Swallowing Air When Feeding

[timolol]

Hi guys,

I have a tank of neon tetras who are all happy and enjoying life. However whenever they feed, occasionally one or two of them swallow some air. After they swallow air, they can't really seem to swim horizontally for a while and keep having to swim downwards to stay down (I presume until they release the air which takes a short while). After a while when I next check up on them, they all seem to be fine.

I feed them small fish flakes and tubiflex which mostly floats at the top. If I push it down to sink it, I'm afraid it will hit the bottom before they get a chance to eat it and it'll just sit at the bottom and rot.

I suppose my three main questions are: is this normal, is it causing the fish distress and how can I prevent it?

Thanks in advance,
Tim

 

[WILDER]

Do you soak the flakes before you let the have the food.
Is the tubilex frozen, live or freeze dried.
http/www.flippersandfins.net/SwimbladderDisease.htm

 

[timolol]

Do you soak the flakes before you let the have the food.
Is the tubilex frozen, live or freeze dried.
[URL="http/www.flippersandfins.net/SwimbladderDisease.htm"]http/www.flippersandfins.net/SwimbladderDisease.htm[/URL]

No I don't soak the flakes before I give it to them. Does soaking mean the flakes will sink? The tubiflex is freeze dried

From reading the link you gave me, namely point 7, it says, "Freeze-dried foods are notorious for causing constipation and swimbladder problems in fish". I'm now pretty sure that this is the problem.

Thanks for your speedy response,
Tim.

 

[WILDER]

I used to feed freeze dried foods when I first started the hobby. I stopped feeding freeze dried food as It can cause bloat and swim bladder problems, if you over feed them. Just feed the tubilex freeze dried once a week. Tubliex can be risky if frozen or live, but freeze dried ok.
Buy a pack of frozen food with 4 to 5 different types of food in the pack.
Introduce some veg into there diet like peas, broc, cabbage, sproats, spinach, cucumba, lettuce.

 

[pippoodle]

i always soaked my freeze dried before i fed it to my fish
the tubiflex blocks can absorb water if you put it in a bowl with tank water and squish it around - a bit messy but i never had problems with the bloating etc when feeding the freeze dried tubiflex - i only had it cos it was given to me when i got the second hand tank the bloke gave me lots of food

Definately introduce veg into the diet as wilder says , fish enjoy it and seems to keep them regular

 

[timolol]

Thanks for your responses and help Much appreciated