I lost a Gulper from it eating a large African Cichlid. I think a spine got to something important and killed the Gulper. Just bad luck. I think you should just let the Gulper pass the food with out over stressing it. The less it swims around the better.
My Gulper 8" ate my 5" Pearsie
- Thread starter cacichilds
- Start date
Pretty sure he's gonna be fine, you can see these guys eat some pretty big fish on youtube. I dont think anything could swim very well after distorting it's belly like that...lol. And I dont think I would try putting it with a RTC either, soon as the RTC wasn't satisfied he'd make up for it with the next best thing.
* I never wanted my Gulper with an RTC mighta been another dude.
Hey Guys, update: My gulper had that fish's spine sticking out of his stomach for nearly 10 days as of yesterday. So I decided to act. I tried to sneak in some snips and trim it down to reduce it hitting something. In doing so my Gulper decided he didn't want to be touched. He avoided me like the plague. So I got the big net, I gently swept him into it and he was clam and was trapped against the glass and the net. I made sure at the first sign of stressing or thrashing, to release him. BUT, He just relaxed. And I looked for the spikey fin bone, to quickly fix him. To my surprise it loosened up and was out! It was floating in the net with him. What was awesome was the 1/2" portion which was in his belly, was bare and clean down the to bone material it's made up of. The outside was still majorly intact, crazy stuff! And now my Gulper has gotten the name "Spike" and he's doing just fine.
** Side not that 5-6" pearsi, resulted in literally 3/4" size gain for the gulper, 1 good meal did him good ha.
Excellent! Good job. So by the time you did this, his tummy was back to normal size? I am glad you let him digest his super meal before trying that successful procedure. Let us know how/when the hole gets healed.
His stomach is significantly smaller, I didn't even get to do the procedure, his impaled belly just let the fins spike effortlessly fall out. I never even touched him =)
Yes, I understood. You had described it clearly. I used the word procedure to describe your chasing and netting him and discovering that as a result of all this commotion the spike dislodged and fell out by itself 
Sorry, confusing word but still a procedure except much shorter and easier than what you had planned
Sorry, confusing word but still a procedure except much shorter and easier than what you had planned I know what I've got and have spent countless hours on here, care sheet sites, in lfs, let alone the research I've done on them before I bought him. And before buying the 2 3" rtcs and 1 3" hybrid in a 20 gallon grow out, that will soon be moved to my 125 and my 15" rtc will be going into a 12'-15' x 6' x 3.5' indoor pond.
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Yea because a 12" gulper can hear a 6" + wide fish.
I'm toying with the idea of a large wild oscar with my Gulper but after he housed a 5" or so Pearsi I'm worried.
My other idea was like 200+ small 1" fish in his 110 with him.
