[Britty]

Hi all,
Â* Â* Â* Â* Â*Thought i would ask the experts this one!!! I have a nice little lemon koi about 5" which seems to have develloped a problem. When he/she sits on the bottom of the holding tank it lays on its side. If you disturb it, it swims off seemingly OK. It does come up to feed no problem as usual but does seem it struggle a little to get to the surface to feed and then sinks backwards.Â* Water perameters are all good, temp is about 14 degrees all other fish in the holding tank seem fine.Â* Â*Any suggestions guys?????????

Lee.

[koiman[madabtkoi]]

There is no specific treatment for this dilemma;however, you can try isolating the fish to a quarantine tank in which the water is shallow(this provides relief for the fish). Add one teaspoon of salt per gallon of water. Some individuals will feed thawed out frozen peas and this purges the fish's system and has been noted to help many fish. After 1-2 weeks a return to the main tank with deeper water may be tried. The best advice I can give is to maintain proper water conditions, feed your fish a well balanced diet, and possibly try feeding your fish sinking foods rather than floating types. They won't inhale so much air this way. The pellets if soaked in water before feeding will expand before the fish eats them and this has helped a lot. Good luck with this!! Check out http://www.koivet.com

[koiman[madabtkoi]]

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 sponge and expand in the fish predispose to food impactions.
See #3 above.

SO WHAT CAN I DO TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING?

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. Periodic 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.

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.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.
3.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.
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. If you're interested in more information on this procedure, E-mail me and I'll give you more details and a journal citation if you want.

But the best thing to do is to prevent it from happening in the first place. mmmm in hinesite lol

[english]

My largest koi suffered from swim bladder last summer and I really thought he was a goner but I applied a little salt every other day to the pond and he pulled through and is in fantastic health my dealer said with swim bladder its a 50/50 chance you just don't know.

[extremekoi]

Unless you are heated, the problem could be because of the long winter and temperature fluctuations we have had the least few weeks, warm days and cold nights!

Koi can adapt to very cold weather but the fluctuations we have had lately causes them stress, temperature has dropped dramatically during the night time lately and has been doing it constantly for the last few weeks.

Hopefully as the temperatures will become more stable over the next week or two and you will see a change in your koi.

I know not all Koi are acting in this manner, but some are hardier than others and will not be affected in the same way, if you are concerned its always best to get a scrape done by your local dealer to confirm its not a parasite problem.

[crazy-koi]

I too had one of my biggest Koi with the same problem. He spent a couple of weeks like it. Fed them all on thawed out peas and he has bounced back too life again

Crazy

[Britty]

Hi all,
Thanks for the info, i have been feeding peas for a while and seeing slow results, but any progess is good progess.

Thanks again guys,

Lee.

[AndreSimms]

Hello fellow members, I wanted to introduce myself. Im Andre.
This is a great board I have checked in from time to time and I think I'm ready to participate and contribute with you guys.
I thought about starting my own board but Im glad I found this one instead. Great Info!
See ya.