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Interesting situation with aquarium acrylic scrub

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  zsadie 
#1 ·
I recently purchased 3 new zebra danios to my 6 gallon community Eclipse tank. I had recently cleaned the tank before I bought the fish and used the acrylic scrub to clean the inside walls. well the next day i find one of the new danios has a small piece of the fiber from the scrub sticking out of his left gill. i kept trying to catch him with the net, to hopefully see if I can easily pull it out, but for the first couple of days no such luck in catching him, so I was hoping it would eventually dislodge itself, but again it seemed stuck in there for good. finally this morning, during feeding time, I noticed he was a lot more listless than usual and thought I really gotta get that thing out of there, so I grabbed the net again and this time due to his listless state, I was able to catch him. I took him to the sink in the bathroom and worked quickly in pulling the thing out. simple thing really and when I stuck him back in the tank after less than a minute he was definitely traumatized, but I figured he'd probably be okay. I'm hoping when I get home from work today that he'll be zipping all around the tank and thankful to have that piece of fiber out of his gill.
my question is, clearly the scrubs that I have leave the stuff behind when I'm done cleaning the tank and I don't want the same thing to happen again. I'm thinking being a new fish he thought it was food, but then tried to expel it through his gills, but then proceeded to get stuck. is there a better quality of acrylic scrub out there that is better held together? the ones I have, I haven't had that long and only used maybe 5 or 6 times. Is there chance now that the fish is free of the fiber that no doubt was causing discomfort, it might become infected and if it does, is there any natural non chemical remedy for infections resulting from such an injury?

Thanks for any help!
 
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#2 ·
What brand was this scrubber? I've got one that's got a pretty rigid pad on it and doesn't look like it's gonna come apart any time soon....probably one of the better things Top Fin has made. As for keeping the infection out, try just keeping the water quality pristine and you could probably try some Melafix too if you don't have any sensitive critters in there (bettas or tetras and some others). It's just a special dilution of tea tree oil.
 
#4 ·
All wonderful suggestions. thank you! unfortunately when I came home from work today, I found the poor danio had died. I felt bad, but what can you do!? I'll take a look at one of the small Mag floats. I think it was a top fin brand, but not their best.
 
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