Hi, 1 of my Silver dollars suddenly started floating upside down and struggling to not float to the surface yesterday. I assume its a swim bladder problem, probably caused by him gulping a mouthful of air whilst surface feeding (I know the are normally bottom feeders)? There is no sign of any other problems with his tank mates and no sign or paraste or other nasties.

I have tried to get him to eat a boiled/shelled pea but he finds it hard upside down!

He is hanging in there and seems ok, I have put a multi breeder over him at bottom of tank with a rock on it to keep him down as I figured he would soon get exhausted from struggleing to stay under, and to fast him (other than the pea). Has anyone got any other advice please...

I will move this thread to another section..

I have very large Silver Dollars, they will feed anywhere in your tank, top, mid water, bottom, any sign of food and they are in there... to the point of bashing each other or into things, other fish etc...

In the past I have had two of mine develop a bruised swimbladder from doing this..... they would lay on their side, go upside down... What I did was, take the fish out of the big tank, into a smaller tank on their own for safety and quiet time, and after 2-3 days the fish came right... It did happen to be a bruised swimbladder and took a few days to come right. JMT

Thanks, appreciate your advice. Yes they are pretty "keen" eaters. Hopefully he will sort himself out. Thanks again..

Afrikan wrote:

after 2-3 days the fish came right

Did you feed him during this time?

One of my barbs recently went through the same thing you have described, same as you I thought swim bladder problems. I put him in a breeder trap and didn't feed him (I think I posted this somewhere else) for 3 days which I believe what was recommended to me. The only thing about putting him in the trap was his fins started to disintegrate. I believe it was the stress of being in the trap. Anyway, I left him loose after that, he's swimming had improved greatly. His fins are starting to grow back as well. He swims a bit differently from the other fish but I think :-? this may be due to the tail fin being gone (coming back though).

Caper

No I didn't feed them at all. They weren't in a state to eat anyway. I had them in a hospital tank 8)

Gee, I should have put him in my 10 gallon...duh...never thought of that! But then I'd still have to feed the 3 cory's that are still in there!

Caper

:lol: My guys had to go in a hospital tank, they are very large silver dollars and wouldn't have fit in a trap :lol:

the thing you put your silver dollars in is called a bank