injured gar

[cane]

about a week ago something happened to my gar
one minute he is fine and next he is like a banana
he is getting a bit of food here and there but is struggling to swim and feed
shall i end it

i have had trouble with the silver aro and gar before but only split fins.could the aro of done this?
there was no external damage to the gar at all

 

[demjor19]

it sounds like he broke his back. the aro could have chased him into the glass causing this. i would wait for more insight...but this usually will result in the fish having to be put down. just hope for the best.

 

[Polypterus]

The fish has a broken backbone. Luckily it appears that the Rear portion of the fish is still active so it should live fairly well. It will not recover it's form but this does not look like a case where the fish will need to be put down.

I'm not sure if you can....but if you can remove it from that tank. It will not survive very long in there if it has to compete for food with those other fish.

This is, I hate to say it, yet another reason I do not advise people to keep gars in community settings with any large territorial or aggressive species..It seem to always end like this in the end.

 

[E_americanus]

it's definitely damage to the spine of the gar. any one of several tankmates could have done that (spooked the fish to hit the glass - the cichlid, catfish, arow).

if the fish still has fin control over the dorsal/anal/caudal fins, there may be hope for slight recovery, but if not (and from the video it's hard to tell, but it doesn't look good) then usually euthanizing the fish is the only way to go.

when they are damaged like this, they often swim even more erratically and this causes further damage which just makes things even worse for the fsih. i would give him a few days, but if things don't improve or do get worse, putting the fish down would be the most humane thing to do. really sorry about your gar --
--solomon

 

[E_americanus]

richard i was posting while you were...guess we are in general agreement on that. sucks, but i think this is unfortunately the case for this fish--
--solomon

 

[cane]

ok thanks guys

 

[cane]

whatever the problem was it seems to have overcome it
he is almost straight again

 

[demjor19]

great to hear!

 

[JONP]

thats incredible that he is straight again. Awesome,
just out of curiosity, if you have to put a fish down. What method would you use?

 

[demjor19]

thats incredible that he is straight again. Awesome,
just out of curiosity, if you have to put a fish down. What method would you use?

it is usually a toss up between smacking them in the head w/ a blunt object or freezing them. some people also use chemicals to put them to sleep.