can fish choke??

[jennymit21]

i just fed my oscar some large cichlid sticks and he pigged out as usual. what is odd is that he is not closing his mouth and i can see a "stick" wedged crosswise in his throat. he keeps swimming up to the glass and folllowing me around the tank like he is trying to show me.... It sort of looks like he can't close his mouth. should i be worried? he has never done this before that i have ever seen, and i have owned him now for more than a year.

 

[Tiffi]

I think fish can choke as well, never had one die due to that myself though. I've heard two incidences of this here lately :? .

 

[fishyrican]

A similar thing happened to my oscar. I grabbed a net to catch him and try to dislodge it, but the piece fell out as he escaped from the net. With a stick, it should eventually soften up enough for him to swallow it or spit it out.

 

[rich311k]

I think it will be ok. The problem comes if he swallows a fish that is to big or has spines. Then you have problem. The stick will dissolve.

 

[jennymit21]

thanks guys....i'll keep an eye on him for the next hour or so

 

[Jchillin]

Yes, I had a similar problem over the weekend with my Angel. He was attempting to swallow one of my albino bristlenose pleco's and it got stuck. I did the same thing fishyrican mentioned, with no success (he managed to get enough down his gullet that I couldn't grip the other fish).

After 24 hours, he was fine, though I'm not sure why.

 

[Guest]

Fish don't breathe through their mouth, they breath through their gills... so you don't really have the issue of "choking". But if the food gets lodged i think it will eventually dissolve and he will be ok.

 

[talloulou]

Choking may not be the right word for it but fish definitely do sometimes bite off more than they can chew! Most of the time it's something they can handle on their own given some time however I have heard of fish who are unable to swallow another fish but they tried as well as fish who have had to have plastic plant parts manually removed from their mouths so they could eat again.

 

[Jchillin]

Actually, you can consider it to be choking. Fish breathe through their gills but it comes from water that they "drink" by opening their mouths. The water runs over the gills and oxygen is taken from the water. The water is then extruded out via the gill plates. In order for this to work, their mouths must be closed.

 

[talloulou]

In order for this to work, their mouths must be closed.

I wonder how my goofball blood red parrot breathes....she never has her mouth closed. I'm not sure if she CAN close her mouth.

 

[Dragonmommy]

Wow, you learn something new everyday

 

[Tiffi]

I guess she needs to breath harder than or something :? .

 

[willowthepoet]

not only can fish choke, but they can also drown.




....right?

 

[Guest]

Had something like this happen a couple of months ago. My Pike cichlid decided he was going to eat the pleco that was in the tank, well it took him the better part of the day to get it completely down to his gut. I watched him the whole day waiting for him the become a floater as he raced from one end of the aquarium to the other relyzing what he did and that he couldn't spit it out. After the whole day though he was allright. HTH

 

[jennymit21]

thanks again guys Billy is doing fine...looks like it must have dissolved. It has only been a few hours and he is already begging for more food Just had that moment of panic seeing him charging around the tank looking unhappy. I appreciate the reassurance and learning something new. I love AA

 

[Hrafnkel]

Glad he's doing okay.

 

[xIHaKIx]

I know for a fact fish could choke. I had the best looking black mollie (male) in the world, IMO, then one day as I was looking at my fish swim I noticed him going side to side and doing big circles falling on his side but also kinda swimming like the other fish (its had to explain) then he fell over (like if he died) and started swimming again, before this started I noticed him searching for food at the bottom. My guess is he ate a small rock or something because he suffered and died