Floating Clown
 

I have a percula clown that has lost control of his bouyancy, he still eats but is always floating on his side. I've put him in a tank by himself and he's been like this for about 4 days now, what can I do to help him?

How much and what have you been feeding him?? Could be something wrong with his swimbladder or an intestinal blockage.

Christy :)

about once a day , and I use "Sally's Marine Cuisine"

I once read Clowns can do this after eating Flake food. Can't remember where I read it. I was not sure what to believe. I think it would reverse itself from what I read.

Good luck

reply
 

Have you considered a swim bladder infection as the cause? A basic bacterial infection can be treated easliy enough and can take serveral days or even weeks to resolve. As long as it continues to eat you should be fine.

Marcus is right when i feed my fish too many flakes or floating pellets at once the float at the top.

It is a common disease in fancy goldfish due to obstruction of the swim bladder. There is even a surgical procedure to implant weights into the belly of the goldfish to give it some ballast.

help Nemo!!
 

once in a while i use flake , i wonder? what are the remedides for a swin bladder infection? or any other idea's would be appreciated.

Now this is what we used on our goldfish. Every year we have a couple "floaters" what we do is put them in a ice cream pale with aquarium salt and over a few days it all levels out. This seems to help with our Ryunkin and pearlscale goldfish.

i used to work at a pet store and a little trick of the trade we would take a few grains of aquarium salt and put it in thier mout but mind you this is for goldfish no gaurantee on this but you might try
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cant say it will work but you could try i have only done it on gold fish exelent sucess rate and no deaths
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let me know how it works

reply
 

I very new and proven cure for infections is the use of garlic extract. I had a Clown with pop eye infection due to injury and while in quarentine we feed it it regular food (mysis) mixed with garlic. He heeled up fine with no apparant side effects. Worth a shot, and very cheap.

Um, pardon my ignorance but this being a saltwater clownfish, doesn't the fish already "technically" have salt in its mouth/surroundings already?? :wink:

Kayleb, you may want to try giving the fish a freshwater dip if the possibility of an intestinal blockage is apparent. The change in osmotic pressure I think is what loosens the blockage. I don't know how long you would want to do this for. Maybe someone who has done FW dips on SW fish could chime in here??

Christy :)

reply
 

Sounds like a good recipe, with all of the salt and garlic!

Maybe worth a try. Match the temperature of the water to the tank, and let the fish sit in there for a few minutes. I've never tried longer than 3 or 4 minutes myself.

help Nemo!!
 

I am going to try the garlic right away, and i"ll get some R/O water to temp. I will reply when the experiment is completed.
Thank you all very much.

Christy it is a different kind of salt this is why u cant take standard aquarium salt and put SW fish in it. Has different effects.

Doo-e, they might not be the same thing but I don't think it's going to work the same for SW fish as it will for FW fish.

I'm no marine biologist though. :wink: But Christy is. :razz:

Doo-e,

As far as I know, the only difference between regular salt and "aquarium" salt is the iodine. Iodine can kill fish so it isn't added to this type of salt and you can use it to treat FW fish for ick etc. The difference between "aquarium" salt and the salt we use for reefing is that it has additives (ca, mg etc). I believe you could keep a SW fish alive using "aquarium" salt. Heck, what did they use 30+ years ago before Instant Ocean came around??

Christy :)

Re: help Nemo!!
 

Won't the PH change from salt water (~8.1) to RO water (~6.5) be a pretty serious shock to the fish? :eek:

Shouldn't regular tap water just be run through some carbon for the FW dip?

Mitch

Re: help Nemo!!
 

Good point Mitch, I was just thinking about that one.

Christy :)

I would use RO and add something to raise the PH.

Steve

I thought about that, but with the usual small size of hospital tanks, it could be a little touchy to correctly mix water required for changes.
(I'm a little impatient when waiting for things to dissolve)

Mitch

Umm i think they used real saltwater. Although i could be wrong. I have never been told i could use aquarium salt. Everyone i ever met with a SW tank has told me to use marine salt.

well i have been feeding with a garlic mix in his food. And I also gave him about a 10 second bath in straight RO water but but still no change. How long is an effective durration for a fresh water bath, is 10 seconds enough

Try a couple minutes to start with Kayleb and let us know how it goes. :biggrin: