emergency!

[jennymit21]

i just fed my blue whale catfish (cetopsis coecutiens) some formula one and it was a rather large chunk that he swallowed whole. now he keeps alternating between sinking to the bottom and then thrashing around the tank. do i need to do some sort of fishy heimlich maneuver?????

he's the precious of my tank and i'm scared!!

 

[QTOFFER]

Little glutton bit more than he could handle.
Relax, I really don't think a fish can choke - any food that got into the gill chamber would have been flushed out immediately. As long as the gill cover is moving, he's breathing OK.

The big lump of food is probably stuck in his esophogus and it may be causing some discomfort - hence the thrashing about in an attempt to make it go down. It should go down eventually. Tomorrow, I would offer him a partially boiled pea with the skin removed. That will prevent any intestinal blockage.

 

[jennymit21]

oh thank you! and yes the little pig is still breathing so boiled pea is on the menu for tomorrow. what a little PITA for scaring me like that! i could kill him but that would defeat the purpose of me freaking out over the fact that he might die LOL

 

[jennymit21]

gotta love the way your favorite fish like to scare you to death!! (like my clown loaches playing possum)

 

[powderbluetang]

to prevent this cut up the food because sometimes ive seen fish die of not being able to breath. like medium sized oscars that got a chunk of beefheart stuck in the gill chamber and he died. so be careful on how much u feed