Advice on treating swimbladder

[waters03]

Hey team, I have a young Ryukin who isn't doing so well with his swim bladder. Excuse the essay but I want to provide as much background information as possible.
Born March this year I acquired it along with 2 of his/her siblings 10 days ago.
After acclimating them to my tank (120l well established, stocked with 1.5 year old black moor and 1 year old pearlscale) I released them and immediately noticed this one Ryukin was having balancing issues (tipping head down, nothing drastic but noticeable), but the other two were doing just fine (they are no longer in this tank, it's not overstocked). Choosing to just keep an eye on him, he seemed active and was eating perfectly fine (mix of omega one sinking pellets, peas and repashy super gold), some abnormal behavior - racing to the water level as if trying to jump out of the tank then seemingly 'stunned' floating down for a couple of seconds before continuing to swim around normally... he seemed to calm down after 3 -4 days and stop the racing, but the balancing was still noticeable when trying to rest... however in the last 2 days he's taken a turn for the worse.
It started out just with him sitting in the corner at about a 90 angle, tail above head, but still swimming around fine - tonight I've got home from work and he's quite a bit closer to belly up and, while still swimming fine when he gets going, seems to be having a much harder time correcting himself. Doesn't seem to be as excited when they are fed so I'm not sure if he's eating properly either.

I've moved him into his own tank that I was cycling to set up as a tropical tank, lowered the water level right down, turned the filter off but left a small air pump / stone going and got the heater set to 20 degrees celsius (tank he came from was roughly around 17 degrees during the day), and I'll turn this up to 22-24 over the next few days(?).

I won't be feeding him anything for 3 days and then slowly introduce peas to help with anything digestion related, but I wanted to know if there was anything else I can do to help him?
I've come across plenty of info about salt baths and / or adding salt to the tank he's in, but it is all conflicting with what type of salts (natural / no additive sea salt, epsom salt, aquarium salt?), amount of salts and length of time he should be in them for and I just cant find a conclusive answer about what would be best...



I can provide photos if need be, below are the results from my ammonia and test strip kit to show the water is almost perfect quality...


Hopefully someone will be willing to offer some advice, many thanks in advance!


gh 30-60 (closer to 30)
kh 40-80 (closer to 80)
ph 6.5-7
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ammonia 0 - .25 (arguable on the .25, very faint result)

[V227]

If the swim bladder problem is a result of constipation, it sounds like you have covered all bases. Epsom salt is often prescribed for fish constipation. You're right, there is no consensus
regarding dosage.
I'm assuming your healthy fish are on the same diet. Since they are apparently not suffering, the odds that another type of stressor is causing the swim bladder disorder. My guess would be a bacterial infection, and if that is the case there is not much of a chance of recovery. There are several antibiotic meds available. I really can't recommend any particular brand. Personally I believe that aquarium antibiotics might be benificial as a preventative in a QT tank
but have a very low probability of curing an actual bacterial infection. I hope things get better soon.

[waters03]

Thanks for the reply V, I'm doing what I can but ultimately I think with this little guy it could even be his physicality causing his issues. I'll grab some antibiotics when my LFS opens up and go from there.

I ended up giving him an Epsom bath (1 Tablespoon diluted into 1 gallon) for 15 minutes, then a 'recovery' bath (3/4 Teaspoon epsom into 1 gallon) for 5 minutes, then back into his quarantine tank - These measurements seemed to be the only consistent ones I could find over multiple sources.
Hasn't appeared to have helped much if at all - and just to rule out constipation etc I gave him half a pea which has passed through perfectly, and still no great change... if I'm being hopeful he's possibly more energetic but not much at all.


I'll keep this thread updated with any findings / updates for anyone else having the same issues.