A Fish Tail

So, Merc calls me up about 7:40ish last night with quite a predicament. One of his fish at the office managed to get himself stuck in the top of one of these. He called to see if I had any ideas on how to get the fish out. I didn't, but I went down to the office to offer my support. When I got there, all I could see was the fish's tail flailing about in the water. While I was there, several attempts were made to free the fish: shaking the tree, sticking a paint brush inside to try and turn him over or help free him, using thin, wooden sticks to try and "chopstick" him out, grabbing his body and trying to pull him out, and taking the tree completely out of the water to see if he'd freak out enough to free himself...but none of these worked. Merc then broke some of the legs of the tree, but we were still having trouble. Finally, Ong and I went down to my car, then to Merc's, where we each had a pair of pliers. From there, Merc used the pliers to break off remaining pieces of the tree and the fish finally freed himself. He's a little scratched up and looks like he has some damage to one of his bottom fins. It took about 3 hours to get him free, so hopefully, he will survive. It was an interesting evening.