I once did a bit of oral surgery on a fish. A customer came in once and brought in a goldfish that apparently had something in its mouth. After doing some examining, I came to the conclusion that it infact had something black in its mouth. The problem came in identifying this black foreign object it seemed to have lodged in its mouth which kept it from closing. The gravel was not black so that was out. No carbon was used, so that too was out. No food in that color was fed so that was out as well. It seemed that the fish had swallowed a small beetle that must have landed in the aquarium. The part that we were seeing was the shell. The internal organs of this beetle were long gone and like I said, it was just the shell. So after numerous medical equipment were used to to see if one could dislodge this beetle shell, I had to resort to the ole' staple. Thats right!!! I bent the staple straight and then bent an end to create a make-shift hook. Holding the fish in my hand and keeping a constant flow of very slow water on the fish as I work its mouth, and numerous attempts to remove the shell....out it came. After making up some water with a generous amount of stress coat, the owner took her goldfish home and last I heard, it was doing very well.
