I woke up yesterday morning to a horrifying sight - one of my ADF's had tried to eat an otocinclus that she shared her tank with and it had gotten wedged in her mouth! I wasn't sure what else to do, so I pulled the now-dead fish out of her mouth, taking as much care as I could not to hurt her. Her mouth was visibly bleeding, she looked bloated, and she was floating at the top of the tank with her mouth open. I was certain I was going to lose her, so I moved her into a small hospital tank with clean water, mostly so she wouldn't die in the tank with the other frog.
I checked on her later, and she looked 110% better! She wasn't bloated any more, she no longer appeared to be bleeding, and she seemed to be closing her mouth just fine. I decided to leave her isolated for the night, and she looked great this morning.
Now she's back in the tank with the other frog, and all seems to be okay, but I'm a bit concerned. Her
behavior is different from what it was before the incident. She used to be the more active of the two frogs. When I changed the water or cleaned the tank, she'd float at the top with her head out of the water like she was curious as to what I was doing to her home. :p
Now, however, she doesn't move as much, and she spends a lot of time hiding in the little cave, something she used to have little interest in. She's staying still for long periods of time. Sometimes I'm afraid she won't come up for air when she needs to, but she's been doing that just fine. It's not really like she's weak or anything, she's just a lot less active. I'm having trouble getting her to eat, too.
Her eyes aren't cloudy, I'm seeing no signs of fungus or redleg, she doesn't look like anything is wrong with her beyond her
injury (the signs of which are now basically gone) - her behavior isn't even that abnormal for a frog, from what I've read. It's just abnormal for
her. She's not eating - is it possible that the damage to her jaw would make it hard for her to eat? (I'm feeding pellets right now, but I'm thinking about going out and getting brine shrimp or something to see if that will work any better. I'm leery of the risk of disease with bloodworms.) I'm a bit worried about infection, too - the wound as far as I can tell was in her mouth, and if it does get infected I don't know if there's anything I can do. Does anyone have an opinion on all this?
(The otocinclus was a stupid idea on my part - we'd gone to the pet store to buy one of those tank-cleaning snails and the lady there insisted that it would do the same job. I really didn't do my homework there, and I regret ever buying it.
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