What are the causes of Swim Bladder Disease?

Question

I have had 2 x 3cm little black moors for just over a week in a community tank. Today one has developed SBD and floats to the top and keels over onto his side. Why does this happen? I noted that answers seem to suggest he will die.

Answer 1

there is another answer to this also, the natural shape of a goldfish is like the comet, long and slim, man developed all the "fancy" varities with shorter, rounded bodies, all the internal organs are displaced by this new shape and the swim bladder
misfunctions regularly, sometimes they recover, sometimes they don't, one thing you can do for your fish is to drop the water level to 6 inches to make life easier on him

Answer 2

People have debated for years over the cause of swim bladder disease. It is pretty well established now that a number of things can cause swim bladder disease. Some of the things which have been suggested are:


A virus. The virus attacks the epithelium of the sac and inflammation occurs which makes the epithelium too thick for gases to diffuse across. Thus the fish is stuck at a certain buoyancy because gases have nowhere to go. This may be more of a factor in non-goldfish species.
Diet. Feeding dry foods which tend to take on water like a sponge and expand in the fish predispose to food impactions.

But ways to treat you fishies problem

Feed your fish a couple of peas. That's right, peas. Just get some frozen peas, thaw them, and feed them to your fish.

and/or
Fast your fish for a couple of days. Withhold all food for three or four days, and sometimes this alone will break up the impaction and return things to normal. Most fish can go a week to ten days without food and be just fine.

there are surgical solutions...but they are far advances and risky. and chances of infection increase.

The Pea thing has always worked for my fish....theones who would eat it...the others...i just let them fast until the problem is solved.

GoodLuck!

Answer 3

My goldfish had that disease before. After doing much research its mostly caused by bacterias and virures due to the water condition. What we did was do a salt treatment. We isolated the fish in another aquarium and treated it with aquarium salt .

Answer 4

I know this sounds crazy but it works ok.... if this is truely the issue, when the fish is at the top put you finger on its belly where it is bloated the most and tap it.... it is called burping your fish... i know i told ya it sounds silly but it works. do this for about 1/2 hour or so until they come out of it.... some times fish swollow to much air and this happens..... it happened to my oscar he lived 8 more years after i burped him it happened a few more times I found out about this through a vet. good luck.

Answer 5

with goldfish, there are 2 problems with their air bladder. It is because of their compressed body, they tend to swallow air when you feed it floating pellets.. They'll start floating because of the air in their stomach... simple solution, stop feeding them floating pellet and go for sinking foods and live/frozen foods.

the other one, their air bladder gets infected by bacteria or viruses due to poor water quality. solution: make frequent partial water change.