SWIM BLADDER DISEASE *Cause and Cure*
 

I've been asked by many of my friends lately about the notorious "SWIM BLADDER DISEASE" and how to cure it. I found this very informative article written by Douglas H. Thamm.

Why does my goldfish tend to float at the surface of the water and have a hard time going to the bottom of the tank?

Because it's got swim bladder disease.

Swim bladder disease is a multifactorial illness which primarily affects ornamental goldfish which have globoid body shapes, like orandas, ryukins, and fantails. It most often presents as a fish which floats at the surface, or a fish which stays on the bottom and doesn't seem to be able to easily rise. A fish which has normal buoyancy but is listing to one side or the other often does not have swim bladder disease, but may have other diseases.

In order to understand swim bladder disease, a cursory discussion of fish anatomy and physiology is necessary. The swim bladder is a small epithelium-lined sac in the anterior abdomen which is responsible for maintaining buoyancy. It has a close association with blood vessels such that gases can diffuse across into and out of the sac according to the needs of the fish. The sac inflates if the fish needs to be more buoyant, and it deflates if the fish needs to be less buoyant. Goldfish and some other fish have a special addition to this system called the pneumocystic duct, which is a connection between the swim bladder and the esophagus, allowing additional adjustment of buoyancy by letting air out through the digestive tract.

People have debated for years over the cause of swim bladder disease. It is pretty well established now that a number of things can cause swim bladder disease. Some of the things which have been suggested are:


1.A virus. The virus attacks the epithelium of the sac and inflammation occurs which makes the epithelium too thick for gases to diffuse across. Thus the fish is stuck at a certain buoyancy because gases have nowhere to go. This may be more of a factor in non-goldfish species.

2.A bacterium. There is little evidence to support this, but it's widely known that bacterial infections can cause the same kind of thickening of the swim bladder epithelium as viruses.

3.Anatomy. Globoid-shaped fish like ornamental goldfish are predisposed to problems with the swim bladder because their guts are all squashed up in their abdomen. This arrangement predisposes to food impactions, which in turn clog up the pneumocystic duct.

4.Diet. Feeding dry foods which tend to take on water like a ponge and expand in the fish predispose to food impactions. See # 2 above.

What can I do to prevent swim bladder disease?


1. As always, the golden rule of fish disease is WATER QUALITY. If swim bladder disease does have an infectious cause, your fish will be better able to resist this infection (and others) if your water quality is good. Regular water changes and water testing are a must.

2. Pre-soak your flake or pelleted food. This will allow expansion to occur prior to the fish eating it, and will lessen the chance of impaction.

3.Even better, switch to a gel-based food or other food source, i.e. frozen or live food. You can E-mail me at dthamm@dolphin.upenn.edu for a recipe for gel food.

Let's say I didn't read this in time. What can I do to treat it

(Note: Some of this stuff is pretty far out, but effective.)

1. 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.

2.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.

3.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.

4.Partial pneumocystectomy. This is another word for surgical removal of part of the swim bladder. I mention this less as a practical option but more just to let people know that there are vets out there doing X-rays, surgery, general anesthesia, even cancer chemotherapy on fish.

*Note by Louis: Personally I dont recommend you trying steps 3 and 4 unless you are a surgon or doctor*

This arcticle can be found at:

http://www.netpets.com/fish/referenc.../swimbldr.html

Small & more frequent feeding/Shallow water
 

GF are domesticated fish that will never survive in the wild. One of the main mutation that the GF underwent is to become "lazy" and are better fed. GF do not have a stomach and the food they eat goes straight into the guts. That is why they are never "full". 2 main preventions are i) feed small amounts many times a day (5 to 7 times), and ii) raise the GF in shallow water (10 inches and below recommended). I have never seen GF with swim bladder problem fully recover. The above steps will prolong its life and prevent GF from getting it but once inflicted, it will never be cured.

Re: Small & more frequent feeding/Shallow water
 

Have you tried feeding pea, a common recommendation in many of the forums.

Re: Re: Small & more frequent feeding/Shallow water
 

Sorry. Have not tried feeding pea because there is no need to. Never had any of these swim bladder problems for more than 10 years with my GF.

Re: Small & more frequent feeding/Shallow water
 

Have seen some big Orandas and Ryukins at 35A. Wonder how such big goldfish can possible be raised in 10" depth of water.

