MY BICHIR IS REALLY HURT! HELP!

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wahbulance

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 30, 2009
24
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SoCal
so, i went to my tank and checked out my bichir and discovered that it's bleeding internally throughout the top of its body. i dont know why. there was a common pleco about the same size as him in there and i got rid of him today because he kept chasing my bichir around. i'm pretty sure my bichir got injured after getting spooked and running into things. what should i do? is there some sort of medicine i can give to him? i know he's in a lot of pain. he's about 6-7 inches long.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v309/khangarooooooo/0902092347.jpg">

i hope you can see the red stuff on top of his body. it start from behind his head to about his tail..and it's in his fins too. :( HALP!:(
 
0902092347.jpg
 
also, this is my first bichir so im not taking this very well. :(
his feather ear things used to be a bit longer too. and those had
red hairs running out of them. now they have retracted in and has no
color to them. what to do :( none of the spikes on top seem to be broken...
 
Those feather ear things are actually external gills.

I see you have a terra cotta flower pot in there. I bet he got stuck going through the hole at the bottom of it, and hurt himself getting out. Do you have another tank you can put him in as a hospital tank all by himself?

I hope someone comes along who can offer treatment advice. But I would recommend upping the temp and maybe going to a pet store and buying some sort of antibiotic to treat the hospital tank with.
 
like longimanus suggested definately seperate him, bump up the temperature a bit and add some aquarium salt if you have any on hand. Be sure to keep the water clean while hes healing to help speed recovery and prevent infection. Good luck, and I hope it works out :cheers:
 
I agree, he scratched himself/her self on something. It doesn't look too bad. I would just leave him alone, keep the stress level as low as possible. Basically don't change a thing in your tank except if you know what it is that caused the injury? Watch him closely but don't remove him to a quarantine tank unless you see a change for the worse. Go a head and set up a quarantine tank just in case. The best thing for an injury like that is to just let him chill and heal. If you add meds, salt, raise/lower temps, that's just going to increase stress and possible be worse than better for your little guy. If he eats fine, if not, don't worry about it, but don't let the extra food rot. Good luck and keep us updated.
 
could add a bit of melafix. not alot u can do for internal bleeding. but just let him chill, see what happens.
adding salt and raising temps is good if u want to prevent infection but as it isnt external it wont help a huge amount.
good luck and keep us updated
x
 
okay so based on what everyone said...

about the flower pot, the hole on it is WAY too small for the bichir
to even fit his head in so i doubt he had struggles with that. thanks
for that observation though. :)

everyone is mentioning stress. he was VERY stressed out when i had a
chinese pleco in there..he was a GIANT and he kept chasing my other
smaller pleco around..harassing the *hit out of him. and he would also
chase my bichir around trying to suck onto him and hold on to him. that
caused my bichir to be frightened and he would frantically swim everywhere
trying to get away. im sure that's the reason why he's badly injured. i
gave that bully pleco to my sister to give to her boyfriend in his bigger tank
since my tank is only a 30gal. so the stress level in my tank decreased
dramatically.

im going to keep him in this tank to let him chill, relax, and hopefully
recuperate from his injury. the temperature in my tank is at about 83-84
degrees usually. is that good enough? and when you guys say salt...do
you mean norton's salt? or an aquatic salt from a LFS?

i usually feed him live bloodworms..and TRY to feed him carnivore pellets
which he usually doesn't accept...but from reading some of the stickies about
bichirs, i tried feeding him market shrimp that i thawed out and peeled.
do you guys think that could be a factor in this? in the picture, the blood was
on top of his body..now that im home..a couple hours later, the blood moved
downwards and is on the side of his body now..and the blood on the spikes on
top are a lot more red. :(

sorry for the long ass reply..this just sucks for me and especially for him or her. lol
 
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