# Swim bladder malfunction in 27-year-old fish



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

tl;dr, anyone have ideas about what, if anything, to do to improve the comfort of a very old fish with a swim bladder problem?

---

I had a necessary medical procedure done today, which was scary enough given the pandemic, but when I came home, my oldest fish, a marbled headstander I've had since June 1992, was on his side at the surface of the water. He seemed to be trying to right himself, but, other than the effort that working against his body entails, he looked like he was breathing normally and he was fluttering his fins pretty normally. He had looked totally normal yesterday evening and overnight he had eaten a piece of cucumber I'd fed him (part of the normal variety of vegetables I feed him in addition to sinking wafers and live worms).

I've been watching him for a while and it does seem to be a swim bladder issue and nothing else because he still seems to have energy. The most common cause of swim bladder issues is constipation from food with inadequate fibre, which really doesn't seem to be a problem for in this case unless his guts just quit peristalsis, seeing as he eats mostly plants. The second most common cause is bacterial infections. This fish and a _Megalechis thoracata_ catfish have been the only fish in this aquarium since my other headstander died at age 24, and he didn't die of an infection; prior to that, the catfish was introduce around 8 years ago. If my headstander has a bacterial infection, it must have come from something I fed them (worms from the compost bin?) and/or been something that's usually benign in the environment that has started to attack him because his old age has made him immune-compromised; the tank is very lightly stocked, all the water parameters are good and I do 20%-25% water changes once a week, which is probably more than it actually requires. All this means that, since he looks otherwise healthy, the swim bladder problem could be just plain old old age without an infection.

My headstander had been hanging out at the surface of the tank in the corner where the heather and filter intake tube were. I moved the heater away from the intake corner because I thought he might have been blown there and could have been too hot, but both times I moved it, he repositioned himself next to it, so clearly he wants to be there. The water flow is gentle, so he can probably sleep there without much trouble.

I also thought he might be hungry, so I took out some worms from the composter, first fed the catfish so that he'd be full and wouldn't be a worm-grabbing pest, and then held one in front of my headstander's mouth. He wasn't interested, which makes sense, since he is so bloated. In fact, at one point, he put on a burst of speed, turned upright, and took off to the other side of the tank, which shows me that he still has energy.

So all this is potentially good news. Finally, I remembered a story that went viral a number of years ago about someone who made a sling "wheelchair" for a goldfish that had a swim bladder issue to help the fist maintain neutral buoyancy in an upright position. I wondered about what kind of material it was made of so that it wouldn't damage the protective slime coat of the fish. But I was disappointed that this aspect of fish care was not taken into account, and even though there are lots of fish sling videos on Youtube, none seems to have good information about how long a fish can live like that.

Do any of you have other ideas about how I can help out my fish? I'm just hoping that he'll be upright tomorrow, but I kind of doubt that will be the case.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Never mind. My headstander died overnight. 

Now I have to figure out what to do with my catfish. Keeping a schooling fish alone is probably going to stress him out.

If any of you have hoplo cats and want another one, my 8-year-old male is healthy and lively, building bubble nests every spring. Or do any of you hoplo-keeping people have any you would like to rehome?

Anybody have cories to spare?


----------



## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*Sorry*

Sorry for your loss .. one of the longest kept fish I have known is your fish 
Good for u for being a great fish keeper.


----------



## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

*loss*

Sorry for the loss of your fish chacarinfan.
You did those two headstanders amazing for the course of their lives. 
Sorry to hear they've both now passed.


----------



## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

Sry fpr your loss and wow, wow, wow...28 years!

I don't think its anything nefarious to worry about. When the body shuts down and "time to go" it appears that it is disease related. Mind you second and tertiary issues can arise from the primary cause.

Amazing care they have had and take solice in that.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Thanks, Tom G, ksimdjembe, and wtac. It's pretty weird looking into the tank and not seeing any headstanders. Extra weird when I'm cooking and have carrot peelings or other vegetable bits and no headstander to share them with!


----------



## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

Would you consider them again? 
They seem to be rather fascinating.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

As much as I love headstanders, I'm not sure I want to spend another 25+ years with more of them. I will see how long some other species live!


