trouble in the mouth

while visiting tom last night he showed me a mouthbrooding careleus with a syno multipunctatus baby jammed in the gill chamber. the mother has been brooding for about five weeks so the young catfish is obviously well stuck. both mum and cuckoo are eating and look healthy., but the situation will become critical as the baby continues to grow. mum is about 70 mil. and cuckoo about 20 mil.(estimate, based on tail end).
as i see it doing nothing will lead to slow death of both.
the cuckoo could be saved easily by cutting the mothers jaw to release spiny cuckoo. (pretty gruesome and certain careleus death)
to pull the cuckoo out with tweezers will probably kill cuckoo and badly damage mum.
i brought the careleus and overstaying its welcome guest home last night and have them in a tank on their own. the mum is trying her damndest to release the fry with no success so far as i guess its stuck hard.
any suggestions.
i think i'll have to call in doctor's platy and daragh.




the catfish tail is clearly visible sticking out of the gill.

what do u think john, its quite the strangest thing ive come accross although in the back of my mind i have a vague recollection of hearing or seeing something similar, cant remember the remedy though.

come on lads, any ideas, time is running out, anyone googling find anything relevent.

Afraid you need to decide which one is more valuable to you, one must perish, you have to decide, the Lab is easily come by and by now you have a stressed and injured Lab on your hands, I'd put my neck out and plum for the Syno.

Kev.

i have heard of a midas eating a pleco,it was just stuck in his mouth,all he did to get it out was just take it out of the water and hold it upside down,i seen a video of this on youtube happening in the wild where the mother rares the catfish fry thinking its hers,i think they eat the mother or just leave i cant remember,hope it works out for you

stretnik. that seems to be the only route all right, hoping for alternative.
convict. the problem in this case is the catfish spines appear to be imbedded.
john. i already tried to strip her without success.

thanks for the suggestions, lads.

How does the syno 'lock in' Derek, is it by two rigid pectorals like corys?
If that's the case could you just snip them off?

You would think this is a very common problem,which i was surprised not to find anything on the well known(US) cichlid sites.The lesson learned here is strip her well before 5 weeks,as it was said in an earlier post labs are 2 a penny and synos would be worth more.

As were all fish-keepers and we go mad when we see a goldfish in a bowl without a filter ,thinking how cruel.This situation has got to be death for the lab, to save a few unfortunately.Chris Murphy could be the man with an alternative,ill text him and ask.

I just got a text back from ChrisM,it reads...A turkey baster around the synos head,it must be a big Baster,apply suction out of the water,apply pressure to remove the fish under water.He says he had to do this with a 1.5" mbuna before and i now have the syno juveniles.

That sounds like it could work,best of luck Derek.

Just read original post again,she only has one syno in her mouth,sorry it thought there was a few of them.This is a tough one,id try save the lab.

dubfish wrote:

Just read original post again,she only has one syno in her mouth,sorry it thought there was a few of them.This is a tough one,id try save the lab.

Last week I seen a tail out of each gill, so there could be more than one fry?????

Tom.

Any news? Dying to know what's happening with the poor craters.

Beats Coronation Street and Whatever's got talent:P

Kev.

Just saw this now Derek, very interesting, but I don't have any wonderful suggestions.

The video you referred to involved three people, I was on lights (torch), Johnh with the shakey camera, but Platty did all the hard work, I would be too screamish for this operation, but Platty thrives on the surgical elements of fish keeping

The turkey baster might work, I have one with a wide inlet if you want a loan, but to be honest I can't see it generating enough suction to get the syno out and if it did the syno would most likely die anyway due to all the blood been sucked to the front of it's head. Using clove oil carefully, as Johnh suggested, may sedate the fish enough to play around a bit on a wet towel out of water with a minimum amount of jumping around, but even when you have them there, I am still not sure how you are going to approach it. I imagine if you do nothign very soon you will have two dead fish, immediate action may save the syno, but I don't think you will save both. Though I hope you do.

If I can help with anything give me a call.


Daragh

Shows how tough Labs are, any other Fish would have succumbed by now.
Is it possible maybe, to do the removal under water? probably a crazy question but just got to thinking.

Kev.

I just came across this tread now.

Derek when you tried to strip her were you able to open the mouth at all?
Do you think the syno has the jaw locked with one of it's spiney fins?

If anyone can post a line drawing of a lab's head showing were the jaw is hinged it would be appreciated. I just want to get an idea how the syno might be stuck.

Tom given a choice which would you prefer to save the syno or lab?

you gonna do the operation platty if so another video pls

Could this warrant an 18 certificate?


Kev

Sounds like the operating theatre is opening again.def wanna seethe video of this one if it happens

possibly its could be messy ,

sheag35 wrote:

you gonna do the operation platty if so another video pls

I'm sure Derek is well capable of doing this. I have no hands on experience of either fish.
I was just on the phone to Derek and offered a spare set of hands, even if it is only to wipe his brow.

Best of luck with it Derek.

yep second that, best of luck with it Derek

Any update ,Derek on this very interesting thread??

thanks everyone, great response and good tips, i am going to try to sort it out tonight and i will post the result.

Good Luck with it all derek
The last time I had something like this it involved a large angelfish and a pygmy cory,I came in to feed them one night and up comes the angelfish as usual only this time he had a pygmy cory (dead) lodged in his mouth,I netted him and had a quick look,it seems the spines of the cory had gone into his cheeks and they wouldn't allow either the angelfish to swallow or me to remove it so he had to go back in and let nature take it's course.I don't think he learnt a lesson either as i caught him chasing another pygmy later on still with the dead one stuck in his gob,I removed the pygmy's for their own safety.


Lar

the saga is over and the result is as i feared.
after preparing a tweezers and long nosed pliers by taping the points, and putting tank water into 2 bowls i took the lab from her tank and placed in bowl. then using a soft damp cloth i held her and opened her mouth. but it was immediately apparent that babies head was much bigger than mothers mouth. i had to carefully cut the side of the labs mouth and noticed that the mouth area was badly infected and angry looking and the catfish was almost fused to the mouth flesh. i quickly removed catfish and placed in bowl and then euthanased the lab as i felt the combination of the mouth infection, torn gill and cut jaw would only result in a painful death. the catfish baby was also in a bad way and looked to be deformed, it looked like a tadpole as its rear end was wasted and kinked. it lived for a few hours and then gave up the ghost and died.
i measured both fish when dead, the lab was 78mm total lenght and the syno 32mm tl. the labs mouth had an ugly inflamed infection and there were signs of infection on the head and skin of the syno. the syno body was twisted at an angle and the fins seemed to be the wrong size and shape.
the conclusion i come to is the lab was too small to carry the syno which obviously outstayed its welcome initially and then as it grew it was too big to exit as its head was bigger than the mouth opening. the syno growth was restricted in this trap and the tail sticking out the gill was a natural consequence. the constant attemps to escape and the spiny nature of the captive obviously caused the mouth infection and gill damage. young labs are notorious for their reluctance to release fry sometimes holding fry for 4 to 5 weeks and this is not normally a huge problem when its the natural fry but a fast growing syno is a different matter.
based on its size i reckon the syno was about 6 to 8 weeks.