Post by JulietV on Dec 25, 2003 12:52:31 GMT -5
Yes, I post a lot in here. So sue me. 
One of my goldfish in the large tank had a rather stressful experience--I came in and found him trapped behind the tube for the UGF! The ones in his old tank were too close to the wall for him to fit behind, but this one must have been just wider enough he thought he'd try. I got him free, and rearranged some thicker fake plants to block access, on the assumption he hasn't learned his lesson. (The cory cats are small enough they couldn't get stuck, the pleco fits because he's flat and in fact likes to lie along the pipe, head down--he's a bit mental--, and the oranda is much too huge to even get partway back there.) After a little floating, during which I was astonished to see the oranda gently bump him upright when he started to drift, and help him steady himself, much like whales pushing calves to the surface, he seemed to be all right, except for his tail. He managed to shred the fins, and lost the torn parts. He also seems to have rubbed his scales, probably from trying to free himself. Fortunately he doesn't seem to have broken any blood vessels in the tail, and they're starting to regrow, and the scales weren't removed. No signs of infection--his appetite was fine almost immediately after, and he quickly recovered from the disorientation and is swimming fine.
My concern is--I'd like to give him something to help with the stress, but I'm not sure what I can put in. Because it's a fairly new tank that just got settled in, biologically speaking, I very much do not want to dump in powerful meds and destroy the biofilters. Stress Coat seemed like a plan, but I'm not sure if I can mix that with NovAqua and AmQuel--does anyone know of a product that might help, without disturbing the tank too much? In terms of availability, once they plough the roads, I can get pretty much anything Mardel or Jungle makes at the LPS (I was standing in the aisle grinning like a fool the other day when I saw all the big boxes where they just started carrying basically the entire Jungle line--it's like a fishkeeper's Christmas and birthday!) He seems to be doing well, but I'd just like to give him a little help without overdoing it.
And watch that--there's no way to move the tube for tthe UGF on this system away from the wall, so I've been building up tank stuff around it, but that was something I hadn't even thought of--it never occured to me one of the bigger fish would try to squeeze into that little gap! He's just lucky he did it right before dinner time, when I was guaranteed to see him! If he'd done it right after breakfast, I might not have seen him for a couple hours and he might have gotten worse than a torn tail.
One of my goldfish in the large tank had a rather stressful experience--I came in and found him trapped behind the tube for the UGF! The ones in his old tank were too close to the wall for him to fit behind, but this one must have been just wider enough he thought he'd try. I got him free, and rearranged some thicker fake plants to block access, on the assumption he hasn't learned his lesson. (The cory cats are small enough they couldn't get stuck, the pleco fits because he's flat and in fact likes to lie along the pipe, head down--he's a bit mental--, and the oranda is much too huge to even get partway back there.) After a little floating, during which I was astonished to see the oranda gently bump him upright when he started to drift, and help him steady himself, much like whales pushing calves to the surface, he seemed to be all right, except for his tail. He managed to shred the fins, and lost the torn parts. He also seems to have rubbed his scales, probably from trying to free himself. Fortunately he doesn't seem to have broken any blood vessels in the tail, and they're starting to regrow, and the scales weren't removed. No signs of infection--his appetite was fine almost immediately after, and he quickly recovered from the disorientation and is swimming fine.
My concern is--I'd like to give him something to help with the stress, but I'm not sure what I can put in. Because it's a fairly new tank that just got settled in, biologically speaking, I very much do not want to dump in powerful meds and destroy the biofilters. Stress Coat seemed like a plan, but I'm not sure if I can mix that with NovAqua and AmQuel--does anyone know of a product that might help, without disturbing the tank too much? In terms of availability, once they plough the roads, I can get pretty much anything Mardel or Jungle makes at the LPS (I was standing in the aisle grinning like a fool the other day when I saw all the big boxes where they just started carrying basically the entire Jungle line--it's like a fishkeeper's Christmas and birthday!) He seems to be doing well, but I'd just like to give him a little help without overdoing it.
And watch that--there's no way to move the tube for tthe UGF on this system away from the wall, so I've been building up tank stuff around it, but that was something I hadn't even thought of--it never occured to me one of the bigger fish would try to squeeze into that little gap! He's just lucky he did it right before dinner time, when I was guaranteed to see him! If he'd done it right after breakfast, I might not have seen him for a couple hours and he might have gotten worse than a torn tail.
)