False Percula Clownfish - Swollen Belly, is constantly swimming down

[stevil]

My female clown appears to be having difficulty swimming. She tends to rise to the top of the tank and is constantly swimming down. Her belly also seems to be swollen. She's eating very well, and other than the swollen belly and behavior, seems to be fine.

 

Any ideas?

[YBeNormal]

Sounds like one of my clowns immediately after eating. She eats from the top of the water column, swallowing lots of air and swelling up like a balloon. She then swims down and floats back to the top over and over again until all of the air is expelled. Nothing to worry about as far as I can tell.

[Guest NSC]

Bob we just talked about this! As Bob explained to me the reason for the swelling is when the fish grabs the food from the top of the water ingesting a large sum of air with it, the belly will fill up with air causing the fish to "float" back to the surface. From what I gathered its not a real problem.

 

Sounds like one of my clowns immediately after eating. She eats from the top of the water column, swallowing lots of air and swelling up like a balloon. She then swims down and floats back to the top over and over again until all of the air is expelled. Nothing to worry about as far as I can tell.

[jason the filter freak]

It messes with their equilibrium and ability to regulate their level in the water column, it is only dangerous if they manage to exhaust them self. We have probably 1 large fancy goldfish (shubunkin, oranda, fantail, etc.) die of this every two weeks or so. They get exhausted and die.

[Rascal]

Sounds like one of my clowns immediately after eating. She eats from the top of the water column, swallowing lots of air and swelling up like a balloon. She then swims down and floats back to the top over and over again until all of the air is expelled. Nothing to worry about as far as I can tell.

 

Same here. I was worried for a while when I first noticed it, but she has done it for about 1 1/2 years now and seems no worse for wear.

 

Is it only the females that do this?

[davelin315]

Guys, that's a sign of malnutrition or some sort of parasitic or bacterial infection. I did some research on clown disease and when they bloat after eating that's supposed to be a sign of something wrong. I can't find the link to the site I used before to diagnose it, but do a search on dropsy or bloat and you may find something on it. I don't know if this is definitely what is affecting your fish, but it sounds an awful lot like it has got the same symptomes as the fish I had before. Once I improved the water quality and varied its diet more it got much better and didn't bloat anymore.

[YBeNormal]

Dave,

 

That may be true in some cases, but I don't think so in my case. The water is very clean and they do get a varied diet. The female is very active at feeding time and attacks the food though. If it happens to be flakes floating on the top of the water, she gulps lots of ir with the flakes. When I feed foods that aren't floating on the top of the water, she doesn't bloat at all. When feeding flakes, I usually hold them underwater for a few seconds now so they do not float on top of the water column.

 

I did search on "clownfish bloat" and it appears that the symptoms are bellies that remain bloated, sometimes even turn white and/or the bloated area appears to move (parasites). My clown is only bloated for a short time and you can watch as she spits out the bubbles and reverts back to her slender, girly figure.

 

Jason,

 

You are correct, some fish swallow air and cannot rid themselves of it afterward. I actually had to burp a puffer once, holding it by the tail with the mouth pointing up, gently shaking the fish and rubbing the belly until the air escaped.

[stevil]

Hmm.. Ok - I need to observe better. Water parameters are good (but I will measure all tonight). Latest readings were 80 degrees, 1.024 salinity, 20ppm nitrate, 0 nitrite, .25ppm ammonia, pH between 8 and 8.2, alk 3.5.

 

I noticed it right as she was eating last night so unable to tell if she gulped air or not, but I have been feeding a "homebrew" of shrimp, squid, scallops and seaweed fortified with selcon and minerals and a pinch of pellet food. I also occasionally feed mysis. The 'homebrew' is frozen and recently I've been lazy and just throwing it in frozen which causes the fish to have to feed at the top...perhaps this is just results from that

 

Dave - do you have any specific links on the fish diseases? I had a Betta that developed (and died from) dropsy, and this doesn't look the same. I also went through wet-web-media's Clownfish disease page and none of those descriptions fit the symptoms I'm observing.

 

If fish burp, do they also fart?