Fish Caught in Nylon (Help? Quick?)

[Lansirill]

I have a small nylon filled with gravel in my tank, and one of my fish managed to get caught on it. How in the world do I get him out?

Hopefully I can help wiggle him off the nylon before I get a response but I'll be keeping an eye on here. Thanks a lot. Yeesh!

 

[J double R]

well, if he doesnt struggle his way off, you can try to CAREFULLY cut him loose.. but that's a VERY risky operation with a thrashing fish on it.

 

[Lansirill]

The fish is struggling but isn't quite able to free itself. I tried giving him as firm of a tug as I felt comfortable with and it feels like it's caught fairly well in a snag. There's a good centimeter or so between the fish's tail and the main body of the nylon, so I can probably cut the fish free if I can leave a bit of the nylon on the tail. That's going to be better than being trapped, but it's probably not ideal. I thought about melting the nylon with something, but I can only imagine that anything that would melt nylon would be even worse on the fish.

 

[ct-death]

Bring the fish and nylon out of the tank and into a bucket of tank water. Cut away the nylon as best you can to free the fish. Start with a big piece just get him out and then work the nylon smaller to where you feel comfortable.

The goal is to get him so that he can swimm properly. If not, you will need to get risky b/c the nylon wont decay away...

Worse case, you will have to nip the tail fin (fin only!) - it will grow back and will keep him alive

 

[Lansirill]

A small amount of nylon, as long as the fish can swim, -should- be okay? I'm pretty sure I can get it down to a single thread.

Update:
He got stuck on another fin, but there wasn't a snag so I freed him from that easily. I cut the snag that was keeping him trapped (which was harder than I expected... the bloodfin wasn't heavy enough to help cut the thread ) and he dashed away. I can't really tell which fish was caught now that they're all swimming together again, so with any luck everything is fine.

Thanks for the quick replies.

 

[ct-death]

*whew*

Glad it worked out!