# Brain Damaged Tinfoil Barb?



## mcrocker (May 29, 2010)

Hi, I was wondering if anybody had experience with fish that have experienced blunt force type trauma.

Two of my tinfoil barbs hurled themselves into the tank cover at high speed, within a couple of day period.

I didn't see it happen, but I was right beside the tank at the time. I heard a loud smash, then saw a fish floating upside down. I'd been watching them earlier and I know that they were all healthy. I watched it for a few minutes, and it began to move around. It did physical damage to its own head, and had a little piece hanging out one gill. I put my hand in to feel the water temperature, startled it, and it charged into a stump and knocked itself nearly unconscious again!  A few hours later it was swimming around looking a little dumber than before, bumping into things and seemingly having less control over its swimming. Now it's back schooling with the others, and I'm not even entirely sure which one it was.

Another of the barbs was looking terrible two days earlier, unable to swim upright, just bouncing along the bottom and running into things. At this point I had no theory of them smashing into the glass, I thought it might be some kind of swim bladder problem, so I got it into a 20G hospital tank. After being pretty confident the second one inflicted it on themselves by jumping into the cover, I'm guessing they both did the same thing. The first one has regained its sense of balance, but still seems to hang out on the bottom of the hospital tank and looks a little rough. Soon I may put it back into the big tank.

Anyways, I'm fairly confident they both smashed themselves into the glass at high speed, even though I didn't see it happen. I'm wondering if something caused them to want to jump out. I was due for a water change, but I wouldn't guess that the quality was particularly bad. (I do about a 50% w/c every 5 days or so, and that's how much time had elapsed) I've been doing frequent water changes since seeing the first fish injured, just to be sure.

Anybody else ever had fish do this? I mainly wanted to post and get some opinions on whether that type of injury will affect the fish in the long term. The ones that were hurt have mostly recovered in terms of mobility and appearance, but do you think there will be permanent damage?


----------



## LikeItLow (Jan 11, 2011)

i dont have an answere for you. just my experience. i had 2 bala sharks that went crazy...one actually woke me up cause it kept jumping into the hood. i watched it for about 5 mins doing this....woke up to it dead obviously. 2 days later the other bala wedged itself between the glass and a log.


----------



## Discus (Apr 23, 2010)

Ya Fish are a living being and can get brain damage just like anything else on this planet it sounds like it might. But this is not easily done. Duno if you fish but when you kill the fish you are actually targeting the brain how ever you can compare look at how much it takes to kill a trout or a salmon. It takes about 5 good swings with a pair of plyers. So basically hes fine and should heal.


----------



## -DC- (Apr 21, 2010)

I've had big fish hit very solid lids and survive, the trauma could injure badly or even kill but most of the time it's just a scratch and fish recover.... 

It's rare that it kills, i'd be more worried about WHY they are jumping the cause is gonna be much more likly too kill them. Fish dont jump for fun, they jump because they feel their chances of survival at that moment might be better outside the tank

Can be aggression from tank mates, water quality/temps, space or even lack of food supplies, any of these factors will easily stress and kill fish. and things like high stress or water issues could cause the symptoms that would make one thing brain damage.


----------



## -DC- (Apr 21, 2010)

LikeItLow said:


> i dont have an answere for you. just my experience. i had 2 bala sharks that went crazy...one actually woke me up cause it kept jumping into the hood. i watched it for about 5 mins doing this....woke up to it dead obviously. 2 days later the other bala wedged itself between the glass and a log.


What were you thinking ?? Why on earth would you watch something going wrong and then just go back too bed ?


----------



## LikeItLow (Jan 11, 2011)

lol, young and dumb


----------

