Gravid guppy swim bladder problem

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Tank size: 15 gallon
pH: 7,6
ammonia: 0
nitrite: 0
nitrate: 5.0 ppm
kH: 10
gH: 15 dH
tank temp: 79

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): Guppy showing signs of swim bladder problems. Her tail is drifting upwards, head lower. It's still relatively minor, but concerning. She's also heavily gravid, can see the eyes of the fry in her gravid spot. She does straighten up when she's swimming, but tail drifts upwards when she slows or stops. This started late last night. Have fed some shelled crushed pea today.

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 20 -30% weekly. Last water change was four days ago.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: Dosing excel for algae for the last week or so, low dose, every 2-3 days. Tetra PlantaMin monthly fertiliser, not added recently.

Tank inhabitants: 9 adult/sub-adult guppies, 15 or so fry, seven otocinclus, 40-50 red cherry shrimp.

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): Added one male guppy on 11th July, after a three week quarantine.

Exposure to chemicals: No

Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[JuiceBox52]

Could you post a video of the fish swimming? This will tell us if it is a swim bladder issue.

Does she sink or float when she stops moving forward?

 

[CassCats]

Id opt to stop using the excel first.

Second, its possible she may just be so gravid that the pregnancy is putting pressure on her swim bladder.

It may do her lots of good to remove her and give her a dip in an Epsom salt bath.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Could you post a video of the fish swimming? This will tell us if it is a swim bladder issue.

Does she sink or float when she stops moving forward?

She floats when she stops moving. I don't know how to take a video on my camera, and phone is a brick that wouldn't work well, and have put the tank to bed. I can get some technical help and take one tomorrow though, I'm sorry!

 

[Colin_T]

Stop feeding dry food for a week and give it frozen or live food. If the problem is fixed during this time, it is air from the dry food causing her to float.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Id opt to stop using the excel first.

Second, its possible she may just be so gravid that the pregnancy is putting pressure on her swim bladder.

It may do her lots of good to remove her and give her a dip in an Epsom salt bath.

Will definitely stop the Excel. I didn't know it could cause swim bladder issues I've used it twice before, but only in low doses for a week or so, just when the algae gets a little too out of control, but I'd much rather deal with algae than cause any harm to my fish.

I do hope that it's the gravid thing. She isn't that huge yet, but it's also her first batch, and hasn't squared off yet, so I don't think she's having them this week. I think you can actually see part of her swim bladder in the photo, right above the gravid spot.

She doesn't seem distressed at this point. Her swimming is really quite normal, just exploring with the others, not zooming around quickly, or seeming to struggle to swim, it's just the tail drifting upwards when she's more still. She's sticking to the top third/half of the tank, for the most part, but not seeming 'stuck' to the surface, nor gasping. I considered moving her to a hospital tank and lowering the water level so there's less water pressure, but since she doesn't seem to be struggling at this point, I didn't want to stress her out by moving and isolating her until I'd got some advice.

Have seen a molly recover from quite severe swim bladder disease, so I'm not panicking exactly yet, but I am concerned, and don't know which steps to take next. I've fed cooked, shelled, crushed peas today, and she ate some of that.

 

[CassCats]

Algae is usually a lighting issue, how long are your lights on?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Algae is usually a lighting issue, how long are your lights on?

Definitely too long! Usually about ten hours a day... But I deliberately encourage some algae growth for the otos and the shrimp. It's hard to find the balance between lights/ferts/bioload etc, and at the moment, there's some hair algae (been the bane of my life since starting the tank, but most of the time it's at bay), and my older sword leaves are fuzzy.

 

[CassCats]

Id reduce to about 8 hours and see how it does

 

[Retired Viking]

Yup, you have a balancing act trying to have enough algae and the right type for your fish. I had hair algae start to develop in my fry tank but I went in and removed it and so far no more has shown up for a couple of months. I also have a population of scuds in the tank and they seem to like algae.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Stop feeding dry food for a week and give it frozen or live food. If the problem is fixed during this time, it is air from the dry food causing her to float.

Thank you! I usually feed either a quality flake food or the ground bug bites in the morning, and frozen daphnia, brine shrimp or cyclops in the evening, but I ran out of frozen food about two weeks ago, so have been feeding flakes more often than usual. My LFS isn't open on Mondays, would bug bites and algae wafers, or freeze dried tubliflex, be okay until Tuesday if I presoaked them first?

I wouldn't worry about skipping feeding for a day for the adults, it's the fry that I'd be concerned about, there are newborns in there. I do have hikari first bites, but I wouldn't want Sunshine to be gulping those from the surface.

 

[Retired Viking]

I presoak much of my flakes I feed my guppies and it seems to work, I always leave a little to float on the surface. My platy fry like to stay in the lower half of my fry tank so the presoaked flake food works well for them.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Id opt to stop using the excel first.

Second, its possible she may just be so gravid that the pregnancy is putting pressure on her swim bladder.

It may do her lots of good to remove her and give her a dip in an Epsom salt bath.

Eeek, I've never done a salt bath before, not sure how. I have aquarium salt, would that work or does it need to be epsom? Will get epsom if it works better.

Update on how she is so far today - hard to tell. No worse at least, perhaps even a little better? It's hard to tell since anytime I get close to the tank, the fish think they're getting fed, and when she's swimming around with them, she straightens up and looks pretty normal. When I sit away from the tank and watch, she has been going down lower in the tank at times without seeming to struggle, but her back half does still seem to be more buoyant than is usual.


They didn't get any breakfast today, little nervous about the dried foods and her gulping from the surface. There is plenty of algae in there for them to graze on though. Will try to take a video of her swimming to share when I can.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Update Have only fed pre-soaking foods, and fed lightly since Monday. Her condition has remained pretty much the same all week, no better, but also no worse. Yesterday I was concerned because she was hiding away under an almond leaf a lot, did a large water change.

Today, she came out, still the same. Tonight I watched the tank, and she was swimming normally! I was so happy, then I realised she was a lot thinner... she's had her fry!

Must have been hiding because she was in labour, but I'd pretty much forgotten about her being gravid because I was worried something was wrong and I would lose her. @NCaquatics, thank you, you were right! It must have been the fry pressing on her swim bladder, and that's why it was relatively minor and she could swim more normally when she tried. I've never seen that happen with a gravid female before. Happy for new potentially yellow fry, and very happy that Sunshine is back to normal!

 

[CassCats]

Thats great news!