911 please help my oscar

Marxman187

Marxman187

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Feb 13, 2008
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i just fed my 2 inch oscar a normal size roly poly and i dont know if hes gonna be ok hes making some choking movements. i can see the roly poly which is now dead but it wasnt and he is barely in the front of his mouth but it seems like either he is trying to throw it up or chew it but they dont have teeth right? was it a bad idea i was told i could feed him insects but now regret it. is the shell of a roly poly to hard for him? hellp!!!!!
 
is the fish upright in the water, gills moving, still making efforts to swallow/regurgitate ?
 
yeh it looks like he is getting a little better but every minute or so he looks like he is choking/regergitating really hard and hes swimming around the tank but from time to time starts to tilt on his side when he opens his moth and swims toward me i can se the roly poly its only about 2 centimeters in ...just in front of his gills should i have given him some other insect like a fly or just wait till his older for live food?
 
hmmm sounds like he is having difficulty with the size of it. I would sit with him keeping a close eye. If its 2 cm in I would think you will have to hope he gets it down (and it sounds like he will - it would be just in between his teeth back there).

if he takes a bad turn (like drops to the substrate/gills stop moving) you should get him out of the tank and try and remove - sterilise a tweezers with boiling water to have on standby; I would think you could carefully remove it with those. But I wouldn't go stressing him around the tank right now. I also wouldn't leave him until you see it go down.

Sounds though like this is just going to one of those cute 'the time he gave me a heart attack' Oscar stories - fingers crossed.
 
yeh im hoping that hes just trying to get it down with those movements i mean the thing is in a ball form about the size of a tic tac.ive been back and forth from the computer 2 check on him i dont want to but if i have to i will operate on him .....great advice but how long would he have out of the water before suffocating?so in the future what do you think?...no more roly poly's ,smaller roly polys ,or wait till hes older? i hope he makes it hes my baby. im glad i only put in one at a time because if not my jack dempsey would probly be having the same problem.
 
lol I'll be honest I'm not even sure what a roly poly is but whatever that may be no more for him until he's a bit bigger.

how long out of the tank ? you have longer than you think; people have come home to find a fish on the carpet after a day at work, and they have lived, but ideally get him in and out within 5, 6 minutes or so; its very stressful. Keep a firm hold on him with one hand, and tweezers with the other, don't put him down on e.g. a towel or something that will rub off onto his slime coat. A spare pair of hands would really help. As you are only going to go in for him if he looks like he's about to shuffle off his mortal coil, he should be an easy capture, but don't be surprised if he bolts even if he looks very out of action; have two nets, get one in behind him and one from the front.

When you put him back in, turn off the tank lights and let him get over it; I would put a bit of melafix or perhaps some salt, to quickly regenerate any slime coat that gets damaged.

Again, hopefully it will not be necessary. How is he doing right now ?
 
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well here is a link to a roly poly picture well thats what they call them where i come from but they are also know as pilbugs .http://pics.davesgarden.com/pics/Magpye_1153951453_503.jpg



update on him.....good news i hope im still looking down his mouth but know it seems to be more spread out rather than a ball so i think he was kinda chewing or breaking it down i wouldnt have worried so much but i didnt know they had teeth so it makes more sense now.but i did some research and although not visible they do have small teath in there throat that are about where the bug is so mayb he kept it there on purpose to break it up better.


so other than size i should have no problem with feeding these to him correct? i mean as far as disease in the tank or anything it should be ok right because i normaly feed him flakes like the rest of my fish but i heard insects are there natural food and wanted to switch it up a bit.

well thanks alot for all your help because nobody else seemed to respond as fast and have great answers




ps i just realized that link is messed up but if you google it you will get some results
 
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that's exactlly correct on the teeth - they are back in the pharynx well back from the lips and they would hopefully grind it down well - sorry I thought I said something like that earlier (sorry if I didn't - might have helped calm the nerves lol).

Anyway, sounds like you're out of the woods. The insects are likely fine for him ; at that size they would have no problem snacking on them in the wild. I'm not an Oscar keepers myself so not sure on diet - if you throw up a thread here in the Cichlids forum asking about that you'll get plenty of replies.

Anyway, you're very welcome - glad it has worked out :) As I said, yet another cute Oscar don't they drive you nuts story :D
 
I'm glad he's okay! Just as a side note... I had to look up a roly poly, too, lol... I grew up calling them "pill bugs"...
 
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