Someone asked if I'd post details on the harness that my Ryukin wears.  

Addy has a completely nonfunctional swim bladder.  Without this harness she sinks on her side on the bottom of the tank.  In it, she can swim around in the tank (although she can't go higher or lower in the water), and live a relatively normal life.

This harness came about by lots of trial and error, but started with a basic idea from this site:  http://www.geocities.com/swimbladderhelp/welcome.html

There are some images of previous prototypes are here:  http://www.sullivanet.com/misc/fishie/fishpics.htm

At the start of this odyssey she went through two rounds of Baytril injections, but her swim bladder was too far gone for the antibiotics to help.


Here's Addy in her harness...



The cut out pieces on the side are optional.  I don't always do that, so they don't appear on the diagrams below.


Here's the layout of the harness...



And here's how it goes on...



And the results...




The harness isn't ideal, obviously.  The harness sometimes rubs a sore or tender spot, and it does restrict her movement vertically in the tank.  But it has given her at least six months and counting beyond what she would have had without it.  Because she can't bottomfeed or otherwise find food on her own, I have to hand-feed her twice a day.  She's gotten used to taking pellets from my fingers, and gets all excited, wiggling to get closer, when she sees The Hand coming toward her.  



SUPPLIES:

The flannel is just plain, white, 100% cotton flannel--of the type sold for diapers, I think!  I get mine in the fabric store or craft department of a department store.  To reduce fraying I cut it with a pinking shears.
After about five days in the water the flannel in the harness gets slimy and starts to fray and fall apart, so the harness needs to be replaced at least once a week.

The bobbers are from the fishing supply department.
The lead sinkers are, too.  I use the reusable type that have to be opened and closed with a flat-nosed pliers.  They're frustrating to work with, but they do the trick.  You can reuse them a few times before they get too hard to open and close and have to replaced.

Any thread would probably work to attach the bobbers, but I use carpet or upholstery thread because it's stronger.

The twist ties are the kind that come with bread wrappers or fresh produce bags.  They last a month or so before they start to fall apart.



I hope this helps some other fish out there!
If you have any more questions just ask me.  

Thanks so much, Katie!  She sure looks happy to be alive, if you ask me.  She's a pretty girl who's lucky to have you (and your "craft" skills!).

Wow!  

Very impressive.

Really interesting.  Nice way to give a goldie some quality of life back.

Does she move around horisontally?  If you take her out does she tip over sideways?

Way cool!  Thank you!

What a lovely thing to do for your fish. I know my friends think I'm nuts caring so much for my fish, but they're outliving every fish on the block. They'll adapt to anything if they've got the spirit to live.

When one fish had swimbladder that was so bad she stopped rolling and just lay on her side on the tank bottom and didn't eat for 3 weeks, I squeezed drops of fry food down her throat till she got fit enough to move.

Then I propped her upright in a plantpot which I turned on its side and now she lives in it, right way up, feeding by hand or catching sinking pellets and peas which I drop down to her. She manages to swim a little, doing loop-the-loops till she gets to where she's going and I added a little plastic platform over her 'cave' so that she can hurl herself up and sit nearer the surface for a bit if she needs to. And she loves surfing the bubbles on the airstone next to it - it's like an elevator that fills her fins and takes her up to the platform.

She's quite the thing now, 2 years after her illness. So well in fact that she even laid eggs this summer!

The other female in the tank has laid 5 lots of eggs in a year (we kept a few eggs and have 24 babies now a year old) and her small swimbladder shifted out of place after her last pregnancy. After a month of watching the poor wee thing recover from an injection to prevent the eggs becoming infected, I had to build her a raft with wine corks and garden wire to remind her what it was like to move.

Then I propped her upright between my hands to orientate her and helped her swim across the tank. Eventually her swimbladder re-filled and now she can swim as fast as ever, though the bag is still out of place so her bum bobs out of the water and she gets a sore from time to time. So the platform idea came in handy again and I built one for her to go under and keep her down. They're not daft, fish - she knows what it's for and only ever uses it when she has a sore which quickly disappears.

They're worth looking after!

jk

Hi JK,

   

Sounds like you have your hands full!  Would love for you to start another thread about your gang.

Jo