Gas Bloating

[Katman]

I have found gas bloating in many different animals, Fish ,Snails and Tadpoles.
Since we are concerned with fish we will stick to fish. We feed our fish many unnatural foods. If you look at the ingredentes in some of the fish foods and think about a wild
fish eating them, you get an idea of what I mean .How does a catfish get soy beans
in South America. I am not saying that this is bad, But we tend to group our fish to-
gether without to much thought. To Know what a fishs diet consist of in the wild you
would have to take note of every thing it eats ,every day throughout the year.
Therefor we end up feeding food to fish that it does not normally eat.or feed to much
of a food it can't handle.
Everyone knows how different things cause Gas in different people.

Fish are cold blooded, their body functions are regulated by temperature,when the water temp drops digestion slows down,this may also be caused by other factors ,
such as chemicals or stress. Think about what causes you to get an upset stomach.
The reasone I know this is the cause of the bloating is because I cut the fish open
to find out what the problem is. When you can smell sour food it is a good indication
something is wrong with the digestion.

Pangasius is one of the worst of the cat fish as far as bloating goes. I think this is because most small fish live on a diet of live foods and we try to switch them over to
a cheaper or easyer food befor they can handle it.

As for treatment , What is the treatment for gas? I have always stop feeding and try
to eliminate the stress factors, Some recover some dont.
With Snails it is a different story they can't expand so they blow their guts out.

Back to fish food ingredentes. My fovorite is Chicken feathers , Protein 85% ,A very
cheap way to up the protein in fish food. They will tell you that they are hydrolysed
an can be digestied . But has any one ever really tryed to find out if a fish can handle
chicken feathers?

[magnum4]

First you talk about unnatural foods and i can see your point. then:

Back to fish food ingredentes. My fovorite is Chicken feathers , Protein 85% ,A very cheap way to up the protein in fish food.

you revel you feed 300X maximum protein recomendation to save money and your complaining about problems

[Katman]

( My favorite example of unnatural foods). Lighten up , the whole gist was against
feeding unnatural foods.

[coelacanth]

Back to fish food ingredentes. My fovorite is Chicken feathers , Protein 85% ,A very cheap way to up the protein in fish food. They will tell you that they are hydrolysed an can be digestied . But has any one ever really tryed to find out if a fish can handle chicken feathers?

I always check the ingredients on fish food, but I don't think I've ever run across hydrolysed chicken feathers! Want to give any clues to the brand name? (without actually mentioning it just in case!)
I think crab shells are another easy one to use, as is cheap and nasty fish meal.
A read through of any work on natural diets would show that even predators often ingest a large amount of indigestible detritus over 24 hours. If we could feed our fish in the ideal way we could actually use food with a very low percentage of protein, but spread out enoughover theday so that it would be correctly digested and assimilated.
If I could I'd feed my fish 20 times a day or more, but minute amounts each time.

[spiny]

You said gas bloating? Do you mean gas in the intestines, or visible gas bloats on the fish?

There are other known factors that cause gas bloating in fish:

The Baensch Aquarium Atlas vol. 1 says something like this: Certain amounts of gases is always soluted in liquids. If too much gas is soluted, you will have a gas surplus in that liquid. This is a very instable condition.
This liquid will always, due to natural laws try to decrease the amount of soluted gas, and this will often mean that bloats are developing in the fishes in that tank.

This gas surplus might appear in tanks with a lot of algae, and plants, under high light intensivity, normally sunshine. (If possible under intense artificial light, I dont know). These plants/algae produces a lot of oxygen.
The fishes blood is, just like the water, having a surplus of oxygen.

If the light is of; no more light, then the water rapidly will decrease its surplus, but this will not hapen quickly in the fishes blood, and the gas in the blood will transform into gas in soluted form; bubbles..

Preventing the problem: airpump. This will help the gas surplus go down. The fishes shoould imediateky be placed in normal water, till the conditions in the tank are normal.

Strongly planted tanks should not be exposed to strong sun. This intensive light might also strongly affect the ph, and alcalise the water.

I do not know if all this will be the case in your tank, I would just mention something that might cause bloats.

Good luck with your fishes!

[Katman]

I don;t think you will find feather meal in your over counter foods, at least I hope they
don't get that greedy. It is very common in comerical fish foods. It was just an example of the extremes they will go to. I see nothing wrong with crab shells, shrimp or fish meal
at least it is part of the normal diet of some fish, although not all.
I agree with you on the feeding with small fish , but most top of the chain fish tend to
fill their stomach with as large a meal as possible then take days to digest it

[spiny]

Did you see what Janne wrote under section South American catfishes - Loricariidae? Gas bloats.

