Autopsy?

ejk0799

AC Members
Dec 5, 2005
62
0
0
Connecticut
We're a little sad this morning. Last night we realized that our largest Clown Loach was not well. We saw him breathing extremely rapidly with what looked like a bloated belly. No other signs of illness apparent. All the other fish in the tank are fine, water param. all good. (This is our 155 gallon). We took him out last night and put him in the hospital tank ( a fully cycled 12 gallon). He didn't make it through the night. We're wondering if we should do an autopsy on him to see if it was a freak accident of some sort or if there is something that may spread through the tank. We have 4 other Loaches in there who are all fine and everyone else in my siggy, all acting normally. We've had these Clowns for nearly a year now so this is not a Noob error or anything like that. What would you all do? What should we look for if we open him up? We have him in a huge jar right now while we decide what to do. Thanks.
 
We're wondering if we should do an autopsy on him
if you've got a microscope, slides and some knowledge of biology, an autopsy 'can' help you to define the cause of death. otherwise, simply cutting the fish open will not do you much good. of course, since it's already dead, it can't hurt much either.
 
OK, perhaps I should clarify a little. The point of doing it would be to look and see if a piece of gravel got lodged somewhere or something obviously apparent like that. We are aware that we wouldn't be able to see microscopic things. We're not crazy morbids, we take our fishkeeping very seriously and if there is a potential hazard in the tank we'd want to correct it. Does that make sense?
 
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