I have seen a lot of goldfishes with that problem. But I have seen green water as a good solution also to that problem, but does not have any scientific basis at all. Fasting, peas and high temp will also improve the condition sometimes to the fish. But with no guarantee.

Water level of only about 8 inches is also a good way as the water pressure is much lesser compared with a deeper pond.

PL of the Philippines

A friend told me about his remedy of feeding activated charcoal, is there any truth in that

well, when goldfish get swim bladder disease, probably better to cull the fish

really not worth to find a cure

bro..gfs can survive in the wild..when i stayed for a period of time in jurong, i always go to the lakeside area..chinese garden park to fish for shrimps with my pop..and guess what..one particular day an oranda was happily swimming in the vast huge pond..that was many years ago..i guess with the blatant act by some aquarists of releasing unwanted flowerhorns..such rare occurances like this have dissappeared entirely..of course i disapprove of releasing gfs into such conditions as well.

Take one more step, disapprove releasing of Flowerhorn in the water sources. :mad:

Epsom Salt seems to do wonders for fish

Alfalfa: Constipation is the cause of most of floating problems. Dr. Matthews has found that adding Alfalfa to the fish?s diet stimulates the intestinal track reducing constipation. A good dose of Alfalfa has been added to Pro-Gold.

references - fishsempai.com

Spirulina help reduce the problem of upside down floating caused by constipation.
goldfishconnection.com

also they say cod liver oil is a help
atm im still treating one of my fish for chronic SBD and and im trying codliver oil with spirulina pellets. in my case it has worked its wonders as none of my fish have SBd now

If worst comes to worst and it flips when u feed pellet food or blood worms switch to a vegetable and fruit diet
Peas, corn, mandrins, carrot even cooked potatoe
make sure they are all in bite size pieces before throwing them into your tank

Anyone tried tofu for SBD treatment?

I bought 4 GF from aquastar 4 days back. and one of them has already bite the dust! having the swim bladder problem!!! always floating at the top...

What I did not do...
1.)did not pre soak the pellets and flake food
2.) raise them in a 16inch tall tank


Now the rest of the three are swimming in funny positions!! help!~

Such symptoms don't come suddenly. You should not have bought it.

No, but care to explain why the suggestion?

Rgds

Hi
 

Saw this swimbladder treatment from Interpet, is it useful?

Hi All,

This is my first post..

I've got a black ranchu with a sinking problem. It sinks to the bottom and lies sideway. It has been at least 2 months already. I've isolated it much earlier when it happened.

What should I do??? I've read that it could be swim bladder problem. I must say that it has been very strong. It is still feeding though. but lately, much lesser than before.

Please help...

Rgds
Kit

btw, can pea be bought from lfs? till now still dont understand which type of pea is use to cure sbp...or is it the type sold in supermarket...is pea a type of nut?...pls enlighten me...

green peas are not a cure. They are a prevention method. Its the kind of peas which you will find in Chinese Fried Rice. You can easily get a frozen pack from any supermarket and it is inexpensive.

There are pre cooked and uncook green pea in the market. Uncook green pea has to be boiled in hot water to soften it. Before feeding pea, please remove the hask.

thankz for this info...so do i need to cook that pea b4 i feed aro with it?

Swim bladder problem
 

Hi all; Am new to this.....I am desperate....My 10 year old fantail has had constant swim bladder for the past 6 months at least.... I have tried everything recommended!!!!!!!!!! except the needle thing and cod liver oil....Do you soak the spirulina in the oil before feeding it???? I hand feed this fish.... He is so gutsy I don't have the heart to kill him.... Slight pressure on his bladder used to work, but not anymore... Does anyone have a diagaram of the bladder so I could try that needle thing as a last resort....Barring anything else ; and nothing works, I think he has suffered long enough and would like some humane idea on putting him to sleep....I was thinking of putting tank water in a ziplock with air, and putting him in the freezer...I think the gradual temperature change would slow his system down till he went comatose???

No Cure Liao...
 

Hi all, I think it is true on what some say about swim bladder problem.... no cure. I have fed my gf with peas and starve them for days b4 feeding them, but still no improvements. Sometimes, I think can't be help, like one of my gf, he is a pig, always the first to the food and eats like a vacuum cleaner. Food that is for 4 gf, he alone eats 50% of them. Now he is doing head stand when not swimming, anyone has good advice beside medication, cos I din like that and I dun think he is suffering from any diseases.

