Fish Half Swallowed?!

[Wy Renegade]

I was out all day yesterday on a field trip with the students. I get back today, and my other students tell me that they noticed yesterday that one of my adult female OB Zebras has half swallowed another smaller OB, and has been swimming around for two days with the tail sticking out of her mouth. I look, and sure enough, there she is sitting on the bottom of the tank with a fish tail sticking out of her mouth.

Crazy - never seen that one before!

Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to try and catch her and get it out before she kicked off on me that I never even thought about taking a picture. Finally managed to catch her (PITA), because the tanks are all designed for survivability of the fry (which means tons of rocks), and I had to pull the dead juvinile out with pliers.

Anybody ever have this happen before? What do you think her chances of survival are?

[mattrox]

I have never seen that before either.

Given that a fish was lodged in its throat for that long, I would say it is a case of wait and see. Hope she pulls through.

[Wy Renegade]

Well, so far so good - she's still swimming around. Even stranger, she has now spawned. However rather than spawing normally, she was swimming around with the eggs protruding - she seems to have ended up with at least a few in her mouth however, so we'll just have to see what happens.

LOL; maybe she was practicing.

[Etunes]

gotta say thats weird.

[BigJim]

Sometimes fish bite more than they can chew. Muskies have been found dead choked on ducks. On River Monsters, the host saved a payara from death by pulling a smaller payara out of its mouth. I've also seen a YouTube video of a flathead catfish that tried to swallow a basketball. The fish kept bobbing back up to the surface until the people shooting the video caught it and removed the ball.

[Wy Renegade]

Originally Posted by BigJim

Sometimes fish bite more than they can chew. Muskies have been found dead choked on ducks. On River Monsters, the host saved a payara from death by pulling a smaller payara out of its mouth. I've also seen a YouTube video of a flathead catfish that tried to swallow a basketball. The fish kept bobbing back up to the surface until the people shooting the video caught it and removed the ball.

Yeah, I had the Game and Fish bring in a Big Mouth Bass one year that died trying to swallow another bass. I just had never had a cichlid do something like that.

[thincat]

I had an arowana that caught Doves and one time it had a full grown Koi, 18"-24", in it's mouth for days. There was no way for me to get it out so I just monitored and he slowly took it down

[spoonman]

I had a bala shark with the same problem. Swallowed a smaller fish. Because of the fins, I couldnt pull it out. It took about 4 or 5 days for it to get it down, but it was ok after. Most fish can go 2 weeks or so before starving to death, so that isnt really an issue. Besides, when they finally get it down the are full again....lol. The last thing I would do is pull it out though. That would cause more problems than them swallowing it.

[Wy Renegade]

Well, since I already pulled it out, we'll just have to wait and see. Appreciate the input, next time I'll let it go.