Upside Down Fish

chatyak

chatyak

New member
Help Please. Any thoughts as to cause/cure? I bought these 3 cardinalfish a few days ago. The one that is swimming irrationally has not been eating much if at all - the other two are fine.

The only time the sick one ate was when I fed cyclopeeze and it ate at the surface. I wonder if it inhaled air.

Video:

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Possible swim bladder disease? Try feeding a peeled boiled pea. (Like the kind you & I eat. And yes, I'm serious.)
 
I added some mushed peas to the QT - doesn't seem to be going for it... just kind of floating around the tank now :/
 
Hmmm I'm not sure what to do :worried: I see one of it's eyes is bulgy now and cloudy. It doesn't seem to be eating or swimming much -just floating around the tank. sigh.
 
The pea trick is generally used on goldfish and koi (carp). They are in a group of more primitive fish including eels and catfish and the primitive gars and bichirs, who all have a connection between their gut and gas bladder called a physostome. These fish gulp air to stay buoyant. Reef fish don't have this connection and it's for that reason that I'm hesitant about trying to get sick fish to eat peas. Then again, I don't know the mechanism of action/therapy for those peas but it may have to do with gut bacteria breaking them down and making gas? Peas and beans have some carbs that, in mammals, only gut bacteria can break down (soy makes most people gassy). Only a crazy guess. If i was to just do something crazy though, I'd probably treat erythromycin before i did peas. Erythromycin has been shown to fix gram positive infections that cause the symptoms of dropsy, specifically for salmon with kidney infections. Nobody has published on fixing ornamental dropsy; I think because it's the symptom of many possible diseases. Once something goes wrong in the abdomen of the fish, though, I feel like they loose buoyancy or osmoregulation (swell up/ascites) or both pretty consistently. In my experience I've had great success treating anthias, soldierfish, lookdowns, and butterflyfish with bouyancy problems and popeye with erythromycin.
 
cngreg said:
The pea trick is generally used on goldfish and koi (carp). They are in a group of more primitive fish including eels and catfish and the primitive gars and bichirs, who all have a connection between their gut and gas bladder called a physostome. These fish gulp air to stay buoyant. Reef fish don't have this connection and it's for that reason that I'm hesitant about trying to get sick fish to eat peas. Then again, I don't know the mechanism of action/therapy for those peas but it may have to do with gut bacteria breaking them down and making gas? Peas and beans have some carbs that, in mammals, only gut bacteria can break down (soy makes most people gassy). Only a crazy guess. If i was to just do something crazy though, I'd probably treat erythromycin before i did peas. Erythromycin has been shown to fix gram positive infections that cause the symptoms of dropsy, specifically for salmon with kidney infections. Nobody has published on fixing ornamental dropsy; I think because it's the symptom of many possible diseases. Once something goes wrong in the abdomen of the fish, though, I feel like they loose buoyancy or osmoregulation (swell up/ascites) or both pretty consistently. In my experience I've had great success treating anthias, soldierfish, lookdowns, and butterflyfish with bouyancy problems and popeye with erythromycin.
Click to expand...


Would you recommend a combo of Maracyn / Maracyn 2 then? I can get those locally online.

"Description: Maracyn Powder Saltwater is a fast-dissolving and quick-acting Antibiotic (Erythromycin) powder recommended for the treatment of body fungus, fin and tail rot, popeye, gill disease and secondary infections. Erythromycin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic which has been shown to be effective against a number of pathogenic bacteria associated with ornamental fish disease"
 
Unfortunately, whenever I have seen a fish in that state they have not made it and there really isn't much that you can do. They will not eat at that point so foods/oral meds are out. Like you said, he hasn't eaten much and he does appear to be thin. What is actually wrong with him could be a multitude of things that could have nothing to do with your husbandry. Sometimes what happens before we get our fish has a lot to do with how well they do in quarantine. The best thing to do now is double check your chems to cover your bases and make sure that the others are safe.
 
It ended up dying. I just went to QT and removed it. I suppose I can order the Maracyn's anyways as a preventative...
 
chatyak said:
It ended up dying. I just went to QT and removed it. I suppose I can order the Maracyn's anyways as a preventative...
Click to expand...

Maracyn 1 & 2 are good antibiotics to have on hand. That combination covers a broad range of both gram positive & gram negative infections. Even fungus supposedly. I also like Furan-2.

The problem with stocking such items is they have a relatively short shelf life (if the expiration date is to be believed). Usually when you buy them the expiration date is about a year later.
 
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