Video - Is This Swim Bladder / Constipation / Infection?

[Jeynesey]

Hi everyone.
 
What's going on with this fish, do we reckon? I pulled her out the main tank just now, after seeing her drifting around not being able to swim properly. I lost another fish a couple of days ago who had gone extremely thin and basically wasted away. This fish is bloated - these are forktail rainbowfish and are meant to be pretty much streamlined.

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-uefpB2z4M&feature=youtu.be

Thanks as ever for the opinions.

 

[snazy]

You are still dealing with the sick fish...it really isn't easy sometimes

What have you medicated with so far?
Swim bladder is not a disease, it's a symptom. But infection can cause them to swell out.

 

[MBOU]

There can me so many things that make a fish swim like that, but purely on the way it tried to swim ok but then its back end kept floating and it lost control, i would agree it is an infection that has affected the swimbladder. I would say most likely a bacterial infection... but cant really tell for sure...
 
I would treat with something like "Interpet Anti Internal Bacteria" or better still... "Interpet Swimbladder" as they are the same ingredients but the swimbladder one is a stronger dose and I found to be more effective once the fish is quite seriously ill like this little rainbow

 

[Jeynesey]

Last night, so before i had any replies, I used King British General Tonic (Magnesium Sulphate 33% and Sodium Chloride 11%), which is meant to help "perceived" swim bladder issues & constipation. In terms of bacterial treatment I have melafix but I don't think I can add that now I've treated with the KB stuff. There was already a touch of aquarium salt in the hospital tank before I put this fish in. She's a lot better than this now but still tipping. Possibly just the time of day, so I'll see later tonight.


Would you guys treat the main tank by the way? I have other fish that are bloated but not as bad as this one.... she has actually always been really bloated. I'm not sure if she was in the shop as these were my first ever fish and I wasn't exactly eagle eyed for this sort of thing, but she's been more bloated as long as I can remember, compared to the other fish.

 

[byork]

I would like to apologize in advance for the confusing nature of this post. I looked up the symptoms you have described in my Fish Disease Reference. This is what it says:

Symptom is described as " one ir more fish cannot remain motionless in the water. Discus fish lie flat on the bottom or float head down ("head standers"). Diagnosis reads "the air bladder is affected. Undercooling can be the cause. Discus fish are affected with an infection of the oval opening of the air bladder. See chapter 3.11." Action reads " quarantine the affected fish at 2 to 4*C. And observe them for two days (treatment method B1). If the condition does not clear up, treat according to C26 at normal temperature." B1 is heat treatment and C26 is Trimethoprim. (I know you don't have discus..)

Symptom described as "Are the fish losing weight without fading, and do many have swollen bellies? Are their droppings white and mucoid?" Diagnosis "Your fish have intestinal flagellates. See chart 8." Chart 8 lists additional symptoms associated with feces. Which then identifies the bacteria or parasite to treat. In the absence of the additional symptom further diagnosis is not likely. However, intestinal parasites cause all sorts of secondary diseases or bacterial infections which can effect the air/swim bladder.

Some may suggest you autopsy any casuality looking particularly close at the intestines and air bladder. Sadly in the absence of a microscope you may not be able to identify any additional symptoms, bacteria or parasites.

I recently came to a general intestinal flagellates diagnosis and treated with medicated flake food, metronidazole and garlic. It worked well on the fish that did not have any secondary symptoms or infections. Good luck!

 

[snazy]

Interesting stuff Byork. The OP already had a previous post from more than a month ago suspecting parasites as the fish were flashing and having white, stringy poop. I think he has a microscope
 
@Jeynesey
 

Just a little update. I've been turkey-bastering (I believe that's an official verb?)

out poo and looking at it under a microscope I ordered. In my latest sample, I have found a parasitic worm that's basically just a blob. I have been looking on this list (http/edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa041) and I think it's a Digenean trematode. I have no idea whether the JBL will work on them, or if they're the major problem, but it's a good start!

 
You posted this on your other thread. Did you try treating for trematodes with Prazi or similar med because the JBL spirohexol would have covered intestinal flagellates already I would presume. The fish could also be suffering from a secondary bacterial infection too. White poop can also indicate bacterial, not only parasitic infection. If you have a microscope and you have the time, maybe try checking another fish for any parasitic stuff. Praziquantel from what I know is harmless to the fish and doesn't need removing via water changes or carbon(if the med contains just prazi) so it won't harm treating them with it.
There is some good info on this website if you feel like reading:
http/www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2007/03/trematodes-and-nematodes-in-fish.html

 

[Jeynesey]

Hi everyone. Thanks for the suggestions. The fish was doing better yesterday, less well this morning, then I fed her some bloodworm (frozen) and she seemed a lot, lot better after that. I then dosed some more KB Tonic, as it says to do on the bottle after 48 hours and added an airstone just in case. I came back a couple of hours later and she was dead. And I mean mouth wide open, proper dead, not fighting for life lying on her side, slightly gill moving dead. Sooooooooooo, that's annoying. I didn't do an autopsy on this fish. I did one on a fish that died a few days ago (my only other casualty to date) and didn't find anything so to be honest, I didn't fancy another one. I've put her in the fridge though, in case I change my mind.
 
The main reason I wasn't that keen was that I have totally overhauled my main tank and removed a 3D background that was in there. I've got rid of masses of brown dust algae from that tank and I'm currently working on the assumtion that the fish had a bacterial infection from poor water quality, caused by the 3D background and the massive amounts of algae that it seemed to help grow. The tank looks miles, miles better now and I think I'll be able to keep much better water conditions.
 
The only med I have treated for parasites was that JBL one.
 
I have some wormer plus (http/wormerplus.co.uk/) coming tomorrow. Anyone have experience with that? If I still have any flashing in my main tank, I may use that but I'm trying to keep away from meds given that I'm basically just guessing from symptoms and have no evidence of any particular cause.
 
I've also got prazipro coming from the US but that will be a couple of weeks before it gets here.
 
p.s. I have a feeling I probably will do a biopsy on the fish... I'd rather just watch Match of the Day though... Sigh

 

[Jeynesey]

OK so I did an autopsy. I  dunno how long it takes for fish insides to go off but they were in much worse condition than the other fish. The other one I did within about 30 mins of death. This one could have been anything from 2 to 6 hours.
 
SQUEAMISH ALERT - fish innards ahead;
 
First one is the first fish that died a couple of days. He was very, very thin and had stopped eating. The second is the fish that just died today. She was bloated. As you can see, there's no sign of any red or green organs in the second fish but there is a lot of black. I made a much worse job of getting the innards out of the second one so it's a bit mangled but I think the left hand side is still the anus end. So does it just look much worse cos it'd started to go off, do we reckon, or is it because this second fish had a lot of bacteria in there? Certainly does look like it might have.
 

 
 
 
N.B. I did find some things that looked like eggs again. I found them in the first autopsy and then again here. About 5 or so in each fish, from the scrapings. The closes to what they looked like was this but much clearer in the middle. To be honest they could have been holes in the samples because they had very dark cell walls but then the middle was as light as the slide with no sample on... Not sure if that's possible given that you'd still be looking through two layers of cell wall. Sorry that's not the clearest explanation - it's hard to explain