sirdarksol

I came home to find another member of the thinning Collective injured. One of the barbs was caught under that blasted slate again. I had filled in all of the cracks, but she actually dug her way down into an opening and got herself caught. When I found her, she was gasping for breath. I moved the rock from off of her and she swam away. I was optimistic for a moment, as she made it about a foot off the bottom of the tank before sinking and laying there.
One of Three started picking on her, so I quickly filled the hospital tank with water from the aquarium, got it started up, dosed it with VitaChem, and got her in there.
I can't think of anything else to do for her. She's not moving, but she's breathing. She can move her entire body, so I don't think her spine was damaged. I don't see any sign of injury, but I didn't the last time she got stuck, either, until about a day after the incident (when some bruising showed up). I'm thinking of euthanizing her, but I don't have anything on hand to do so and I can't bring myself to use any of the mechanical methods of doing so. I'll be heading to a pet store later today. If she hasn't moved at all, and especially if she looks weaker, I think I'll have to end her suffering.
Has anyone here had a fish that has survived after being in such a condition? (more-or-less immobile on the floor of the tank)
Freakin' slate. I'm beginning to regret putting it into the tank at all. I'll have to go in tonight and do a better job of filling in the gaps.

Edit: The point is moot, now. She died while I was out. I kind of figured she would. I need to get into quarantine some tank mates for the remaining two members of the Collective. Right now they're kind of playing together, shadowing each other around the tank. I'm hoping that One of Two (the remaining barb) will continue to school with glassfish as I get more in the tank. I'm just kind of leery about barbs' seeming propensity for getting trapped in things now, so I don't know if I want to add any to the tank just yet.

susitna-flower

I'm sorry. I have slate also, and my Black Ghost Knife likes to hide under it.....

The only fish I have lost to getting stuck like that was just a few days ago, one of my BN plecoes got its head through a hole in a piece of driftwood. He looked alive when I found him, but he was stuck and I don't know how long. Deader than a door nail!. When I took him out I could see why, because all scales and fins are so ridgid, all going one way....built to go in, but not be able to back out of a bad spot....

sirdarksol

I think I figured out the majority of the problem. Knifes, loaches, peacock "eels" and the like are made to hide under and get out of these kinds of spaces.
Gold barbs, on the other hand, come from the basin of a silt-laden Chinese river. This means that the bottom is most likely pretty unadorned. This also means that there are going to be all sorts of tasty little tidbits hiding/growing in the silt. So it seems likely to me that gold barbs are going to like exploring the bottom of their territory (which mine did) and are not going to be made to deal with crevices in slate and other kinds of rock. I probably just have a really terrible setup for the poor little guys.