- Joined
- Jan 19, 2007
- Messages
- 314
Hi all.
I need some help and ideas (please!!) on how to treat one of my experimental animals which is ill. It's a sub-adult Nautilus pompilius, which was doing fine until about 6 days ago (just when I went away for a couple of days - why do they always do that??), eating heartily and proving itself quite clever in my learning experiments. Since then it's been refusing food, and has turned into a 'sinker' ie. seems to have lost its buoyancy regulation ability. I can feel that it's lost alot of weight over the last couple of days, although a lot of that might have been just digesting what was in the crop.
It has a small wound on its hood from a bite, which looks to be healing ok. No hood bleaching.
I don't have any battery power in my camera so I'll try this explain as best I can.
Basically the animal's soft tissue appears swollen - the mantle that lines the inside of the shell is really puffy and much larger than in the other healthy animals. The tentacles, eyes and siphon all look normal. The poor thing can't close its hood - it's kind of pushed open by what appears to be swelling of the mantle. It's breathing by holding its siphon up higher than usual. I'm guessing the swelling is related to the hood wound, although the hood itself doesn't look or feel swollen. Do cephs even have a swelling response? (demonstrating my ignorance here!!) Any ideas about treatment? I've tried argentyne before on wounds but it seems to have little effect. I have no idea how to treat inflammation in an animal that won't take too kindly to ice...
General info about housing - recirc tank, 320 gallons, UV scrubbers on 24/7, 2 protein skimmers, 10 animals (9 very healthy), nitrite 0, ammonia 0, nitrates 10, phosphates 15, pH 7.9 - 8.2, temp 17 C. All normal for our system.
So, any ideas or suggestions are very welcome. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow too.
Thanks, from me and from Nautilus#1.
I need some help and ideas (please!!) on how to treat one of my experimental animals which is ill. It's a sub-adult Nautilus pompilius, which was doing fine until about 6 days ago (just when I went away for a couple of days - why do they always do that??), eating heartily and proving itself quite clever in my learning experiments. Since then it's been refusing food, and has turned into a 'sinker' ie. seems to have lost its buoyancy regulation ability. I can feel that it's lost alot of weight over the last couple of days, although a lot of that might have been just digesting what was in the crop.
It has a small wound on its hood from a bite, which looks to be healing ok. No hood bleaching.
I don't have any battery power in my camera so I'll try this explain as best I can.
Basically the animal's soft tissue appears swollen - the mantle that lines the inside of the shell is really puffy and much larger than in the other healthy animals. The tentacles, eyes and siphon all look normal. The poor thing can't close its hood - it's kind of pushed open by what appears to be swelling of the mantle. It's breathing by holding its siphon up higher than usual. I'm guessing the swelling is related to the hood wound, although the hood itself doesn't look or feel swollen. Do cephs even have a swelling response? (demonstrating my ignorance here!!) Any ideas about treatment? I've tried argentyne before on wounds but it seems to have little effect. I have no idea how to treat inflammation in an animal that won't take too kindly to ice...
General info about housing - recirc tank, 320 gallons, UV scrubbers on 24/7, 2 protein skimmers, 10 animals (9 very healthy), nitrite 0, ammonia 0, nitrates 10, phosphates 15, pH 7.9 - 8.2, temp 17 C. All normal for our system.
So, any ideas or suggestions are very welcome. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow too.
Thanks, from me and from Nautilus#1.