Stuck In Hole Of Flower Pot..!?

[jpedersen024]

Happened to glance into the tank while passing by tonight - noticed one of my red platies was 'peeking' through the drainage hole of a little clay flower pot that provides a cave...

Then realised the dumb platy was indeed STUCK in the hole... Not fitting through, and couldn't reverse (of course).. I got him unstuck with a bit of a struggle, and he's now in an isolation net - quite seriously injured. Appears one side fin is worn near away, and he's got large white gouges (right into the 'meat' of him!! ) on top right at the base of his dorsal fin, and on the bottom right into his gut. Very obvious he had tried his hardest to push his way through and wore away his scales/ skin/ tissue.

What to do?? Of course, I immediately plugged up the hole so it won't be a further issue. Isolated him, and put some melafix in the tank, but I didn't have much of it...

I don't know if he's a gonner or not, but it looks pretty awful.. Any suggestions to try and help him recover?

 

[fish_fetish65]

what a dumb little bugger... platties aren't the smartest creatures in the world, i suppose. i hope he will be okay... i would just put in some melafix in an isolation tank to prevent bacterial infections, and add some extra stress coat to help repair fin damage. that's about all you can do, i guess.

 

[jpedersen024]

Ack... awoke to find those two gouged out areas puffy white with fungus. I had been afraid of that. He's still swimming around ok though. .. but it looks worse than yesterday. And that's pretty bad!

 

[fish_fetish65]

you need to get some antibacterial meds in there fast so that he doesn't get an infection. my recommendation is melafix, but at this point, any antibacterial medication will do as long as you get it in there quick! hope he feels better soon!

 

[jpedersen024]

No luck, except the poor bugger is now out of his misery. He died yesterday despite the meds. He was just too severely injured.

Learned a lesson though - pot holes should be plugged I guess! or large enough to fit all fish through. Who would'a thought??

 

[millym]

sorry to hear about your fish, fish getting stuck/injured in ornaments that we put in tanks is a common occurence. check everything thats in your tank & if you have any doubt take it out or make it safe.
i just lost a cardinal who got trapped in behind our ladder thing that was in the tank as part of our basic co2 system. theres no way id have ever thought even a small fish could fit in behind there but the unfortunate cardinal did.
needless to say ive chucked the co2 thing away.......