Swim bladder problems

Recently, my platy has began to struggle to swim downwards and has had to actively keep swimming to stay down. It has been doing it for around 2 weeks and does not seem to be getting any less food. It still spends a lot of time swimming around near the bottom, so I didn’t think it seemed to badly affected. During the 2 weeks I tried fasting them for 3 days, then fed them peas. Neither of them made a difference. I feed them flake food but bought some frozen bloodworms, which is the first time I have fed them to these fish as I saw in another thread that you could swap flakes for frozen foods for a week and see if that made a difference. However, a few hours after I fed this to them, I noticed one of my rainbowfish swimming strangely. It was swimming normally for a few seconds, then stopping, pointing sideways or straight up. It was moving its gills and fins rapidly as well. I also noticed a few days before, a pattern on its head that I had never seen before. Greeny brown spots on its forehead. If anybody has any idea what the problem for either of these fish is then please tell me. I cannot work out what the problem is.
Thank you.

Need a video of the platy having trouble swimming and the rainbowfish breathing heavily and showing the pattern on its head.
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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Swim bladder problems are uncommon but do occur. Normally if a fish floats up when it stops swimming, it can be a swim bladder problem but is more commonly caused by air trapped in the intestine. To test this you stop feeding dry food for a week and use live or frozen food instead. If the problem rectifies itself without the dry food then it's air in the intestine.

If a fish sinks when it stops swimming, then it's a swim bladder issue. The only exception to this is if the fish eat gravel, then they can sink. However, most fish don't eat gravel and this is very uncommon. Most bottom dwelling fishes don't have a swim bladder either or they have a very small one. If you have bottom dwelling fish that sink when they stop swimming, it's normal.

This is the platy and the rainbowfish. The rainbowfish does not seem to be swimming as strangely today but in the video you can see the pattern in its head.

However it does occasionally do a strange turn my or shaky thing that the others do not do.

Can you post a longer video of the rainbowfish (30-60 seconds)?

It could be breeding and when they breed they change colour a bit. Males get a dorsal blaze (coloured stripe that runs from the front of the dorsal fin to the tip of the nose).

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How much water movement is in the tank?
The female platy seems to be swimming like she's swimming into a current. If there's not a lot of water movement she might have a slight swim bladder issue or air in the intestine.

Remove dry food for a week and use frozen or live foods instead. See if it improves. If it doesn't then it's probably a swim bladder problem and there's no cure for that. The fish usually get euthanised. However, because it's a female platy and she appears to have babies in her, I would wait until she gives birth and see how she swims after that. The pregnancy could be causing this is the babies are putting pressure on the swim bladder. And if she still struggles to remain buoyant after she gives birth, you will have the babies and can euthanise the mother after.

Ahh that makes sense. The males both have the stripe on their backs so maybe it is breeding. There are not any adult male platys so I don’t think they are pregnant. There is not much movement in the tank other than a spray bar pointing down along the back. I will keep feeding bloodworms for a while. Thanks for the help.

For some reason it says “uploaded file Is too long”if I upload the long version so I cut it down but you can see the fish swimming more normally now.

FishFriend0 said:

Ahh that makes sense. The males both have the stripe on their backs so maybe it is breeding. There are not any adult male platys so I don’t think they are pregnant. There is not much movement in the tank other than a spray bar pointing down along the back. I will keep feeding bloodworms for a while. Thanks for the help.

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Female common livebearers like platies, guppies, swordtails and mollies can carry sperm packets from previous matings. The female can use these sperm packets to fertilise eggs for at least 6 months after breeding and in some cases a year or more after mating. So there's a good chance your female platy is gravid (pregnant).

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Male rainbowfish will display to each other and it's quite common to see two males showing off to each other while they ignore the females. The rainbowfish are Melanotaenia boesemani and mature males usually turn blue and yellow after a year or so. Young males can resemble females until they colour up.

The rainbowfish in the video has slightly clamped fins and that can be caused by a water quality issue. Maybe do a big water change and gravel clean the exposed areas of substrate and see if it helps.

Rainbowfish should have lots of plant matter in their diet and at least half their diet should be plant based. This can be from live plants (Duckweed is a small floating plant most rainbowfish eat), algae, vege flakes/ pellets, fresh pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, etc.

If you like rainbowfish, the following link has info on them and might be of interest to you.

I will do a water change tomorrow. Thanks for the help.