I had to perform some minor surgery on my 13" RTC tonight. I had wrongfully assumed that he had accidentally ingested one of the river rock pebbles in his tank and noticed that he was starting to try to spit it up last night. He was obviously having trouble with it, but I wasn't sure how I could help him.
Well for most of the day today he has looked like he had it lodged in his throat and he just couldn't seem to get it out. After seeing him like this all day, I became very concerned. So I decided I would try to help him out. I must say that I wasn't thrilled with the idea of trying to net this guy and expected a major bath from him. Unfortunately, he was obviously very worn out from trying to expell this thing and put up no fight whatsoever.
Anyhow, I took a look down his mouth to see what the problem was, and it quickly became apparent that it was not a rock after all and that it was a heater clip, and the clip portion had become wedged in his gill. Fortunately for him, I was able to gently remove it with a pair of needle nosed pliers and hopefully all is better now.
I feel like a real idiot now. I had heard of them ingesting inanimate objects in their tanks before, and yet I still didn't bother to remove all of the clips from his section of the tank. So to all of you RTC owners out there, if you have any heater clips (or heaters for that matter) in your RTCs tank, I'd reccomend removing them now before it is too late.
Well for most of the day today he has looked like he had it lodged in his throat and he just couldn't seem to get it out. After seeing him like this all day, I became very concerned. So I decided I would try to help him out. I must say that I wasn't thrilled with the idea of trying to net this guy and expected a major bath from him. Unfortunately, he was obviously very worn out from trying to expell this thing and put up no fight whatsoever.
Anyhow, I took a look down his mouth to see what the problem was, and it quickly became apparent that it was not a rock after all and that it was a heater clip, and the clip portion had become wedged in his gill. Fortunately for him, I was able to gently remove it with a pair of needle nosed pliers and hopefully all is better now.
I feel like a real idiot now. I had heard of them ingesting inanimate objects in their tanks before, and yet I still didn't bother to remove all of the clips from his section of the tank. So to all of you RTC owners out there, if you have any heater clips (or heaters for that matter) in your RTCs tank, I'd reccomend removing them now before it is too late.
