Loach stuck, real problem

palaeodave · Post by **palaeodave** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 2:27 pm

One of my yoyo's has gone and gotten itself in a small hole in one of those damned fake root ornaments. Its REALLY wedged in. What on earth am I supposed to do?! I remember someone posting that they managed to pull a loach out from being stuck before but I tried to gently do it and all i managed to do was remove the slime coat. So now even if it does get out I've got that problem to deal with. Should I just leave it and see if it manages to free itself?

gulogulo · Post by **gulogulo** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 2:51 pm

Try slowly removing the ornament from the water. You may have to repeat this several times. I used to have yoyos that hid in a shell. If I took the shell completely out of the water and then put it back in they usually swam out on their own. Sometimes it took 3 or 4 tries, though. The other option is to try to break the ornament without crushing the fish. This is a last resort, I've done this twice. It worked with my dempsey but my clown pleco died.

Good luck!

palaeodave · Post by **palaeodave** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:00 pm

Its worse than I thought. While wedging itself in the gap its pushed off a lot of the slime coat which is now bunched up behind the entrance. There's no way its coming out easily and once it has there's a lot of damage.

Sorry its not a better picture. That faint fuzzy grey bit at the top of the fish is the rubbed off slime coat.

Thanks for replying gulogulo, I hadn't thought of trying to maybe cut the ornament. Will need to think carefully before attempting anything like that!

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:14 pm

I'm hoping for good results for you and your fish, Palaeodave. Whoever would have thought that such a beautiful ornament would have become a trap!

Thanks for posting that picture as a warning for all of us.

palaeodave · Post by **palaeodave** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:57 pm

I wish I'd taken the warning the last time this happened to somebody. To be honest I had never viewed that hole as any problem. They've been in there with it for about 10 months and never showed any interest even when they were small enough to probably fit right through. This is a second warning I guess. Please take a good look at your tanks. I hope nobody finds any potential threats.

I switched off the lights a while ago to try and reduce any stress. There's no way to cut that ornament, its just too thick and I don't have the tools for it. And I don't know how I'd do it under water. I'm going to just leave it and hope for now, unless somebody comes up with a better option.

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:02 pm

In case you do find a way to cut the ornament, a book I have here on fish diseases says that you can keep a fish out of the water for three minutes to do work on it. Wish I knew something else....

loachmom · Post by **loachmom** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 5:48 pm

Your picture is worth a thousand words.

I just got finshed removing some fake rock caves from my aquarium. On further inspection, they were accidents waiting to happen. So I went to the garden, got more rocks, boiled them, and built some new caves.

Hope things are going better on your end.

chefkeith · Post by **chefkeith** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 5:51 pm

That loach is really jammed in there. To bad you just can't call the fire department. If it happened to my fish, I'd use my dremel rotary tool and cut middle piece out.

Martin Thoene · Post by **Martin Thoene** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:54 pm

Every DIY type aquarist should have a Dremel type tool. I've used mine for so many things. It would absolutely be the tool of choice in this situation.
These fake ornaments are a major problem. Such reports appear here all too regularly unfortunately.

Martin.

palaeodave · Post by **palaeodave** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 6:54 pm

I admit I was hoping it would have died by now. I don't have any tools that could cut it. If I had some clove oil I would put it in a separate container and finish it. As it stands I have to wait and see what things are like in the morning. Argh.

Riven02 · Post by **Riven02** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:05 pm

Personally I would not leave him. Try what you can, even if you think it will kill him. I dont think he is going to free himself and FWIW I would rather die quick than be trapped for days and die anyway.

Tiny · Post by **Tiny** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:11 pm

aww thats really sad, i hope your fish will get through this. Even lifting the ornament and gently trying to remove the fish won't help?

if it does dies, i hope it woun't have to suffer much

chefkeith · Post by **chefkeith** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:20 pm

Is there any space in the hole to thread some dental floss in there? If you could get some floss in there and work it back and forth around the fish, maybe it could work it's way free, kind of like flossing your teeth.

palaeodave · Post by **palaeodave** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:38 pm

Thanks for the suggestions. This episode of the saga has finished....

Deciding it was more cruel to sit and do nothing I attempted to push her through further. She did go through more but the shape of her underside was awful and I ended up with a substantial blob of slime coat on my fingers. She looked in really bad shape. I couldn't leave her anymore so started boiling up a very large pot of water, big enough to take the whole ornament. Now I know thats considered a fairly horrific way of euthanising fish but under the circumstances I really didn't know what else to do. I kept checking on her while the water was heating up and on my last trip to collect her she had freed herself!

Her skin is in awful condition, there's a very clear almost white band around where the worst of the sticking happened. I have no real medication other than water conditioner so I put some of that in for the time being as it's supposed to help protect fish and have a calming effect.

She's swimming around apparently happily but I'm prepared to find a corpse in the morning (or whats left of one).

Can anyone advise on what sort of medication I can treat the water with to protect her skin in this vulnerable state?

Emma Turner · Post by **Emma Turner** » Mon Mar 26, 2007 7:49 pm

What a relief, Dave!

I am often of the opinion that if a loach can get itself into a tight-looking hole, usually, given a bit of time and left to it's own devices, it can get out again. I'd be inclined to use some Melafix along with lots of frequent partial water changes to keep up excellent water quality.

Best of luck,

Emma

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