Real life George Costanza

[Deadeye]

The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.
So last night at dinner I noticed my bala swimming weird and breathing heavily, as if it were dying. I go to get a closer look, and realize that something was lodged in his throat…a piece of gravel. After observing for a few minutes, it was clear that the rock wasn’t going anywhere.

So then begins the next step, catching a bala shark. And catching it again when it gets out of the net (rinse repeat). Once I had him, I then had to use a pair of tweezers to get the stone out. Of course, this would keep pushing the rock back into his throat, so I had to wait for the fish to cough up the rock to where you could see it. This continued until it got to a point where the tweezers could finally get a hold of the gravel.

Once the bala was released back in to the tank, he coughed up even more gravel as well…
Fish are stupid. If this happens again I’ll have to switch to sand…

 

[Poseidon2.0]

Glad you resolved this! I always worry about it with my goldfish and get the smallest pea gravel I can get or else sand, though I prefer gravel.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Excellent work! For a moment there, you really were a marine biologist.

 

[jjohnwm]

This could have gone bad several different ways; glad it didn't.

 

[fishguy1978]

Did this once with a stupid goldfish ?

 

[Deadeye]

Did this once with a stupid goldfish ?

Must be a cyprinid thing lol

Happy to report the bala is all better now. No more incidents and the damage is healing up.

 

[EricTheRed]

Must be a cyprinid thing lol

Happy to report the bala is all better now. No more incidents and the damage is healing up.

In more than 40 years of keeping Cichlids in multiple tanks, I have never experienced this, and I use the same type of gravel in some of my tanks a you do. Maybe Cichlids are the most intelligent of the freshwater fish…

Nice work removing the gravel!

 

[Deadeye]

In more than 40 years of keeping Cichlids in multiple tanks, I have never experienced this, and I use the same type of gravel in some of my tanks a you do. Maybe Cichlids are the most intelligent of the freshwater fish…

Nice work removing the gravel!

I really am surprised by it. I’ve had so many fish with gravel, and most would spend some time sifting through it, balas included. I guess it’s just the combo of the right size/shape stone and right size fish.