Swim Bladder surgery

[BlueShubunkin]

Our local aquarium club, the Champaign Area Fish Exchange, that meets at the University of Illinois, had a unique program last Saturday. One of our members had an oranda who bobbed upside down at the surface of the water, and another of our members, Dr. Mark Mitchell, is on the faculty of the UofI Vet School. He specializes in fish and other "zoo" medicine, and has research interests in Koi and Goldfish medicine. As our program, Mark did surgery on the goldfish and removed part of his swim bladder. We videotaped the whole surgery and will eventually have it available for use by other clubs (through the Federation of American Aquarium Societies), but there is a small video clip of the surgery up on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XglmaTMd5XE

We are also hoping to have an article on it in our newsletter, and we will offer it to other clubs for reprinting. Dr. Mitchell is certain that this it the first time this particular surgery has been done. I just got word that the fish, Spot, is doing "fine". He is now a bottom sitter, but that is preferable to a bobber and manages to act like a little vacuum cleaner and sucks up his
pellets from the bottom of his tank.

I'll let you know when more is available.

[bekko]

Gee whiz! Now, that's very cool. Of no practical value, but very cool nonetheless.

You guys have probably read Eric Johnson's procedure in his book. Surgically implant rocks in the abdomen to make the fish sink.

-steve

[flaringshutter]

Very cool! I don't know if you guys have seen the NOVA audio slideshow of goldfish surgery:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3214/04.html

You'll want to click the "play video" link below the photograph. It's fairly short and fascinating!

[Jed]

That was interesting! A friend of mine have done the rock implant on a couple of my goldfish in the past, but parts of the swimbladder was never removed.