Bala Shark in trouble?

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jdizzle3id

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
35
Location
Dekalb, IL
One of my bala sharks apparently has a rock stuck in its mouth. Is there anything I can do to help it? How long should I wait to try to do something. I'd say this happened within the last 2 hours because I didn't notice it when I was doing my water change. The bala is about 4 inches long. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm sorry to hear about your bala. Are you certain he has a rock in his mouth? I've had this happen to me and found out that in reality, his jaw was unhinged. In either case, you don't have much in the way of options. :(
 
I could actually see the rock that was stuck in his mouth (I should have said that in my initial post). Anyway, I had decided that I was going to net the fish and try to extract the rock with a pair of tweezers. I'm pretty sure that when I was in the process of netting, he started shaking back and forth and managed to spit out the rock. I saw a rock fall to the bottom of the tank but I didn't actually see it come out of his mouth. After netting him I grabbed him with my hand(as gently as posslible) and looked in his mouth and the rock was gone. I put him back in the tank and his mouth was still a bit open. I waited for about an hour and fed all the fish. He ate, but not as vigorously as usual. I just looked in the tank and his mouth is back to normal and he is acting normal with no labored breathing like when the rock was clearly stuck in his mouth. I'll continue to monitor the situation but I think he is fine now.
 
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