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Biology Articles » Anatomy & Physiology » Anatomy, Animal » Swim Bladder Ideas, Anatomy and Images

Swim Bladder Ideas, Anatomy and Images

by Dr Erik Johnson

People are writing some strange stuff, that would scare any normal person. I read about how the minuscule differences in water pressure in a twenty gallon tank a foot deep can influence swim bladder disease. At left, a normal swim bladder.
Another normal swim bladder except this one was taken from a big Comet Goldfish. You will see over the years that swim bladders in ALL goldfish are bilobed. However, the elongate fish have better lobing, and a better rear lobe than the fat short bodied fish like the Ryukins. And any disease which "crowds" the abdomen with eggs for example crushes the caudal lobe first.
Perhaps you can see the more clearly defined air bladder in this fish. And the fact that the air bladder occurs in two layers, an inner translucent vascular layer and a thicker pearlescent layer for durability.
Sometimes an airbladder OVERFILLS - this is usually due to infection or contortion of the physostome. This "physostome" is a thin tube which can carry air from the air bladder. If this tube gets damaged or blocked, water may enter the swim bladder, or worse, air may not be able to be expelled.
Some fish sink. When they do, it's nearly impossible to "get them up" even though harnesses have been designed. I did two. I did the one at left and it worked OKAY but not great. The string eventually cut the fishes' skin. The second harness was VetRap tape, with the fish inside then the tape was threaded to a buoyant media. The areas where the tape touched the skin eventually sloughed. This might not happen if the tape were perfectly smooth plastic (which could scarcely hold on) or if the tapes were removed for breaks.
At left, a small sinker goldfish. They're hard to fix.
Here's the coolest picture. This fish was SEVERELY egg impacted. And inverted, and all that. But look at the caudal lobe. This is one of those cases where you can't be sure if the lobe was CONGENITALLY "absent" or vestigial, or if it simply "made way" for the encroaching egg mass. The fish obviously died. Imaging is needed to find out IF there is a lobe to be salvaged. Then there must be a way to introduce a buoyant material into the airbladder to the exclusion of water. Ultrasound guided, this could make it possible to manipulate the caudal "lobe" and not impact the front lobe which COULD permit the fish to autoregulate its depth on recovery.

Source: Koivet.com


rating: 4.00 from 30 votes | updated on: 10 May 2007 | views: 14870 |

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