Help! My Fantail is not pooping or eating

wrote:
call Jo Ann Burke at 251-649-4790. She is the Goldfish Guru with a great deal of
experience. Call before 5. Keep trying to call her, dont expect her to call you
back. Ingrid

I need help! My 3 year old fantail who has been very healthy except for
constipation all her life, has been sitting on the bottom of the tank for the
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Can anyone help me?????

Thank you for responding. Unfortunately, it came too late. She succumbed
about 12 hours or so after I sent out my plea for help. She just kept
getting more bloated and more bloated. I gave her an epsom salts bath for
only a few minutes and she seemed to bloat more from that and that seemed to
put her over the edge. I went to bed at 4:00 a.m. for a few hours sleep and
she had succumbed by the time I awoke at 9:30 a.m. Her rectum appeared to me
to be completely closed. I don't know what that means. There was also a
darkness behind her rectum. I don't know whether this was blocked up feces
or, I have black rocks in my tank, and I'm wondering if perhaps she
accidentally swallowed a rock that she couldn't pass. The day she passed I
was ready to give up on the whole process of being an aquarist. The pain of
losing a 3-year-old goldfish was akin to the pain of losing a 3-year-old cat
or dog! But somehow worse because at least with a cat or dog you have a vet
who can tell you that you did everything you could and that it wasn't your
fault. With fish you just don't know. I was, and still an to a degree, sick
with grief and guilt that I am a poor aquarist and that is why she died. I
told my husband that I was selling my tank. He asked me what I would do with
the other 7 goldfish for whom I am responsible. I said I would sell them
with the tank. Within 3 days I knew this was not something I could ever do.
For better or worse, I must play God and be responsible for the very water in
which those little lives swim for the duration of their lives. Yay, though
I walk through the valley...

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