Other tales of Mad fish

Dogs - thick as 2 short planks? Cats? They aren't in the Einstien league as well, but fish must have the smallest brain there ever was. Of course thats not usually a problem, all they do is swim, eat, and breed, but I encountered a Dwarf Gourami the other day that blew my mind - the most stupid fish in the world of aquatics, although I am sure that some people have encoutered its cousins.

Shall I explain? Right, I have 2 aquariums, one is reasonably small. With its small capacity for decor and fish, you have to make a compromise on decor. Small tank, small fish, small decor - its simple. However, when you go to the shop you can only choose from what you see and I came home with a decent, natural looking rock with a few holes in it. Fine for most, but there are 2 small holes that a Gourami or Betta could not get through, and surely they would never try to squeeze through there. They must encouter small holes in the natural world, they must instinctly avoid.

I have Gouramis. I like Gouramis. I check on the progress of my Gouramis every day, and they are happy little souls. But the other day, my top Gourami seemed to be a bit inactive. Hey, whats he doing, I thought, why is he just sitting there with his head poking through a hole in my one of my rocks, is he trying to hide away from me? Umm, strange. I will come but in 10 minutes or so, to check. I did, and the nutter was still there. Oh dear. Whats next, I thought, surely the divvy hasn't got himself stuck!!!? Bloody right mate, he was stuck like a pig, I even picked up the rock, and up came the fish in tow. What the hell do you do when a fish is stuck through a hole, and theres no way of him helping himself? Urm, not much really, I wasn't ready for this, this had thrown me big time. I decided to see if he could help himself, and I left him for an hour or so. Bugger, he's was still up the creek. So I came back in another hour, still in that way. I had to do something, this fish would obviously not survive if I didn't help him. How? You can't pull him out with his fin, it would rip. Push his mouth? I bet he would enjoy that. I scoured all my tropical books, and of course there is no helpful article of "how to pull a fish out of a hole", so it was up to me. With the pressure mounting, action had to be taken. I gingerly pushed his mouth, and the pressure on his body against the rock was massive - I would have to push pretty hard. With his delicate mouth, it would definitley injure his gob, so I had to come up with a different idea. He has a sloping forehead and jaw, maybe if I make a pinching motion with my thumb abd fore finger.....I had to try. I readied myself, and pushed. And pushed. And pushed, and finally he popped out, and of course hid himself away. I checked for injuries, and he had missing scales to say the least on the top and bottom of his body, but no real open wounds though. Funny, the other gourami seemed to have his chance to dominate in this tank , and attacked him briefly, but not for long luckily. He is obviously in shock, and has not eaten after the event (2 days). I have changed the rock to an earlier piece of decor with bigger holes. Will he incur infection? Will he survive? Find out as I update next week.

Update: To my suprise, the Gourami seems to be fighting fit (touch wood). He has stringy faeces, but thats to be expected after such an ordeal, and I will just have to wait and see if he has sustained internal injuries. His scales are growing back already though, and what a fighter!! Hopefully he has learnt his lesson, but I doubt it some how.

If anyone has come across such a bizarre event in their aquarium life, contact me and I would be very interested in how you managed to overcome the problem, I may even put it in my site. Strange but true!!