I did a tank upgrade today and it went smoothly except the very last fish I caught, my smaller pictus catfish, got caught in my net. These fish are known for getting their whiskers caught but this guy got his right fin caught.
I spent five minutes trying to free him, doing everything I could think of to try to pull the net taught, opening the holes, sliding it down the fin (it's on the sort of spiney part) and nothing worked. I'm a bit skittish about handling fish but I set that fear aside since he was so stressed and I was worried. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good handle on him at all.
Finally I just cut a hole out of the net around it and let him free in the tank to settle down. He has about a square inch of green netting stuck to him now. He's swimming around like nothing's wrong, and I'm actually noticing that the larger pictus has somehow lost just about all of one of his fins, so at least I'm not that scared that he'll end up dying from this.
Still, I want to get it off him. Any suggestions on the best and least stressful way to do this? Tools? Is there some sort of clamp/tongs I could use to hold him still while using a needle or something to try to loosen and pull the net off?
I spent five minutes trying to free him, doing everything I could think of to try to pull the net taught, opening the holes, sliding it down the fin (it's on the sort of spiney part) and nothing worked. I'm a bit skittish about handling fish but I set that fear aside since he was so stressed and I was worried. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good handle on him at all.
Finally I just cut a hole out of the net around it and let him free in the tank to settle down. He has about a square inch of green netting stuck to him now. He's swimming around like nothing's wrong, and I'm actually noticing that the larger pictus has somehow lost just about all of one of his fins, so at least I'm not that scared that he'll end up dying from this.
Still, I want to get it off him. Any suggestions on the best and least stressful way to do this? Tools? Is there some sort of clamp/tongs I could use to hold him still while using a needle or something to try to loosen and pull the net off?
