need help fast...

my 2 RB piranhas have gotten into a fight. one has its tail almost severed completely off and is chewed up towards the back a little. the other is virtually harm-free. i dont have another area to put the dying piranha due to my other tanks have cichlids. is there anythnig i should do to help this fish "pass" quicker and not go through all of the pain it is right now? right now its breathing is a little heavier then usual, and this fish is upright in the back corner. :?

 

well, This is hard to say and it's worse to do, but there are ways to painlessly euthanise your fish.

First take a container, fill it with his own tank water and put it in the freezer.

You can also add a little vodka to the water and that will anesthetize it. Clove oil is also used as an anesthetic for fish. You can get it from a pharmacy or drug store.

Sorry about your fish :/

 

alright, thanx for the suggestions

 

its amazing, the pioranha seems to be making a recovery quite fast. i havce added a little salt in the water and warmed to to about 82 defrees. is there anything i could do to help it heal faster?

early this morning i awoke and saw the "critically" injured one swimming around as it normally does. i thoguht from the way the damage was that it woulda been dead by morning. the other piranha has left alone the injured one since their skirmish.

 

awesome!

I may sound a lil geeky, but I love my fish. Most ppl just see them as decorative peices but I get sad whenever one dies. Im glad to see he/she pulled through. As for quicker healing, I dont have pirhanas, but Melafix (you can get it most anywhere fish are sold) is what I used when one of my fish had a split in his fin. Works wonders

It says to take the filter out during use but I did not and it worked fine for me.

 

Actually, the freezer method is not a humane form of euthanasia.

Here is a very good article on several different forms of euthanasia (complete with explainations of why some are more humane than others).
http://www.oscarfish.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=13

As for the injured piranha, yes, Melafix works wonders on scrapes & cuts. And the bottle actually says to remove your carbon (not the whole filter - never remove your whole filter). But if your carbon is more than a couple weeks old, it's no longer active so it won't matter if you leave it in. Other than that, my only suggestion is a tank divider to help prevent more injuries while it is healing.

-Chelle

 

A little salt should help too. I've heard of and seen piranhas with much worse injuries that have survived. You definately should sperate them until the one heals up. The other one will sense that the injured one is weak and most likely take him out. It's a piranha thing, they kill off the weak and injured.