Hi
one of my socars has a hard time staying off the bottom of the tank. when its feeding time it comes up and eat, but i can tell its struglling to stay up and gets back down very fast ... while my other one just floats easily, it feels like ummm i don't know how to describe it ... its like its heavy, sometimes it swims around but soon it'll just let go of itself and falls to the bottom again ... its not lying on the sine, seems that it has good balance, eats well but hardly ever swims around anymore, its been few days since i first noticed, thought its just being lazy, but now its worrying me.

water temp is around 27.

thanks in advance ...

To me it sounds like swim bladder infection. I take it when you say it sinks back to bottom you mean it looks like the fish doesn't want to go to the bottom but sinks without control and lays hard on the bottom. swim bladder can affect the fish in several ways like,balance,sinking,floating,nose up or nose down position. treatment is for internal swim bladder infection. in uk interpet no6 along with aquarium salt and raised temp. there is another post below yours with very same problem.

Its normal for swim bladder infection to occurs as with all fish problem because of water condition. Please check your water conditions. remove carbon if you use before any treatment.

marcus got you covered.
while waiting for medication, water cahnge can
improve water quality. pristine water is first
defense in any fish problem.

ummm
thanks
but but it sorta does seem involentery ... it can hold itself up but it just lets go ... but again sorta needs to try hard ... i don't now ... i'll try rasing temp and water change to see what happens ...

to be more exact the fish looks as if it was tired and didn't wish to swim around. but when i come to feed it it stays up as long as i'm there ... but the other 2 stay up longer be he just goes back down ...

i also thought maybe i fed fed em too much so i gave a break today ...

thank again for the help ...

Definitely sounds as though there is a problem with your fish's swim bladder. The lads above have you covered on the treatment. Let us know how your fish responds please.

I've added salt(this morning), and did a couple of changes. its 6:15 pm, no changes yet ... I went to a aq. shop to get meds and they told me if the swimblader (its translated "airbag" is it what it is) is infected and emptied, they will not recover. is that true? and they told me to get a couple of nitrofurantoin pills and put solve em into my tank so the other one (which seems to me to be starting to develop the same prob) wouldn't get worse.

in your opinion will they recover from this or there is no hope?

please post your water parameters ASAP! as without these readings we have no real idea of whats going on in your tank and the problem COULD lie elsewhare orbe a combo of things PLEASE GIVE THIS INFO...

the fish can recover. I have treated fish with swim bladder infection and had both good and bad results. treat early, keep water in pristine condition and you have a good chance. I would turn light out as stress can kill too. a fish that suffers swim bladder infection is very stressed anyway. Best of luck.

I'm with Marcus on this one. I have known fish recover from this sort of thing before. I believe you have to exhaust all options before giving up. If you are having no joy from one shop, then try another but also beware some shops selling you stuff you don't need. Here is an article not written by me, but by a respected fish keeper on other forums.

Swim bladder disorder is a multifactorial illness which primarily affects ornamental goldfish which have globoid body shapes, like orandas, ryukins, and fantails but it certainly can and does effect other fish species. You're right, it can be caused by many stress factors and the difficulty in treating swim bladder disorder lies in ascertaining which causative factor to treat.

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. Most often, a fish which has normal buoyancy but is listing to one side does not have swim bladder disorder but rather, may have other bacterial diseases.

Let's talk about the anatomy and physiology of fish. 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 the blood membrane barrier into and out of the swim bladder according to the needs of the fish. The bladder 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.

There has been considerable debate concerning the cause of swim bladder disease. Most literature has established that swim bladder disorder may be caused by a number of potentiators including virus, bacteria or diet.

Virus: A virus can attack the epithelium of the swim bladder causing inflammation which makes the epithelium too thick for gases to diffuse into the blood system. A fish which is so affected may be stuck at a certain buoyancy because gases have nowhere to go. This may be more of a factor in non-goldfish species.

Bacteria: While bacterial infection causing swim bladder problems is rare, it is widely known and accepted that bacterial infections can cause the same kind of thickening of the swim bladder epithelium as viruses.

Anatomy: Globoid-shaped fish like ornamental goldfish are predisposed to problems with the swim bladder because their anatomy prevents normal development, and most particularly, placement of the bladder in the body cavity. This arrangement predisposes to food impactions, which in turn clog up the pneumocystic duct.

Diet: Feeding dry foods which tend to take on water like a sponge and expand in the fish can result in food impactions. I have seen a number of references on this board and others, that fish feeding at the surface will take in air with the food and this may result in swim bladder problems. In fact, this is not true. It is the swelling/expansion of food in the gut that causes impaction and it is the impaction, NOT AIR, that causes swim bladder problems.

So, how are you going to treat swim bladder disorders. There are two means at your disposal -prevention and treatment.

1. First and foremost, maintain good water quality. This will enhance your fish's ability to naturally resist viral or bacterial infections.

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

TREATMENT:

(A) Feed your fish a couple of peas. Peas' high fiber content encourage destruction of the impaction.

(B 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.

(C) A product called Paragon II by Aquatronics? supposedly aids in treatment of swim bladder disorder.

(D) Add one teaspoon of aquarium salt per gallon of water.

(E) Treat with Mardel's Maracyn-Two or other broad-spectrum antiobiotics.

(F) Last resort - aspiration of the swim bladder. Essentially you stick a needle in the swim bladder and suck out some of the air.
(copied, as I didn't want to link to another forum)
I don't know if this will help, but I hope so mate.

do we know amonia and nitrate, etc ,levels before he treats ?????????????the water could be in real bad shape !!!!!! treating wont help the fish if the waters bad?? IMHO

as marcus had said in the first post, water parameter
is essential before medication approach if ever. biggamehunter
is also into it. so please check water parameters first.

thanks all ... this is great help,
i'm sorry i don't know how to give these water conditions, i don't have the chance to get them ...

i did change 1/4 of my water twice last few days (once i replaced whater with boiled water, is that ok? ) ... the air was on all the time ... water is around 31, and added aq. salt as well ...

as i read here it might not be bacteria, 'cuase the prob i won't add the pills 'cuase i read its only for those sorts of infections .... i'll put carbon in filtering, and will try to do more frequent water changes... and the fast sounds good to me, 'cause i did think i was alittle over feeding my poor fish.

but i'm on the worst of luck, i'm on my finals and not much time on my own, but i'll do my best,
again thank you for the help.