Will it go worse, like what some forumers here experience, like floating or sinking at the bottom ? Cheers.

Hi,

It will only get worse especially if there's no change in diet. I had one oranda that was doing head stand initially and gradually degraded to flipping over & floating on the water surface when its not swimming... :(

Starving helps (to some extend) & more importantly, GFs that have SBD b4 need "special" diet... reduce regular feed & give them more greens!

Couple of valuable lessons I learnt (as preventive measures):

- NEVER overfeed! Feed in small qty. GFs always appear hungry. Its better to feed less when in doubt. Don't worry, GFs (being cold blooded animals) need less food than they think they do!

- Pre-soak your pellets or dried foods. I soaked mine for at least 10mins b4 feeding.

- Pea treatment. Serve your GFs peas as a preventive measure against SBD. I usually feed peas to my GFs at least once a week - one pea per GF.

Good luck & keeping rearing!! :D

Very good information!;)

gosh...my fish is floating upside down. i wonder if its gotten the disease too. :(

" Pre-soak your pellets or dried foods. " actually don need to soak pellets waste vitamins n nutrient.. just feed the sinking type of hikira lionhead pellet... or super medi gold.... :p there's no air in that kind of pellet cause if got air will float one.... :p

" A fish which has normal buoyancy but is listing to one side or the other often does not have swim bladder disease, but may have other diseases.
"
then wat disease ?

Can anybody enlighten?

Good point and people should not follow blindly.:cool:

Oh yes..SBD can be caused by bacteria also, so need not necessarily be the method of feeding.

as far as I know, sbd has always been incurable for my goldfishies no matter if i tried curing them by not feeding or just feeding peas.

BUT recently, when i popped by Mainland, I saw a bottle of medication for CURING swimbladder disease. As i havent used it before, I wouldnt know how useful it is. I remember the price being ~$6. Further information and pics of the bottle can be seen from Mainland's website.

No need medication lah. Whenever you see your fish has any sign of SBD (flipping, struggling during swimming, floating or sinking), quickly remove it to a shallow tub (not more then half ft). Add 0.5% of salt with water change daily till it recovers. You have to do this before the stomach start deforming. Successfully cured a few but beware of relaspe (some GF are more genetically prone).:)

yeah i understand. Once the goldfish has been hit with the SBD once, definitely have to change its normal diet, more to those of peas and lettuce. I think using salt + not feeding can help it to recover too, but havent had any success before though because always only tried treating it when the disease was in its later stages.

swimbladder is caused by traped wind it can be cured but the fish will always have troble swimming even wen the desies is cured the fish will live hapley on his side but its anoying to watch

seems like this swim bladder problem is infectious, my GF got it one after the other, tried salt water and swimbladder cure medication..... but so far no luck, now one of my GF is floating upside now and the other is sinking at the bottom.......... sigh....

Though it may be due to upkeeping, SBD is sometimes intrinsic genetic problem...no matter how you do, it will still get SBD when it ages. Did you notice some fishes are more hardy and some are very prone :rolleyes:

Due to X-breeding, globoid body are created (e.g. ranchu, lionhead) and these breeds are very prone to SBD. On the other hand, those of conventional type (e.g. comet, wakin..) with longish body have more resistance against this problem.

Therefore, problem is there and how to select a GF without this hidden problem is very important. So observe how the fish swims for any slight sign of SBD before you buy . You may even try to stir the water to observe how the fish swim against the current. I am not able to tell you exactly how to see, but a very simple principle is whether the fish can swim straight.
This is very important thing to do to avoid future headache. :)

hmmm... maybe they are more prone to dieseases when they age... i have been keeping these GF for abt one year... from small rear until big big then got SBD and guess wat, the GF sinking at the bottom is a lionhead......

:( same bro

I got two always stink in the bottom one

when feeding time they will swim up to eat than down again

another one is always float upside down

overall funny is they are all healthy till now still survive .

i have 1fish always struggle to grab food from the bottom of the tank..he is always pulled back everytime he tries to reach the bottom..is this SBP?anyone noes?:confused: :confused:

may i know whether the peas u all mention are just normal peas from NTUC