Choking goldfish?

[Stale Cupcakes]

So I noticed my goldfish breathing heavily and usually when he does this he spits out gravel soon after. He did spit out a piece of gravel but he was still breathing fairly heavily. I feel it is possible that after he spits out one piece of gravel, he swallowed another. Now I know the tweezer trick but I am much too nervous and my hands are very shaky and I am afraid I will hurt him. I picked him up out of the tank to try but he is too small and fast for me to do much. I managed to take a good look into his mouth and it didn't look like anything was there. I am thinking that he was breathing heavily because he was alarmed and even more so now that he is scared and stressed about me taking him out of the water. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I am giving it time right now to see if he's still breathing like he was because I know it usually takes him time to calm down.

 

[Stale Cupcakes]

He seems to be eating fine be he is still frantic when he sees me so I think I'm gonna have to give him more time. I just don't want him to end up actually choking and me not being able to do anything ?

 

[Autumnsky]

Goldfish are best to not have gravel /pebbles, small mouth sized stones in their tank for this reason, they eat off the bottom and will get a pebble stuck.