# Swimbladder??



## PlatyLady (Oct 27, 2006)

so, I came home from classes today to discover one of my platies showing the classic signs of swimbladder disease (swimming sporadically, often upside down, nose down, or on her side, very slight bloating of the body). I've never had to deal with this before, so can anyone suggest a treatment (if one exists)? I'll have water perameters soon-need to go get more testing supplies, but on the last test, about a month ago, all the numbers were dead-on (I remember the pH being about 7.2, and the ammonia being 0, but I don't remember other numbers). I'm not sure if this makes a difference or not, but this female sunset fire platy dropped fry over the weekend...Thanks in advance for all your help! 
Maggie


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

What are your feeding patterns?
-How often do you feed?
-What do you feed?
-How much do you feed?


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## PlatyLady (Oct 27, 2006)

Well, in the last twenty minutes since I noticed the problem, the fish died. I've never seen anything like this. The fish was fine at 9:30 this morning, and by 1:30 it's dead! The tank's feeding patter is as follows:They eat once, sometimes twice a day. Their staple food is TetraColor flake food, usually in conjunction with blood worms and sometimes a little spirulina. I never feed more than they can consume within about 5 minutes (usually a healthy pinch of flake and a sprinkling of bloodworms). Any advice on how to prevent whaterver just happened from happening again??


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## harif87 (Jun 5, 2006)

This case of swim bladder may have been caused by a bacterial or viral infection since the fish died, fast. But thats just a possibility. Many times fish recover from swim bladder.

Swim bladder disorder is caused by the restricited passage of gasses in and out of the swim bladder. A bladder could remain inflated, which is noted when a fish has trouble swimming downward, or it can remain deflated, which is noted when a fish has trouble swimming upward.

Often times restriction is caused by overfeeding or by feeding dry foods that expand when in water. It can sometimes be caused by inflamation of the swim bladder membrane, caused by a bacterial or viral infection. Its virtually impossible to tell what the cause is.

The most common remedy is feeding a boiled pea to the fish which acts as a laxative. This helps flush out any stuck particles of expanded food. This is the most common treatment because the most common cause is by overfeeding or feeding dry foods. This means of treatment wont be effective on any cases caused by bacterial or viral infection.

Then again your fish might have had something other than swim bladder


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## Ringo (Apr 10, 2006)

Maybe its not swimbladder disease...
I've had quite a few fish go completely nuts and then die.
Mostly bettas that did that, but what they would do is as you described. Swim up and down, upside down, and any other direction it could swim. For me I believe it was poor water conditions, I was never home to take care of the tanks.
I once watched a black molly run right into one of my rocks in my tank and kill himself:lol: It was instant, dropped right there 
Even though its sad that I lost that fish, it was kinda funny


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## PlatyLady (Oct 27, 2006)

I found a new LFS that I really like, actually knowledgeable and very clean tanks (ie-not more than 1 fish per gallon of water in diplay tanks, no ich, no frayed fins, etc), and they thought it could have maybe been due to having a stressful birth-they said it's kind of common for live-bearers. I'm not taking that as the definative answer or anything, but it made sense. Also, I'm not sure if this will help with a diagnosis, but the perameters for the water are: pH 7.8, ammonia 0ppm, nitrites 0 ppm, and nitrates between 20 and 40. I'm going to clean the tank and do a 25% water change in a bit. Maybe if it was viral or bacterial I can get it out of the tank with a good scrub and fresh water.


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