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Gas bubble disease is a disease of fish that are exposed to water supersaturated with natural gases like oxygen, carbon dioxide or nitrogen that is generally occurring in fish that live in aquariums. The bubbles of gas may form in the eyes, skin, gills and fins. It becomes prominent whenever there is a change in temperature and pressure in natural environments, aquatic turbulence, and a disturbance in biotic metabolisms.

Signs and Symptoms The Gas Bubble Disease can be detected by the formation of small gas bubbles under the epidermis (skin, gills and eyeballs), in extremities (fins), in the vascular system (embolism) and in their mouth opening. It may cause floating problems due to the excessive amount of gas in their bodies, ultimately leading to upside-down swimming and death.

Gas Bubble Disease may also occur in humans; commonly known as “Decompression Sickness”, and it generally appears in divers when they re-surface from sub-atmospheric underground pressures. Changes in temperatures and pressures in short periods of time lead to nitrogen supersaturation in body tissues, causing an unbalanced gas saturation in blood vessels and organs. The main concern with this disease in particular is when it develops and transforms into Air Embolism, which causes severe blood vessel blockades in the lungs and severe blockage of the blood vessels, which is especially dangerous in arteries. Expanding gases can rupture the small air-cavities located in the lungs (alveoli), thus causing pulmonary barotrauma which can ultimately lead to death due to pulmonary failure.

Origin and Causes The Gas Bubble Disease is a result of an over-saturation of nitrogen in body tissues. Since the body is trying to assimilate the environmental pressure it finds itself in, nitrogen is naturally dissolved to equal this pressure. When the environmental pressure is drastically reduced in a small period of time, the nitrogen production will be excessive and it will form the clear “gas-bubbles” that may be found in the outer-most tissue of skin and organs.

Natural causes of Gas Bubble Disease include:

•	Melting Snow (Gas saturation at low temperatures)

•	Underground Rivers and Lakes (Nitrogen concentration)

•	Cascades or Waterfalls (Falling water into a pool can cause air supersaturation)

•	Salinity Levels

Extrinsic factors may also improve the development of this disease, such as a prominent changes in ecosystem surroundings, chemical concentrations in water, and nitrogen increments due to environmental processes.

Diagnosis “The resulting abnormal physical presence of gases can block blood vessels (hemostasis) or tear tissues, and may result in death.” (Bouck 2011).

Gas Bubble Disease may develop in three different stages:

1.	Pressure unequilibrium resulting in excess gas formation.

2.	Metabolic and functional system decreases.

3.	Complete system dysfunction (death).

Transmission Gas Bubble Disease is not transmissible; because it is a disease concerned with environmental factors rather than internal dysfunctions or infections (e.g bacteria or viruses), the gas formations naturally occur within the body and cannot be transmitted in any possible way (e.g orally or sexually).

Prevention Small gas bubbles in fish can be prevented and somewhat cured by relocating fish into deep water that contains higher pressures, this will cause nitrogen excess to be dissolved into the body tissues and the gas bubbles will eventually disappear. [1]

Aeration is an effective method to stabilise nitrogen and oxygen in water, since it is able to absorb equal quantities of oxygen and nitrogen and forces them into the water to maintain a balance for “rearing fish” (Rucker, 1972). [1