Last week I picked up three new shubunkins for my pond. They're so small that when I add new fish, they disappear and I usually don't see them until the following year. Well Sunday evening one of the new guys turned up in the stream, just kind of hanging out in a calm spot behind some plants. I knew there was a problem when I was able to reach down and just scoop him up in my hand... It's hard to say exactly what happened, but the front half of his right side is scraped up pretty bad. The only thing I can imagine is that he got trapped in the rocks.
Obviously he wasn't going to survive outside in that condition, so I dropped an aquarium filter into a bucket and filled it with pond water, and took him inside to keep a close watch on. I'm worried that his eye was damaged, but otherwise its hard to tell the extent of his other injuries. He seems to have no trouble swimming against the filter current or keeping himself upright, so hopefully it's just a matter of keeping him safe until the injuries heal.
Last night I changed out half of his water with some clean pre-conditioned water (I keep a 55-gal barrel treated for the more sensitive tanks like our shrimp). It looked like his slime coat was sluffing off, so I added a dose of stress-coat, but this morning he still appeared to be swimming fine. Tonight I'll do another water change. The filter was dry so there's no good bacteria in there other that what may have been floating in the pond water.
Since he's still swimming good, I'm hoping for the best, but it's going to take awhile to heal. I'll probably move him over to a 10-gal aquarium if he survives until the weekend. If he looks healthy by the end of the month then I'll go ahead and move him back out to the pond, but otherwise the weather will be turning soon after and it will be better to keep him inside for the Winter and try again next year.
There's nothing special about how this little guy looks, but he's under my care and I'll do the best for him that I can. Hang in there, little fella...
Obviously he wasn't going to survive outside in that condition, so I dropped an aquarium filter into a bucket and filled it with pond water, and took him inside to keep a close watch on. I'm worried that his eye was damaged, but otherwise its hard to tell the extent of his other injuries. He seems to have no trouble swimming against the filter current or keeping himself upright, so hopefully it's just a matter of keeping him safe until the injuries heal.
Last night I changed out half of his water with some clean pre-conditioned water (I keep a 55-gal barrel treated for the more sensitive tanks like our shrimp). It looked like his slime coat was sluffing off, so I added a dose of stress-coat, but this morning he still appeared to be swimming fine. Tonight I'll do another water change. The filter was dry so there's no good bacteria in there other that what may have been floating in the pond water.
Since he's still swimming good, I'm hoping for the best, but it's going to take awhile to heal. I'll probably move him over to a 10-gal aquarium if he survives until the weekend. If he looks healthy by the end of the month then I'll go ahead and move him back out to the pond, but otherwise the weather will be turning soon after and it will be better to keep him inside for the Winter and try again next year.
There's nothing special about how this little guy looks, but he's under my care and I'll do the best for him that I can. Hang in there, little fella...
