Little Oranda ate a tank rock

[BornFin]

This morning I awoke to find my white and red oranda with a blue tank rock stuck in its mouth. I immediately jump into action trying to dislodge it with a small pair of tweezers. However as I dislodged it, the rock pinched out of my grip and my fish sucked it down.

Since then he has been swimming around like nothing ever happened, even though I know somewhere in him, is a rock. He has been able to eat so far without any problems, and doesn't spit his food back up like something is blocking it from going down. It has been roughly 7 hours since he completely ate the rock.

Will he survive or is it only a matter of time before the rock gets lodged somewhere deeper inside him causing him to die?

Thanks for any feedback it is greatly appreciate, I am extremely worried about him!

 

[jlk]

Welcome to AA!!!

Unfortunately, the only thing you honestly can do is wait and hope he passes the rock without an issue. As a precaution, I would remove all of the gravel as soon as possible and either leave the tank bare bottom or switch to a sand substrate. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

 

[BornFin]

Welcome to AA!!!

Unfortunately, the only thing you honestly can do is wait and hope he passes the rock without an issue. As a precaution, I would remove all of the gravel as soon as possible and either leave the tank bare bottom or switch to a sand substrate. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!

Thanks for the welcome jlk! I'm definitely going to switch over to sand after today's incident, everyone is starting to get to big for me to safely keep pebbles in the tank.

In your experience do you think it's possible for such a small fish to pass a large rock? Will it tear something coming out?

 

[jlk]

I honestly hope he does pass it without incident. I will cross my fingers for him, too! The intestinal tract does flex and stretch which is a plus here. I would stick to offering him a simple diet such as veggies and brine shrimp (both are mildly laxative) for the next few days as lots of green veggies will make his waste easy to spot and you will know he passing food through his intestines. Please keep us posted on how his doing!