goldfish choking on rocks?

[ciaobella7122]

Hey all-
Just wondering if this has ever happened to any of you and wondering if i should change out my substrate. Yesterday I woke up and my little calico oranda had a rock stuck in his mouth, I left him for about 15 minutes then he sank to the bottom like he was going to die. I decided to take action and scoop him out and was able to pull the rock out with a pair of tweezers but now I'm paranoid. Would he have died if I had just left him like that? I just have regular black rock substrate and have never had a problem with any other fish. I know a lot of people like bare bottom tanks for their goldies but my tank is planted (which surprisingly hasn't been destroyed yet). So, do your goldies do weird stuff like that or do you think it was just a freak occurrance and I should be okay? I'm so freaked out that it happened lol :goldfish::goldfish::goldfish::goldfish: happy swimming!

 

[My_Goldie]

when I still had my goldies *sniff*.. they would do weird things like that. Mine would always suck up rocks but they always spit them back out. I only had to worry about them getting stuck inside of the decorations not choking on the rocks. It could probably happen, but I'd say he'll probably be fine and that it was just an oddity.

 

[glassbird]

...all the time! I had one fancy goldfish years ago that did it repeatedly. I kept a large bobby pin taped to the tank. It had a soft blob of some sort of plastic on the tip, and I reasoned that it was less likely to injure him if he wiggled than a pair of tweezers. It became routine to net him out, lay him on a wet paper towel, and pry a chunk of gravel out of his mouth. Eventually, he grew bigger and was able to spit it out himself...

(I would have (and should have) replaced the gravel, but I was too poor back then to buy more gravel!)

 

[Sevast0]

We had goldfish when I was wee little and I remember one goldfish in particular would get rocks stuck in his mouth all the time. Most of the time it wouldn't be for long, maybe like an hour, but one day this rock was in his mouth for 2 days. He eventually spit it out, I guess he kept sucking on it until it moved position. I don't know why we never did anything about.

 

[Kashta]

This is a common problem for goldfish because that's what they do... sift through the substrate looking for food, take it in and spit it out. Knowing this, it's up to us to provide the right sized substrate material that isn't going to get lodged in the mouth like this. You need to change your substrate to something more suitable for your fish.

 

[squabeggs]

one word....sand....or boulders..heh..
I had that problem too....I have one giant common that lives with 3 smaller ones. At first I had substrate that was too big for the 3 to choke on but the big one could still suck them up. So I switched to smaller than pea size that they can now sift and spit out. I still have one who occasionally gets one stuck 'cause she has a deformed mouth...at first I was worried but she can shake it out when it gets tough.

just make sure the substrate is way bigger than they can handle or small enough to get spit out. Bare bottoms are WAAAAAAY easier to keep clean and can look very nice with some glass beads for them to push around. You can also silicone fake plants to glass or rock bases that look nice and keep things anchored....just look around on this site for great ideas.
For now, I would get that chokeable substrate out.