# Cichlid with swim bladder syndrome



## jetsjam (Jul 17, 2010)

Hi, I have cichlid here who I suspect has swim bladder syndrome. In the picture i took It's a little hard to tell that he's at roughly a 60 degree angle, and stay's this way most of the time. When he swims, he's sometimes unbalanced, and when feeding has trouble getting his mouth to the sand to feed. I've had the fish for about 2 years, and have never seen him feed from the surface of the tank, so he's purely a middle to bottom tank dweller.









I witnessed this poor guy get beat up pretty badly, very quickly, by another fish in the tank, and promptly moved the overly aggressive fish to another tank. The injured cichlid has had trouble swimming and staying upright since that time, and i'm struggling to get food into him as he won't come to the top of the tank, and has trouble getting his mouth to the sand.

The tank is 55 gallon, I routinely feed New Life Spectrum pellets. Water tests result mostly in normal range of safety, although I do have trouble keeping the nitrates at lower levels. I've attempted to feed him shelled pea's to see if that would help. None of the fish in the tank, including the injured one, showed any interest in the peas, and after leaving the peas in the tank for a good part of the day, i took the peas out, not wanting them to rot in the tank.

If anyone has some advice on what could be done to help my poor cichlid "Big Donny", I'd be very greatful!

Cheers.


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