The title says pretty much all of it. My bristlenose plecostomus stuck his head into the underside of a skull ornament, and he is now stuck. We are not having much success trying to help him wiggle out backwards, fins and scales are in the wrong direction.
Thank you in advance for any ideas.
What material is the skull ornament made of? How badly do you want it versus the fish?
For example, for a china or hard plastic ornament, I’d find a clamp and just start squeezing the ornament until it shattered. A clamp - not a pair of pliers because once the ornament cracks you don’t want to wind up snapping the pliers shut onto the fish.
A (soft) plastic ornament would be a lot harder, I’d try to see where I could cut into it - AWAY FROM THE FISH - and then insert a screwdriver or dull knife into the slot and twist to pop it apart.
Get a small bucket, scoop up critter, ornament and enough tank water to cover the beastie, fetch a small hammer and Smashie, Smashie.
ETA: previous poster’s method seems finessier. Go there first.
No need to go overboard and whale away at it.
:swims away:
^ That’s a moray.
Thank you all! The son-in-law got him out with a pair of small needle nose pliers. The skull is ceramic, so it snapped easily, and pleco left just enough room for the pliers to miss him. He seems a little bruised, but he swam to one of his hidey holes, so we’ll see if he’s gonna make it.
This is the second time a fish I have gotten ends up growing enough that it could not swim freely through a different ornament. That time it was the prettiest powder blue dwarf gourami. By the time we got him out he had a bend in his spine. He lived for quite a long time, but he was never 100%. I hope my pleco survives.
Thanks again for the help, I told my kids to just wait a minute, I just put it on the Dope!
(Thanks extra for the puns!)
Hope things continue to go well for the pleco. I just wanted to call out the brilliant idea by @Bonum_Legatum. I saw your post almost immediately after you posted and started running through options. I had thought through the issue with pliers and had even considered strange choices to constrain the snapping, such as dowel rods between the plier handles, etc. A clamp is a perfect solution and never once crossed my mind.
This thread is no good without PICS!
Yeah. There’s a rule about if you mention a pet, you have to post a picture, even fish! Maybe especially fish!
Grab him by the tail and PULL!
lol, I’ll see what I can do!