----------



## ksimdjembe (Nov 11, 2006)

change is good.
any species in mind?


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

I'm trying to figure out what I want and that my remaining fish (a _Megalechis thoracata_) can live with/won't destroy. (He's not particularly destructive but he does like to rummage around in the substrate). He's from a schooling species so I think he'll like having other fish around as long as they don't harass him.

I would like a planted tank. 28 years ago, I had wanted to do an Amazonian or Rio ***** biotope tank. Current information about what such things look like aren't really what I'd want (i.e. hardly any plants). So I'll probably put plants in that aren't from the same region of the world, but just look nice together. I already have a lot of driftwood, some of which is already in the tank and some of which I am in the process of preparing. The scaping is going to look good no matter what. I do want to have fish from the same region of the world as each other, though.

The main things I'm thinking of now are either:

1. American flagfish (_Jordanella floridae_) and possibly something else that they tolerate, possibly some kind of livebearer

2. A congo tank with butterfly fish (_Pantodon buchholzi_), African leaf fish (_Polycentropsis abbreviata_) or leopard bush fish (_Ctenopoma acutirostre_), and possibly some killies to add colour. I do like weird fish. I had been considering mormyrids -- I have a vermicomposter and can supply more worms than any fish could ever dream of eating all year round -- but I think my tank (48 gallons) is too small for a bunch of them.

3. Rainbowfish. They are pretty and peaceful. Maybe also with loaches.

4. Maybe stick with the South American theme and add small, colourful tetras and some cories? Maybe a fancy pleco or some _Colomesus asellus_ puffers (the least aggressive small puffers)?

. . . yeah, still figuring things out.

Definitely there are fish access issues during Covid-19, so I plan on fixing up the plants and so on probably months before I'll be able to get more fish. My quarantine tank (15 gal) is currently also acting as a mini-greenhouse right now, so I'll have to wait until I've planted out the vegetables before I can prepare to house new fish.

Anyway, any suggestions/ideas would be great right now.


----------



## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

I have a soft spot for pencilfish (_Nannostomus sp_.). Generally they hover in place and move as a tight group if you have a large fish or fish that dash about.

Don't see too many around these days.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

I like pencilfish, too. They're sort of like mini headstanders that don't destroy plants. Angelfins has a number of them for sale now. They're definitely something I'm considering.


----------



## Whatever (Sep 12, 2018)

Sorry for your loss, I think it's amazing that you had a fish that long, I have never heard of some one with a fish that old but I'll bet if we asked theres probably more, still sorry, 

Cant you just go buy something as big with the same temperament, this coming from a guy who knows nothing about fresh water, I'm a salt guy.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Thanks, Whatever.



Whatever said:


> Cant you just go buy something as big with the same temperament


Well, headstanders are like hole punches with fins when it comes to plants. They literally eat it all, including things like entire lotus roots, carrots, nuts, and Java fern (though they apparently don't like the taste of Java fern as much as they like kitchen scraps!) Each fish could eat an entire lettuce leaf overnight. The two of mine could clear 1" of duckweed in about two days. As much as I miss them, I want plants this time!

Regarding headstander temperaments, their personalities improve with age. They are schooling fish, but when I got mine in the early 90s, they were extras in a shipment of tetras and I was able to get only two of them. There also was hardly any information available about them. In fact, when I got them, there was no indication in any book or magazine I had access to or any information from the pet store that they ate plants at all, when, in fact, they're mostly herbivorous! All I really knew about them was the water conditions where they were from, whereas now there's pretty good documentation that they do best in a larger school of conspecifics. Since there were only two of them, and, based on their behaviour over the years, I had two males, there was little to stop them from being jerks to each other, nipping fins, ramming each other in the flanks, chasing each other, etc. By the time I saw others of their species in stores, mine were already more than ten years old and going strong and I didn't want to necessarily have headstanders forever, so I didn't add to my "school." That said, In their 20s, mine mostly stopped harassing each other violently. They remained flightly prey fish their whole lives but they also recognized me and were curious about their surroundings, graceful, elegant and cheerful.


----------