It's based on my long experience and not scientic in any way, I have keeping and breeding fishes for more then 30 years and for the moment I run over 50 tanks with only loricariids (more then 25 species of L-nr) and I have done lots of mistakes over the time.
I really dont know what it's in the bloodworm there causes the problem for some type of fishes, there are I think 8 different types of protein and bloodworm have something that the others dont have that for sure. I use lots of frozen food even bloodworms every week but I dont give that any longer to my different species of Peckoltia, Ancistrus and small Panaque (Panaqoulus) after I quit use bloodworm to them I have not had any more problem with them (the last 2 years). Before that there was always someone that get the bloat once in a while.
I give bloodworms to all my Hypancistrus, Baryancistrus, Pseudacanthicus and Leporacanthicus 1-2 times/week without any problem and have done that for many years. Maybe you can give them bloodworms sometimes but not in regulary basis without it will cause them problem and they dont need it either for breeding or for some other reasons.

[coelacanth]

I see nothing wrong with crab shells

This depends on whether the fish sp. being fed have the necessary digestive enzymes to digest chitin. Many don't, which can lead to excessive undigested protein in the aquarium system.

I agree with you on the feeding with small fish , but most top of the chain fish tend to fill their stomach with as large a meal as possible then take days to digest it

This can be through necessity rather than design. They have the ability to ingest large meals relative to their body size, to make use of a maximum range of possible prey sizes, but this doesn't mean that this is their optimal feeding strategy.

[Katman]

I didn't say that that was the only way large fish feed. But feeding takes energy ,so
it makes sence that a fish would eat the easiest and most plentiful food. Most preditors
tend to eat as much as possible because meals are sometimes few and far between.

I can think of no reason why blood worms would be bad for any fish unless they were fed in excess . As far as I know blood worms can be found in almost any body of water.

One thing to consider is what the blood worms have been eating. I often use worms
and other live foods to get specility items into larger fish. Like soaking food in vitamins
or meds.feeding it to the worms or what ever, Then feeding them to the fish .You just have to feed befor the food starts to digest.
If they are feeding commerically raised blood worms there is no telling what they are carrying in there gut.

[spiny]

The bloodworms live in a lot of places, but far from everywhere. They are not easily accessible for all fish species either. I catch such ones myself during winter: they live in small slimy tubes buried in mud on the bottom. This means that many fishes will not hunt for them there, as they have other feeding habits. I fish a lot in lakes with huge concentrations of bloodworms. The fish are jut crazy for them when I use them as bait on tiny hooks. But, I almost never catch fish that have bloodworms in their stomach. Just a few ones larvae.
Bloodworms prefer mud, and in other habitats than this, other mosquito larvae live there instead.

Like many catfishes from stony or sandy rivers, they will not encounter bloodworms. Another thing to be aware of, is that in the blackwater areas of south america, there are almost no mosquitos at all. If there are bloodworms in the clearwater and whitewater areas there, I do not know.

Actually this phenomenon of swelling of the intestines, are briefly mentioned in the Baensch Aquarium Lexicon as well. I have read it other places as well.

[Katman]

I won't disagree with you ,because I don't read many books. All I have to go on is what
I have learned from experience. And in some of the work I did in S.A. I found large
amounts of blood worms in Fish I sampled. I just assumed if a P. niger could suck up
enough to make it worth his effort other fish would also have access to them.

[spiny]

Where I catch bloodworms, there are probably several cyprinid species that eat bloodworms by the thousands. I just havent dissected them.

When some fish species are not able to eat bloodworms easily, and others are, I wonder why?
What is the difference between black or white mosquito larvae and the red ones?

The ability to be able to eat bloodworms, is that because of bloodworm ocurence in the habitat, or is it the type of fish? (herbivore/carnivore etc). ?

Another thing I'm thinking about... some types of food are digested rapidly, and others are digested slowly, and uses a long time to pass through the system. What if two such types of food are combined?

There are "experts" or whatever they are, that has some theories about how we humans should eat. Some say that one shouldnt mix meat and most fruits at the same time, because the fruits will be in the system together with the meat, and that this will produce more gas, because of an almost yeasting like process?
Actually one of my friends totally changed his way of eating some years ago, and he got rid of his rheumatic disease, and he said he was never "gasy" anymore?

If this works on fish, I dont know... just some quick thougths..

[Katman]

One thing that you learn is over time is that there is so many variables and unknowns
in any thing, that it is very hard to say you know everything about any one thing.
Therefor I try very hard not to disagree with what someone says. I can tell you what
I know from my own experience,and what works for me. But I WILL NEVER guarantee
that what works for me will work for you. Always to many variables and unknowns.
And i will not question someones methods if their golds are achieved. This makes
life so much easier.

[Janne]

http://forum.planetcatfish.com/viewtopi ... 7&start=15
I posted in the other topic...because I could not make my mind up

Janne

[Katman]

Janne , There is not many things that you will get prcise anawer on , most questions
can only be answered by you ,you have access to the fish and the problem. Hopefully
you can take the info from this discussion and solve the problem.If not at least determin
what the cause of death is so it will not happen again. Just remember fish are opportunist feeders ,they eat what is avalible at the time and as much as they can . It is up to you to regulate the amount of any one thing in their diet. Good luck.

[Janne]

Katman,
I agree with everything you say, the common for our discussion is the fishes diet and how important it is that we feed them right and not give them everything they seems to like.
If all species of fishes would eat the same in their habitat...that would only be one species left

Janne