Loaches Online Forum

Hi all,

This morning, after feeding my loaches their shrimp pellets, we noticed one of the glass catfish swimming erratically and flipping around on the bottom of the tank. We thought he was dying and decided to move him away from the other fish. When we netted him, we discovered that he had an entire shrimp pellet lodged in his mouth. He appeared to be already dead, but we gently pried the swollen pellet from his mouth in an attempt to revive him. It was too late.
What a terrible death!! I'm not sure how to prevent this in the future.

sorry to hear it.

try finding some smaller pellets, if you can, or feeding the smaller food first and dropping the larger ones when the smaller fish are busy.

Sorry to hear that. That's quite grim.

Some pellets can take some time to rehydrate and so it may be better to let them soak for a few minutes first before adding them to the tank, this should make them softer to digest.

Thank you Shari, Dave, and Bully.
I'm going to try your suggestions, Shari and Bully.
Hopefully, this will never happen again.

too bad. i had this happen to a few tiger barbs in the past.