Please Help, Urgent

[VictorMeldrew]

Please help guys i am very stuck here, my foxfaced rabbit fish has a hair hanging outside its month, its looking pretty stressed, trying to swollow it and get it out by throwing its self around the tank, i have tried for the last two hours to net the fish but it keeps swimming behind the reef, when i catch it (if i can) i am planning on pulling the hair which is about 7 inch long out with tweezers, is ths the right thing to do, i am worried it might be tangled in its gut. help!

Thanks
VictorMeldrew

 

[CageUK]

I'm sorry Victor I don't know the answer to your question. I don't know enough about the digestive tract of a fish to answer the question from personall experience. Google however brought up a few cases but it would seem the biggest problem would be blockage of the gut so the fish can no longer eat. It then starves to death.

The fish don't have a wind pipe like air breathing creatures so won't starve of oxygen as long as water can still pass through their gills.

The main thing is NOT to panic. It seems you have time so continue to attempt to catch him and when you do I think you will be safe to GENTLY pull the offending hair from his mouth.

It may be that the hair has clumped in the throat/gut and is irritating the fish.

Here is one of the articles I found.

I hope the little fella is ok and do let us know how you get on.

Good luck.

 

[nitro7]

hi victor
if you can catch the fish just pull it out slowly so it does not cut it,
food goes from mouth to gut in fish,
i have spooned a few trout in my day to see what thay have ate

 

[VictorMeldrew]

Thanks guys

After many a failed attempt i decided to leave the fish and see if it would relax enough to come out from behind the reef and if i still did not catch it that time then i was going to start dismantling the reef.When it did finally come out i noticed that the hair had gone, i can't find it in the tank at the moment but i am still hopeing that it did not swollow it all. I have fed since and it seems to be eating normally so fingers crossed.

Thanks alot again
VM

 

[ben1987]

sounds like he managed to get it out himself victor.