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SBD - ok to stop treating now?

450 views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  Pitluvs 
#1 ·
I have been treating our betta Feathers for SBD since Thursday evening, when I initially noticed he seemed to be having trouble swimming down from the surface (although better that than trouble getting to the surface, right?) and looked bloated. Over the course of the next couple of hours he struggled more and more and eventually tipped over on his side and that's when I did 100% water change, added Epsom salt (1 tsp/gallon) to the water and began fasting him. He pooped shortly after I started treating him (although he hasn't pooped again since then) and is now swimming normally and hasn't been on his side since Thursday. I have been doing 100% daily water changes with Epsom since Thursday evening. My plan was to discontinue the Epsom salts tomorrow when I do his water change and start feeding him 1 pellet 2x day again starting tomorrow as well. I am still pretty new to fishkeeping though so I wanted to double check to see if any of the more experienced folks here would do anything different?
 
#3 ·
I had a female get swim bladder, treated her with Epsom Salt for 12 hours and she finally righted herself. I put her back in the sorority as soon as her water acclimated :) Once they go and they can swim, I would assume you're safe to put them back. Since swin bladder isn't an infection there's no real point giving a set time for treatment.
 
#4 ·
Not true. Swim bladder needs at least 10days treatment and I cannot stress that enough. I have seen so many members come on and say "I treated for SBD, he started swimming again so I stopped. Now he's not swimming again." and most go on about having to use Epsom salts permanently. No, do the treatment for the 10 days minimum and then wean from the salt (half a gal of fresh water day one, full fresh water day 2). I promise you, you will only have to do treatments over and over. Even though he's swimming ok now, he may go belly up on you again in a day or two. Stick it out until the weekend, it won't hurt him.

My Hughie was so bad with SBD that he was upside down in his cup at the store, unable to do much of anything. I didn't think he would survive. I had to do two rounds of 10 day treatment on him to stop the SBD, it was horrible lol Anyways, months later he's now a happy swimming boy with no more SBD issues.

Live food helps too, I only fed brine shrimp (or frozen) the whole time he was in treatment.
 
#5 ·
I've fed my female the same pellets as before and not ran into any issues yet. She's back in the sorority though, the alpha female eats the majority of the food so that may be helping prevent it. She has no bloating or issues at all now. The way I understand it swim bladder is genetic, if the fish gets backed up on the food you're feeding it is very likely it will get swim bladder again. What is the point of the 10 day treatment? To make sure they're "regular" as far as their intestinal tract?
 
#6 ·
I'm not sure what the reason is, other than common sense lol Kinda like an infection in humans, you take the medicine for 5 days and you feel better, but you should take it for the 10-14days prescribed or the infection has time to build back up. All I know is the months I have been here, reoccurring SBD usually is because treatment wasn't done long enough.

I've never heard of it being genetic, but more so due to body type.
 
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