Bala Shark is broken???

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Jun 8, 2007
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haha just like the title says. But it really isn't funny... I went to do a waterchange today and before I started, I noticed one of my balas stuck in the corner of the tank between a plant and the glass... He couldn't get out, so I gave him a little nudge and when he got out his back was bent and he has a hard time turning left... He didn't want to eat, I seperated him from the other fish and put some food in front of him, he ate a little bit but definitely not like he usually does, he is a pig. Has this happened to anyone else? Is there anything I should do to help him recover if thats possible?
 
if he did break his spine, there's not a lot you can do.
i've heard of people making splints for larger fish.. but my guess is your bala is too small for anything like that.. and any effort to do such a thing would likely stress him out beyond recovery anyway.

sorry. :(
 
I have heard of them healing if they are young enough. but generally healing bent and thus taking years off their life

Sorry
 
all you can do is keep the water clean. that will give your fish the best chance to be stress-free and improve his healing ability. occasionally fish can sustain some muscle damage and seem halfway "paralyzed". this has happened to my bichir, but he recovered and was swimming normally after a week or so. keep an eye on your fish, but try to limit handling it. if nothing gets better after a week or so, and the fish does not start eating, you may have to look into other options.
 
I hope he is able to heal... He is still young, only about 3-4 inches. I put some stress coat in the tank to hopefully help a little bit. He did eat a little bit today, but the smaller fish pretty much bullied him because of his injury.
If he doesn't start to get better I may just put him out of his misery. Hopefully that does not happen.
 
it may be beneficial to separate him from the other fish.. just so they dont bully him and make it worse.
 
I was just looking around and saw this old post and figured I'd give an update...

Well it's been 6 months and he actually healed perfect, he swims normal and plays with the other balas =) He is now almost 10" and eating like a pig haha
 
its nice to hear there was a happy ending :)
 
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