Help! - Injured Female Dwarf Gourami

[bushbrother]

I need some help guys, I just looked into my tank and the female gourami had somehow swam into a "tunnel" in the bogwood and had wedged herself hard in there. I quickly got a small cotton but and tried to tease her backwards but didnt want to apply too much pressure.

I have just spent 30 minutes slowly using a small pair of pointy pliers to gently enlargen the hole so she could get out. She is swimming about and looks very nervous. She has a quite big cut at her top, just before the dorsal fin and also looks like some damaged scales along the top where she was wedged in and wiggling

What should I do? I have to sleep now as its already midnight here in UK so hope she lasts till morning, is there medication I can give her or will the wounds heal? Any advice please ...

 

[kelly528]

Lol my female did that a while ago too.

Don't medicate unless it gets bad... I have a thing against using meds for a problem that can be fixed with some simple TLC.

If possible, quarantine her, salt the water, keep it clean to prevent infection and feed her some nice, high-protein frozen foods like bloodworms. If you can just make sure the wound stays clean it should take care of itsself.

 

[bushbrother]

Lol my female did that a while ago too.

Don't medicate unless it gets bad... I have a thing against using meds for a problem that can be fixed with some simple TLC.

If possible, quarantine her, salt the water, keep it clean to prevent infection and feed her some nice, high-protein frozen foods like bloodworms. If you can just make sure the wound stays clean it should take care of itsself.

Thanks for the quick reply, I have no quarantine tank and there are other tankmates in there so salting I guess is not an option. She is sat near the bottom now but keeps moving about, like she is in shock. I will see how she is in the morning and give bloodworms.



I will try and get a picture if she makes it.

 

[drobbyb]

I would try some melafix to prevent a bacterial infection. Other than that, just keep the water clean and it should heal up nicely.

 

[bushbrother]

I would try some melafix to prevent a bacterial infection. Other than that, just keep the water clean and it should heal up nicely.

Thanks for the advice. So this morning she is still alive and moving about a bit, though very close to the ground. I noticed that the male was pestering alot and she cannot move away so fast now. So what I have done is float a large bowl in the tank and fill with as much water so that it still floats on top of tank. I then netted her and put her in there with some bloodworm.

I then added like a pinch of non-iodised salt (how much should I put?). Atleast now she can be in peace from the male gourami and she seems to have picked up a bit.

I noted that the sore looking cut on her top is no longer a red looking cut but more silver/white. Is this good? My plan now is to monitor the ammonia in the bowl and change the water as often as needed.

I have no idea if my LFS sells that medicine, or if I should risk using it. I think I will wait a day or so and see what happens.

 

[bushbrother]

I have just changed the water in the bowl to prevent amonia build up and also re-sprincled some salt in there ...

How long do I keep the salt up for? How much?

She is still looking pretty sick

 

[kelly528]

I wouldn't risk medicine unless you can aerate the bowl... most meds suck oxygen like crazy. The bowl should also be heated. If the wound is turning slver (with no fuzz), good that means it's closign up.

 

[Phisher84]

I had the same thing happening in my tank, but with a fake coral. First a Molly swam in there and got herself stuck. Managed to fanagle her out of there, but she didn't make it. Then about a week ago my Flame Dwarf Gourami got stuck. I noticed him right away, but he got himself in there good, the dummy. I had to take the coral out, grabbed some pliers, and had to tear the thing apart to get him out! He's still a little dinged up, but he'll survive.

I took a very small tupper-ware container, poked a punch of holes in the lid, filled it with aquarium salt and stuck it in a corner of the tank. I put some gravel on the lid so the salt slowly filters out. Works great, all the fish seem to have perked up! Keeping it in there from now on.

 

[bushbrother]

So I have got back from work and had a good look at the fish in the light of day ... It does'nt look good, from the side she seems ok, but from the top you can see that her scales are al messed up. Also she doesnt seem to be able to use her tail, do you think she could have broken her spine? Sometimes it wiggles but not very much. I popped a finger in there to see if she moved and she seems only to use her fins, and one of those is ripped.

What should I do? wait another day? Is it better to put it out of its pain? I did not realise she scratched herself so badly Pictures below:

Please help!

 

[bushbrother]

Unfortunately she has passed away about 1 hour ago ...

Its a sad thing but I did what I could, guess its one of those things, in the wild she would still be in the bogwood!

 

[waterdrop]

Sorry for your loss BB. I think you should take it heart that you tried hard to do everything you could for her.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[the duck]

I'm sorry about your fish, one of my gouramis was murdered by his tank mates today, I ended taking him out back and smashing him with a block of wood So I feel your pain.

I'd suggest that you learn from this experience and check out your tank for any possible hazards that you can find so that this doesn't happen again.