High Tide Aquatics

Help/advice: filefish just got stuck in a return pipe, what now?

R

richiev

Supporting Member
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Just when everything was going well, I go to do an evening feed and my filefish is missing. I check the floor, look in the rock, and no sign of him. I check the overflows thinking maybe somehow he got into the rear compartment, still nothing. Then as I glance over at my wife who's also looking, I catch a glimpse of a little tail sticking out the back of the random flow generator on the return pump.


F.


Quick take it off and he's jammed in there good. I hold it where I can see inside underwater and I see his gills still moving.

15 minutes of freak out, some wire cutters, and a head mounted light later and I ripped apart the flow generator enough to get him completely visible, then out.

This picture is Pixar joke film levels of absurd.


PXL_20220217_041110377.jpg



I'm hoping he makes it. He's able to hold position upright, but very dazed. I'm not really sure what to do with him tonight, but I'm going to err on the side of leaving him alone I think, and just turning the pumps to a lower speed for the night.

I'm also debating tossing him in some methylene blue tank water for a bit, but again I don't want to cause more stress. I also have a second cycled tank I can put him in, which has salinity and such very close to the display.

Any suggestions? Leave him alone and see what happens? Pull him tonight or tomorrow and methylene blue or other treatments?
 
Do you have one of those guppy breeder containers? Use that in the same tank now to be able to watch and separate him without moving him from tank.
 
I'll leave him in here for the night. If he is ok, but looks scratched up in the morning maybe I'll get him to eat and afterwards do a tank water + antifungal or methylene dip for a bit.

If anyone has any other thoughts lmk. @Coral2Coral and @Apon if you want any frag plugs I just got a billion of them (including coral shaped ones), or if you want anything 3d printed lmk. Thanks again for the quick advice.

PXL_20220217_050138325.jpg
 
Ugh, and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I have it on video. A neighbor had a nest camera they weren't using anymore, and since I already pay for a nest subscription due to my garage having gotten a bike stolen from it, I took their camera and set it up as a tank camera. I wasn't really expecting this to be the use of it though.

Looks like he was cruising around, and then decided to try and pick at some algae on the return, and ... well ... in went Skipper.

video.nest.com

Shared Clip | Nest

#caughtonNestCam
video.nest.com video.nest.com

5:59pm he got sucked in. Around 7:50 I luckily went to give them an extra feed before dumping some pods I bought today in and started the saving attempt. Had him cut out around 8:30.

Being optimistic, this will be a great story for him to tell his grand fishes.
 
That really sucks. Hopefully he makes it, but a very cool use of the camera. Imagine how many mysteries we would solve in our aquariums if we could observe them from afar.
G
 
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