Mishap with Bristlenoses, and take web advice with caution

[tpl*co]

I should have seen this coming and luckily both my bristlenoses are OK (a large albino longfin and a regular albino bristlenose). Well, in my planted tank I was going to put some dwarf riccia on the rest of a piece of driftwood. This wood has a nice space under it that my plecos love to sleep in. I read on line someplace that a hair net works great for attaching riccia and other ground cover plants to things so last night I used a hair net to hold down the riccia to the wood, with putting the edges of the net just on a few edges of the wood, not all the way around (since underneath the bristlenoses like to sleep, so I was thinking a little ahead).

It was not enough precaution. This morning when I turned on the light both bristlenoses were tangled on the edge of the hair net. Of course being upset they had their cheek patch bristles out which made matters worse for tangling them up (gee we're stuck lets stick out our bristles and thrash around!). The large one was tangled in his fins and snout, and the littler one was tangled up to its pectoral fin.:( . Had to take a pair of scissors and carefully cut away the net partially underwater to free them from the wood and then get them in a bucket to cut away the threads from their bodies and gills. I put them in my bare bottom grow out tank to recover and so I can watch them with some Melafix since they are a little tattered (but alive and swimming!).

So, moral of the story, think and check out any online advice before trying (well it seemed like a good idea, but turned out to be a fishing net!)

Tina

[wolfbane]

Whoa, thanks for the heads up! Never know about web advice, have to check it out at other sources to confirm. One site would have had me dosing a lethal dose of wormer to my guinea pig, checked it out with my Vet first, good thing!

[Kindredspirit]

Tina!!


I hope they are okay? Golly gee, woman....A Hair Net??? lol!! You must have freaked out when you woke up.....


Been to Capitol lately??


Marie!:angel:

[DarkDiscus]

It's a good lesson - take all advice with a grain of salt and also remember that what works well for one person may not work well for you.

John

[PJs]

Another problem is when people get offended if you question their advice or fed up if you try sth else. :(

[tpl*co]

LOL, Marie

Yes, there are LFS that I go to weekly. Have DH even go out for my worms once in a while. I have credit at Capitol so I get water there to see if I should invest in a DI unit. Had to wait an hour last week end the lines were so long!

No, didn't freak, just went and got the scissors and started working on it. Was glad when my son woke up though. Poor thing I had him help me with the fish and didn't realize until after he didn't go to the bathroom yet. :o , Oh, well, didn't take me too long to free the fish from the wood so I could work on them in the bucket. They were clicking and squeaking in protest (the bristlenoses, not my son, he was squirming a little though), but it seemed they knew I was trying to help them. Good thing too, since bristlenoses do have spines that they can use in self defense (and got them even more tangled in the net :().

Tina

[PJs]

Bristlenoses squeak?

[tpl*co]

Yep, they can be pretty vocal when they want to be (and when taken out of the water, which I had to do on occation to clip a thread, then put them back in to breathe then take them back out).

[PJs]

I wonder why that is? Perhaps they sing to each other during courtship. (Sometimes I wonder too much.) Anyway, very cute.

[DarkDiscus]

Actually a lot of catfish vocalize when stressed or removed from the water. Apparently it helps scare predators. When I first encountered it a while back I was removing a huge synodontis from a tank and it grunted like a pig. It scared me enough that I dropped it - which is the goal...

John

[PJs]

Thanks! That is fascinating! We used to catch catfish (accidentally) in the lake where I grew up (Michigan) and I don't recall any grunting or squealing. Unfortunately. Must be the stoic Midwestern spirit.

So, fish make sounds - I guess they carried that with them into the animal stage. I never knew this. (Sorry any Creationists present.)

[Kindredspirit]

LOL, Marie

Yes, there are LFS that I go to weekly. Have DH even go out for my worms once in a while. I have credit at Capitol so I get water there to see if I should invest in a DI unit. Had to wait an hour last week end the lines were so long!

No, didn't freak, just went and got the scissors and started working on it. Was glad when my son woke up though. Poor thing I had him help me with the fish and didn't realize until after he didn't go to the bathroom yet. :o , Oh, well, didn't take me too long to free the fish from the wood so I could work on them in the bucket. They were clicking and squeaking in protest (the bristlenoses, not my son, he was squirming a little though), but it seemed they knew I was trying to help them. Good thing too, since bristlenoses do have spines that they can use in self defense (and got them even more tangled in the net :().

Tina



Hey Tina!

Thatz right, you DO have credit at Capitol....Havent been there lately, i need to return a heater the manager actually gave me for free! Nice guy...bad discus!http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_1_16.gif LoL!!

So when your pleco squeaked, i bet that sounded so precious...The only thing I do not like about fish, is that you can not hug them! I am a huggy person....and when my discus get rammed , i wanna hug them dayumit!




John~

How big was that cat fish? Like a pig, huh?http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_10_9.gif Wow....and you dropped him? Wish i could have seen your face!

[tpl*co]

Well, don't slam Capitol too much. They do get a good one in occationally :). I would have gotten those Heckels if I had room and if they didn't have that bug going through their tank last month! They're happy when I bring in ones I got from them well grown out, (of course I waited for months and months about a year ago and then only picked out a few of their many tanks, lately they haven't had many good fish for some reason). I did get the reddist "raising sun" discus that they had when they first came in hoping to pair one up with my red whites (I notice they still had a couple of pale ones, poor things). I do wonder if most of their discus are hormoned though. Sampson and Goliath are from Capitol and I got them as babies. Currently I still have 5 fish that I raised up from them. I named Goliath thinking it was a boy, she grew so much faster and bigger than the rest! Then she laid eggs, LOL.

Tina

[DarkDiscus]

Marie,

The synodontis was over 10" long and it sounded like one long grunt.

And yeah, I dropped him on the concrete in the basement.

It didn't bother him any and he lived another few years until I lost all my stock during a 3 day power outage one winter.

John

[Kindredspirit]

Marie,

The synodontis was over 10" long and it sounded like one long grunt.

And yeah, I dropped him on the concrete in the basement.

It didn't bother him any and he lived another few years until I lost all my stock during a 3 day power outage one winter.

John


I am sorry for that, John....I would for sure cry when or if one of my fish die... I mean, who cries over a fish?? wow....John, what do you do different, like if the power went out again for three days? Isnt there like a battery operated heater/filter? Probably not!


Marie~:angel:

[jimmyhat]

boat supply places have a larger white fabric weave netting thats fish safe and plant friendly!~

[Dood Lee]

Tying riccia or java moss to wood is easy. Just use a green colored cotton thread. Try to get a color that closely matches the color of the plant you are attaching. Then, just tie the clumps to the wood really tight. The plants will eventually grow over the thread.

Example:

------------------------
| | | |
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The pic is pretty bad, but essentially the horizontal bar is the wood, and the vertical lines are the thread loops that tie the moss/riccia to the wood.