Apisto swim bladder problem.

[Microman]

I have a mature Apisto that has developed a swimbladder problem and started bellysliding for most of the time. This is a fish that i have just aquired and things did not look too good.
However after some advice i turned up the heating to 30-32 deg for a little while and the fish has considerably improved,now even swimming in mid water for short periods.
Do antibiotics help with these swimbladder problems?
Mark.

 

[fishgeek]

abnormal negative bouyancy suggests that there has been a relative loss of air from the bladder or accumulation of more density within, ie inflammatory exudate of some form or ingestion of a heavy intestinal object

unfortunately i hvae no good statisics for the types of fluid that may occur, infectious fluids may be responsive to antibiotics

bacterial,fungal and myxosporean infection are all listed as possibilties
and ideally needle aspirated samples of fluid would give the most useful clue's


sorry to be so unhelpful
andrew

 

[Microman]

Thankyou Andrew,
Not unhelpful at all.... You have told me what it can be caused by and why it occurs which is a help in itself.
I have an antibiotic that was kindly given to me by an importer whilst in Holland. The antibiotic is a mixture of 3 kinds.
The mixture consists of: Nitroflurantoin, Oxytetracycline and
Neomicine and should be administered at 7gms per 100ltr.
Would you suggest that i go ahead with this treatment?
When using any form of antibiotic should i add extra airation to the tank and will the antibiotic wipe out the filter bacteria present?
Mark...

 

[retro_gk]

Were you planning on adding the antibiotic to your main tank? Such treatments are best done in a limited volume of water in a bare tank, with or without a filter.

I personally never use a filter in thanks that are to be medicated as they will receive large water changes anyway.

 

[fishgeek]

my reference dose's are
neomycin 66mgs/l as a permanetn bath

nitrofurazone? 100mgs/l for a 30 minute bath and is toxic to scaleless fish
nifurpirinol? 0.1mgs/l as permanet bath upto 1-2mgs/l as short term bath again toxic to scaleless fish

oxytetracyline 10-100mgs/l as permanent bath , upto 400mgs for short term dip 1 hr suggested maximum, not much good in hard water area's so assume not a big problem for most users here
light sensitive so lights out

with all short term dips it depends on the fish and stress shown for determination of total length of dip


the filter bacteria , that really is a very hard one to prove , most scientific studies show that the answer depends on the bacterial population within a biofilter asto whether there are any nitrogenous waste spikes after treatment
ie a well established filter may loss half it bacterial population during treatment and still maintain water quality where as a smaller population can be totally wiped out

theoretically best to not use in main filtered system, i think you have small air driven filters in each tank?
just squeeze a new on in once treatment finished

as an aside the triple combination given to you, all theoretically speaking now , is not a good one two of the medications are either static(stop bacteria breeding) at lower dose's or cidal(kill bacteria) at higher dose's
the other is just cidal
generally speaking combing a static drug stops the uptake by bacteria of cidal drugs so dose not add efficacy

theory isnt always followed by microbes though

as to dosing your best following you instructions as we dont know the actual % of the medication given to you nor the ratio of the mix

 

[Microman]

I havnt had to use any antibiotics at all...
I banged the temperature up to 32c for a week or so and the fish is now in reasonably good health... Swimming in mid water and also displaying for the female that i have now introduced.
Good job really as it was a Diplotaenia.
Mark.