Reef and Dive
Valuable Member
I would like to document a force feeding procedure I've been doing the last week that I believe saved my mandarin fish at least for the last days.
So I know Dragonets do not handle well copper, but we have a documented protocol in Brazil with low levels of copper (0.2mg/L) together with TTM that I was doing for this fish. I know it did not handle well and completely stopped eating and became very hypoactive. On the 2nd day of QT I already removed the fish to a new small recipient without copper, but it was already pretty late. This is just an introduction of the problem, my intentions are not really to discuss if this was a good decision or not, because I know now it wasn't.
What I would like to document here is the fact that this fish got extremely malnourished and on the 5th day I found it laying upside down, nearly breathing, to the point where I believed there would be no hope at all.
This is how the fish was at that moment:
So I decided to try force feeding as an emergency and last time resource.
To my surprise, the fish survived and is still surviving for 5 days, and I've been enteral feeding it twice a day.
It is still very hypoactive and not actively feeding, but I'm pretty amazed this could be done with such a small fish. So for this reason I decided to document what is going on. Pleas keep in mind that I'm not recommending people to try this, but it is not impossible. I'm kinda trained with small living things being a neurosurgeon, but I think just a skilled and meticulous aquarist would be capable of doing this in an emergency situation.
So this is what I used to make an aqueous solution to feed the fish:
- copepods
- fish eggs
- SPS food
- Water
- fish food enrichment (Fauna Marin's Food Energizer)
This is what I use to administer this:
- 0.3mL or 1mL syringe
- Jelco IV catheters (number 24 and number 20)
- a Petri dish partially filled with tank water
- a bed of soft silicon to better place the fish
This is me force feeding (enteral feeding) the fish:
This is me showing this procedure on my YT chanel:
I'll keep updates on the following days.
So I know Dragonets do not handle well copper, but we have a documented protocol in Brazil with low levels of copper (0.2mg/L) together with TTM that I was doing for this fish. I know it did not handle well and completely stopped eating and became very hypoactive. On the 2nd day of QT I already removed the fish to a new small recipient without copper, but it was already pretty late. This is just an introduction of the problem, my intentions are not really to discuss if this was a good decision or not, because I know now it wasn't.
What I would like to document here is the fact that this fish got extremely malnourished and on the 5th day I found it laying upside down, nearly breathing, to the point where I believed there would be no hope at all.
This is how the fish was at that moment:
So I decided to try force feeding as an emergency and last time resource.
To my surprise, the fish survived and is still surviving for 5 days, and I've been enteral feeding it twice a day.
It is still very hypoactive and not actively feeding, but I'm pretty amazed this could be done with such a small fish. So for this reason I decided to document what is going on. Pleas keep in mind that I'm not recommending people to try this, but it is not impossible. I'm kinda trained with small living things being a neurosurgeon, but I think just a skilled and meticulous aquarist would be capable of doing this in an emergency situation.
So this is what I used to make an aqueous solution to feed the fish:
- copepods
- fish eggs
- SPS food
- Water
- fish food enrichment (Fauna Marin's Food Energizer)
This is what I use to administer this:
- 0.3mL or 1mL syringe
- Jelco IV catheters (number 24 and number 20)
- a Petri dish partially filled with tank water
- a bed of soft silicon to better place the fish
This is me force feeding (enteral feeding) the fish:
This is me showing this procedure on my YT chanel:
I'll keep updates on the following days.
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