Vieja Synspilum issue

Hi all

Hoping for some help with my Vieja.

For a week or 2 now he seems to be having an intermittent issue where he will be swimming head down towards the sand, he sometimes even ends up going completely upside down also.

It’s very strange as he seems to right himself again after a couple of hours, I wonder if he looks bloated also. All this aside, he has looked to be fine for the last week as I have been treating him in a separate tank to my main.

I was thinking swim bladder and I have been treating him with Myxazin in a hospital tank. I have also been treating him with Acriflavin incase he has any internal parasites. But just as I think he might be better he has started to swim head down again.

Really not sure where to go to try and fix him. Has anyone got any advice or had a similar problem before?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Just also FYI, my water parameters are all good in both my main tank and my hospital.

I have seen that - usually it has been an infection in the intestine/gut. The swim bladder is filled from the gut, so the fish loses equilibrium as the inflammation probably affects the bladders too.
I'm on a different continent without the same meds, but acriflavene is for external parasites, so is a nuisance med with this problem. I looked up the other med, and it doesn't seem to target what's going on. Hopefully, someone with more recent antibiotic experience (they're banned without a vet here) can help, And hopefully you'll have access to what they suggest.
Even more hopefully, maybe they'll guess right.
Once you're dealing with internal problems, we're blind. I'm suggesting an infection, but it could also be a growth (a cyst or tumour), an internal organ issue - all kinds of things, none good.

Is the fish eating normally?

What does the fish's poop look like?

Can you post a video of the fish losing equilibrium?
Upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally (landscape mode) so the footage fills the entire screen and doesn't have black bars on either end.

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True swim bladder problems are rare but it does happen sometimes. If a fish floats to the surface when it stops swimming, it can be a swim bladder problem or air trapped in its intestine. To test this you stop feeding dry food for a week and only feed live or frozen foods during that time. If the problem rectifies itself when dry food is removed, then it's the dry food and air causing the problem and you should reduce it and use more frozen or live food. However, if the problem continues then it's a swim bladder problem.

The other swim bladder issue is where fish sink when they stop swimming. On rare occasions this is caused by dumb fish or axolotls eating gravel, which causes them to sink. But normally it's a swim bladder issue.

There is no treatment for swim bladder issues.

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If the fish is slowly spinning or nose diving, that's a different issue and can be an issue in the brain or an internal issue.

The fish does look bloated.

As Gary said, neither medication will help so stop using them.

Hi both, thanks for your replies.

Of course after I came home from work the fish is the correct way up again. So not possible to get a video of him with the issue at present. This is what I mean it just seems to be an intermittent issue which I can’t get my head around.

I rarely see him eat since I got him, I think he must just filter through the sand when I’m not looking, but he really does not seem to eat an awful lot. His poops have been white stringy with nodules also, another thing that made me think internal parasites are causing the issue.

I was using acriflavine on the advice of a fish shop worker.

The below seems to suggest it’s one of the main ingredients in swim bladder treatment?


I will certainly stop using it if it’s not the correct meds. Do you have any advice as to what might help to treat internal parasites?

Thanks

The medication in the link you provided does nothing to swim bladder problems. It treats bacteria and swim bladder problems are not normally caused by bacteria.

There is no treatment in the form of medication for swim bladder problems. And this probably isn't a swim bladder problem due to the fish not eating and doing stringy white poop.

The following link has information on stringy white poop and it's either an internal bacterial or protozoan infection. Metronidazole would be the medication to try first (assuming you can get it).

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When using antibiotics and other medications, they work best in bare tanks or very clean tanks. Either treat the fish in a bare container or clean the main tank before treating.

Before treating the main tank (or any aquarium), do the following.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75-90% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
*NB* Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating with chemicals or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working. You do not need to remove the carbon if you use salt.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.


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To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the right side of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Thanks for all your help.

I can get API general cure here so I will look to get that and treat. Your instructions for treating are very thorough and I will follow them, I just hope he is not already too far gone.

I also bought some Levamisole powder last night, would you think I should consider using that too?

Levamisole is used to treat thread/ round worms. Intestinal worms don't stop fish from eating. I would use the Metronidazole first and if the fish survives, then use levamisole a few weeks later after the fish has recovered from its current illness.