Wow so it turns out it’s a pretty weird injury due to the way bichirs breathe. We just got back from the vet, and looks like the poly will be fine! We’ve had him for 5 years, I did not want to lose this little guy and since his breathing was labored I took him to the vet. The vet had also never seen something like this. He put the bichir under anesthesia to examine him. He thought it might also be blood from some sort of trauma, but when he probed with the needle, it was solid. Then he grabbed him and probed around with his finger. He realized he could not see the tongue ( bichirs have yellowish tongues), so he realized that was probably the issue. He pressed further until he heard a loud pop and the bichirs tongue snapped forward! That was the bulge in his jaw! Apparently maybe the bichir was too excited and when he went to grab a gulp of oxygen, the force of his recoil aspiration caused him to swallow his own tongue. Since they don’t have a trachea, it got caught in his esophagus and swelled up. Super bizarre. His tongue was pretty bloody and swollen afterwards, but after a couple of hours, its back down to normal. The bulge is gone and he is breathing normally.
Thanks for the support everyone. Hopefully this might help another bichir owner in the future since this was such an unusual event.
