Help! Bristle Caught In Cotton

[Tiggle]

I just found my bristle nose caught in a loop of cotton and tangled up in the java fern it had been holding to a piece of drift wood. ive freed her from the plant tangle and have released the pressure but it is still inbedded in her gill area and has cut into her fairly badly.

shes badly stressed out. i think shes been tangled since last night. i only found her cause i went looking for her since i hadnt seen her for a few days.

any ideas? i was going to net her into an icecream bucket and try and pull the last bit of cotton out, but shes so stressed at the moment im thinking it might be better to leave her be for a few hours and catch her then. i also dont think shes going to hold still for me to remove it without it causing more damage.

any suggestions on how to get it out and how to prevent infection? shes in my biggest tank (which isnt helping matters) with about 20 platties and a cory.

 

[juliehainsworth]

Not an expert on anything like this but you could catch her and put her in the ice cream cart and leave her to calm down for a while before attempting to remove the rest of it!

Thats what I would do but I could be totally wrong

 

[Tiggle]

Not an expert on anything like this but you could catch her and put her in the ice cream cart and leave her to calm down for a while before attempting to remove the rest of it!

Thats what I would do but I could be totally wrong

Thanks Natsuko. i was thinking along the same lines. now that we've both carmed down a bit after the initial panic of finding her like that. ive looked at her again. shes still sitting in the same spot as before but the cotton looks like its dug in further up her body, not her gills as i first thought. ive also dosed the tank with melafix, cause thats the only thing i could think of that i had handy that might help. i searched all the first aid kits but i dont seem to have any iodine, which i found to be surgested to treat open cuts.

im going to try catch her... wish me luck

 

[big mick]

I would just net her and try to remove it while she is in the net as it will be harder in the bucket since she will just swim about.

When you put her back in just leave the lights out a for a good few hours to let her calm down.

Depending how bad it is she should be okay, they are very hardy.

Good luck.

 

[juliehainsworth]

Good luck........

Someone said about vasaline for open wounds on a fish but dont quote me on it I'll go and look now for you! Never heard of using iodine on them!

Hope she is ok! Then again fish are tough creatures believe it or not

Ok here is the bit that was sent to me about vaseline! Dont know if it works as never tried
"
Only getting rid of the fish that are causing the wound, if the wounds are bad some fishkeepers put vasaline on the cut to stop infection, as there slimecoat protects them from desease so if you have poor water quality that is stripping the slimecoat away or open wounds it gives entry for bacteria. "

 

[Tiggle]

the cotten fell out as i was trying to net her. doesnt look anywhere near as bad as it did while she was caught to the plant. ive let her free back into the tank and shes disappeared somewhere to sulk. its 10:40pm over here and i was about to go to bed before i thought to investigate what had happened to my bristle, so hopefully a night of sleep and rest will be good for her. and hopefully she sleeps tonight and doesnt decide to rearange my plants again during the night. (ive taken all the cotten out now. the java can float.)

thanks for your help

 

[juliehainsworth]

Goodnight and glad to hear she's ok!

 

[Tiggle]

this morning she was swimming around, patrolling her territory and was very hungry. she doesnt look completely happy. on one side i think the cotton has dug into her gill area a little and the area looks raw and red. her gills on the other side are completely untouched and she seems to be breathing very heavily. can a fish survive with only one working set of gills?

How best do i prevent infection? my biggest worry is i have a columnaris infection in two other tanks, and while no fish in her tank have shown no signs of infection for over a week (only one fish has and i pulled her out asap) shes now going to be at high risk.

 

[Torrean]

melafix and stresscoat should help. I hope she does well. If this somehow happens again I'd try to very slowly sneak up on her and grab the cotton then pull it free. It may be harder to do in a larger tank but catching her to move her could do more harm than good. So if you can try to get it out in the tank she's in.