"me" wrote in message
. ..
Well,
I took him to the vet in a 5 gallon bucket w/ a battery powered airpump.
And what Im sure was more stressful than being taken to the vet, was being
taken out of the bucket, held down in a wet towl, and cut open w/ no
warning, and no anesthesia. I bet the vets finger stuck way up in his gut
wasn't too pleasant either.
Oscar looked really bad on the way home... couldn't hold himself upright.
was kind of fading out.. I had to keep poking him to keep him alert. At
the
end of the night, back in the medicine tank he had lost most of his color,
and had developed a slimy coat on his body. He still had a hard time
swimming. (Id imagine all the stuff that was taken out of him effected his
boyancy)
A couple of days later, though, he was much better! slime coat was gone,
regained his color, and was swimming normally. A week later he was hungry
and eating.
Now ive stopped medicating his hospital tank and am getting ready to put
him
back in the big aquarium w/ his friends. Im just afraid he'll pig out on
snails as soon as he's back in there.
The aquarium is a planted aquarium, and the snails are some sort of
trumpet
snails. They actually really helped my planted aquarium. loosen up the
gravel for the plans, and clean the algae off the leaves. I dont see them
durring the day, but at night the place is covered w/ them. They were
never
a problem untill they made my oscar sick. Im thnking about getting some
loaches to control the population, but I think Oscar would make a meal of
small loaches, so Ive kind of got a catch22 situation there.


"Sam" wrote in message
...
How do u take a fish to the vets? Surely it must be horrendously
stressful
for them...but then, the fish being ill will be stressful anyway so
would
it
not make a difference because its already stressed, or is it really
risky
to
stress an ill fish even more?





Toast the snails.. Simple for me to decide.. There is some sort of copper
treatment which will eliminate the snails.. Unless, i suspect the snails
were part of the problem for the blockage.. Is that something you want to
do again? I can't imagine taking an Oscar to the Vet was cheap eithier..

Tim