Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have found a fish out of ballance today morning. Its rolling from back to belly. Netted him out to quarantine.

Here is the video (sorry for pure sound quality):



After taking the video I called the supplier for advice. He sad it could be a gassy belly or a swim bladder inflammation. The seccond case is not funny...

Have you seen similar diagnosis? Recommended treatment?

Thx: Zsazsa

Did he eat floating food? Prolly not this because in such a case you would probably have many fishes rolling this way, but AFAIK with some/most of the fishes species one gains from avoiding letting them gulp too much air while eating, and therefore mainly/only feed fast-sinking matter, or let any floating food stay in a water bucket 'till it sinks before giving it to the fish.

Swim bladder disorders are caused by environment not a disease as such.
check your water or what has been put in it recently

Unfortunately most fish with swim bladder problems do not regain their balance properly but can live on (ornamental fish anyway)
sinking pellets will help as less air in gulped in with the food results in less balance issues.

on the other side of the coin depending on the age of the fish it could be just his time to go but you need to check the water

Every time I have seen a swim bladder disorder the fish has been bloated and is constantly trying to swim down.
I have had fish look similar to this after taking a leap of faith and falling 2m onto concrete.
Surprisingly, most are swimming normally by the next day.
If not, I would put it out of its misery with a knock on the head.

Thx for the replays:

Here you find some additional info, a some possible cause.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9276&p=297222#p297222

Im still not convinced, and open to any ideas.

No floating food.

This is a problem more common in fancy goldfish, and there is no cure for it. Feeding medicated food (see bottom of page), adding salt to the tank, feeding peas, and raising the temperature to 76 degrees may help but only for a short time. Eventually the fish may be unable to eat and will have to be euthanized.

Feed your fish a couple of peas. That's right, peas. Just get some frozen peas, thaw them, and feed them to your fish. A professor of fish medicine at N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine has done this in several cases with very good results. He thinks that the peas somehow encourage destruction of the impaction. No hard scientific data yet, but it's worth a try.

Fast your fish for a couple of days. Withhold all food for three or four days, and sometimes this alone will break up the impaction and return things to normal. Most fish can go a week to ten days without food and be just fine.

Periodic aspiration of the swim bladder works very well. Basically, you stick a needle in the swim bladder and suck out some of the air. Not something to be entered into lightly, but does work well. This is not a cure, but a successful treatment. The head veterinarian at the Baltimore Aquarium prefers this method.

The swim bladder (also called an air bladder) is the buoyancy device that helps a fish stay level and at the depth it wants to be: it inflates when the fish wants to rise, and deflates when it wants to sink. In a home aquarium the swim bladder of some fish (especially goldfish, fantails, orandas and black moors) may become over inflated, causing the fish to swim either head up or head down, or even upside down or otherwise unable to stay on an even keel. It may float to the surface and be unable to swim down to the bottom, or it may sink to the bottom and be unable to rise. Swim bladder problems are, one assumes, uncomfortable for the fish, and the fish can become quite distressed.

Bladder problems are really a severe issue which brings people in severe problems. Loss of natural bladder control can cause significant damage to your body functioning.

do you have access to a hypodermic needle? when pulling fish from deeper water the swim bladder can get to big and "burst" or just expand to fast.. use the needle to deflate, i have seen this done; it's called "fizzing"..

oh, and see if you can get the fish to eat a couple pea's

The solution was more simple.

I knocked the fish, opened it, couldnt se any abnormality, showed it to the fish supplier, they said the same, so it landed in the fridge, and later on the chirstmas table.

Still dont know what was the problem. The supplier said it could probably be a problem of rapid growing. The base of the fish colony lives in 9-11C water for decades now, at my place they started growing in 16-19C for about 3 months, they grew realy well. And I see an other fish with deformation as well, but that doesn't effect the normal life of the fish.

I invited a supplier for a tour, we gona check on that issue as well.

Stictly on statistics I have 94% of fish healthy and in perfect condition. An other had similar balance problem later and one has some deformation, but that one is growing well.

94% sounds quite normal, but I'll try to solve these cases as well.