what you're doing, you can cause the fish severe damage. If she is egg bound, that means the eggs have started to rot and bacteria are growing. At that point, you can't express her eggs anyway. That can only be done with a healthy female who is not egg bound but ripe with eggs.

I assume that you have her in a pond with males or is she an aquarium fish? If there are males with her, the chances that she would be egg bound are very remote. It's more likely that she has an internal bacterial infection such as dropsy or tuberculosis or perhaps has a problem with her kidneys (fluid retention). See this section on my site entitled, "Why is my fish fat?"
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/health4.htm#fat
No matter whether she's egg bound or has some other sort of infection, antibiotic injections would be her best chance for survival. If not, then you can try regular in-the-water antibiotics. Depending on her problem, they may or may not help. In any case, the addition of pond salt will help her deal with infection, fluid retention, or whatever the problem is. In a pond setting with plants, a 0.05% solution of sodium chloride is fine. If you bring her into an aquarium or that's where she is, then you can double or even triple that amount to have a greater treatment effect. You can also treat her with magnesium sulfate (epsom salts). What exactly they do, I'm not completely clear on. You can search for epsom salts and goldfish or koi on the internet. Here are some discussions I found on it:

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/forum/lofiver....php/t5578.html
http://www.koivetforums.com/forums/showthr...p?threadid=7118

i pick them out of the bag when i get them but not to hold them or anything.