Very impolite fish - ideas?

[Brian01]

Hi everyone,
I have two fish that pass gas, regularly. Several times a day sometimes. Both are female spotbreast angelfish. I also have a male, he doesn't do this, nor do any of the other species I'm keeping.

I first noticed it when I had only one female, she was having trouble keeping down, always bobbing towards the surface. Immediately thought swim bladder or gas bubble disease, so searched around and started doing all I could find to help. eventually I realized that every now and again, a string of bubbles would emerge, and following this the buoyancy would be fine. She sometimes would be noticeably bloated before letting loose, and a lot of bubbles would come out. Turns out, she likes eating bubbles she finds under rocks and whatnot, and the little bubbles that escape from the sand now and again. She seems to find the shiny irresistible. I can't say that's the only cause of the gas though. I've since gotten the second female and the male, both females do this. It embarrassing sometimes when I have friends over - "look at the beautiful fish---oh".
I've been searching around for quite a while, here and elsewhere, to see if this may be normal or if there is something I should be concerned about. You can probably imagine, not a lot of firm info among the sillyness. I did learn tho that some species use farts to communicate, and one theory about the mysterious ocean hum is that it may be all the little fish farts added up. Interesting.
Anyways, does anyone have any ideas? Might this be in part due to some parasite or other issue that I may be able to correct? I don't think they are gulping air due to low O2, I have a lot of flow, turbulence, and water volume, and no other fish are showing signs.

 

[j_mazzy]

Wait? fish farts are embarrassing?

 

[ThRoewer]

So you feed flake food or other dry food?

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[Brian01]

Wait? fish farts are embarrassing?

Ha, only among the non-aquarium crowd. They just don't get it.

So you feed flake food or other dry food?

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Good point. Very rarely, maybe once every two weeks. Frozen the rest of the time (Hikari mostly, some PE and Rods). One of the females in fact won't eat the dry, doesn't seem to like it.

 

[microlady]

Even though I feel bad if your fish are sick, your post made my day. I'm thinking decompression or swimbladder issues.

 

[kegogut]

My Niger Trigger has gas alot of the time, I believe its from eating at the top of the water and taking in air when he does.

 

[Brian01]

Even though I feel bad if your fish are sick, your post made my day. I'm thinking decompression or swimbladder issues.

Yeah, it is kind of funny, and I am reasonably sure they are not actually sick, just ingesting air. What Kegogut says may play a role too, they do tend to get right at the food on the surface. I'm just trying to be sure, in case there may be something else going on that may be more dangerous.

 

[Sk8r]

Some gas bubbles are not a good thing, as when a fish manages to get one in shipping and when somebody puts a bubbler in a qt with no barrier to keep the fish out of it. I'd suggest some food like a frozen cube, which can float about and let the fish get food submerged in water.