Swim bladder inflating

[RhinoDH]

Help!

I have a school of tiger barbs of which one is having big problems and the others seem... different...

The one tiger barb is fat and hovers at the surface (dorsal fin above it) and seems to struggle to just stay in place. I don't know if this could be the cause but I first noticed it struggling after an attempt to eat one of the ghost shrimp. The shrimp was about half in half out of the barbs mouth and apparently stuck. It looked far to big to be eaten, but I guess not. After watching this for a few minutes and wondering if I should do something, one of the other barbs plucked it out of its mouth and finished eating the shrimp, no problem.

Soon after it had trouble swimming, seemed inflated and floats quickly to the surface when it does struggle down. One is particularly bad and a couple of other barbs seem to have the same problem to a lesser degree.

Water params are normal.

PH 8.0 (High, but stable.)
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate approx 10 ppm

These fish have only been in this tank for about a week, but were fine in the Q-tank for just over a week before.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Allivymar]

Occasionally overeating can mess with a fish's swim bladder; is he still floating?

 

[RhinoDH]

Kind of, but not so desperately. He seems somewhat positively buoyant but is able to get to the bottom fairly easily, whereas before he struggled just to stay upright at the surface. He doesn't appear to be able to stay motionless and still spends most of this time near the surface, but it is an improvement. (He also does not look swollen any longer. It's seems much better. He used to float like a ping pong ball.

The temperature has not gone above 76 F to the best of my knowledge. I have a good heater and it is set at that temperature.

 

[Allivymar]

Its possible he was constipated; that can affect the swim bladder. See if he'll eat a cooked deshelled pea (a shelled pea? LOL either way, one that the shell has been removed from); if he is constipated it should get things moving.