bigmac1878
Aquarium Advice Activist
i have had a s*** night. things where going well. i was talking to my sister on the phone about how well her fish was doing and mine also. she told me about how much her youngest liked the video of my tank that i emailed her, so i said i'd get a little more footage as i'd put in a few more plants, jiggled the gravel around and generally made it look a little more attractive. i managed to get the white clouds, the guppies, the 2 goldies and the shubunkin. but then i realised that i hadn't got my nephews favourite, my black moor (bruce), picked and named by my son just over a year ago. i couldn't remember seeing him at feeding time, he's normally slower than the others, so i look out for him, but i was pre-occupied with head counting the smaller ones. so i done a surface scan to see if he was a floater, joy, he wasn't there. but then i looked at my 'castle turret' decoration and to my horror, i saw what looked like a little black fin/tail. the poor little fella was stuck in between the turret dec and my aerator. as soon as i saw this, i stuck my hand in and moved the decoration so he could free himself, but to no avail. he must've been trapped there for a few hours as he was really skinny, probably due to him s***ing himself with fear and stress. his gills looked swollen and were the most furthest out part of his body. his belly was shrunken and whitening, probably due to the friction of the bubbles from the aerator. sadly, he was still breathing. at that point, i knew i had to euthanise him. i was shaking and close to tears. i put some water in the freezer, my wife told me to put some ice in it to speed things up. when i came to get him out, he tried to get away, but didn't really put up a fight, and when i'd got him and got him out of the water(but still in the net) there was no struggle, just gasping. i then put him in the icy water but in my rush , i don't think it was cold enough. i was panicking, trying to put him out of his pain too quickly. i put him into the freezer straight away. in retrospect, an extra 5 secs freezing or another 10 mins suffering (this doesn't make me feel any better). how do you prepare to put a fish out of it's misery? it's not like you can keep an icy bowl of water at hand, and this was an emergency.
i did think about hitting him with something big, but there is no way i could've done that. even though it would be quicker.
i'm as sick as a parrott.
the reason for this long winded post is to maybe point out that little movements of things while cleaning, in my case aerator or decoration(maybe both) can have a serious, detrimental affect.
my first pieces of advise on this forum are
1 : if you move it while cleaning,and things where fine before it was moved, put it back where it was.
2 : if there are mechanics involved, leave plenty of room around it.
i did think about hitting him with something big, but there is no way i could've done that. even though it would be quicker.
i'm as sick as a parrott.
the reason for this long winded post is to maybe point out that little movements of things while cleaning, in my case aerator or decoration(maybe both) can have a serious, detrimental affect.
my first pieces of advise on this forum are
1 : if you move it while cleaning,and things where fine before it was moved, put it back where it was.
2 : if there are mechanics involved, leave plenty of room around it.