Love hurts!! (S. intermedia biting)

here are some shots of my S. intermedia that have been biting each other lately. this is supposed to be a sign of breeding. here is a shot of one feeding on floating food sticks-the angle is because the tank is above my head.


here are some recent scar marks on some of the ones in the tank-sort of reminds me of manatee scars


this aggression is a recent event-i have had them for 2 years w/o such incidents. one has a small chunk taken out near the vent. problem is i went in one day to feed and noticed my smallest one all bit up! here is a shot 4 days after treatment of her 'normal' bites

she wasnt moving much when i removed her and got her in a treatment regime -here is why i had to separate her!

this is about 2" long-and she's only about 10" so it's significant for size and depth. she is doing fine but this will take time to heal.

Vicious beasties!

What do you do to prevent infection?

I've got all the chemical ingredients now to make my own amphibian Ringer's solution, but I lack a scale that can precisely measure quantities under 1 gram -- and I don't have any friends that deal either

Are those Reptomin food sticks?

actually these are from an old can of TEN im trying to use up, they will get reptomin after that-i try not to feed live cause they get too excited and i'v got a few amputees from feeding frenzies. im giving her batryl and no one has fuzzed up yet.

wow, those are impressive chunks.

It seems very odd to me that such massive aggression just randomly occurred and caused such severe damage. The only answer that makes sense is breeding response, but maybe they have more personality than we think and the larger ones just snapped from being annoyed by the smaller one .

I hope everything heals up swiftly.

update: she is getting better, still no infections but also still no appetite

here is a shot of the bite 15 days later. its beginning to heal-there is even pigmented skin starting to grow over the flesh.

so far she hasn't gotten her appetite back yet-but she's a frisky gal during water changes, i had to fish her out of the dishes in the sink yesterday!

Tim, you should go into some hippie shops to find the scale you need.