5 replies to this topic

[littlen]

This past winter, I had a 75g quarantine tank filled with my newest batch of shiners, darters, and oddballs.  After a solid 3-4 months of qx, I finally moved them up to my 150g display.  The tank bottom was covered with lots of sm, med, & lg gravel and cobble stone to provide hiding places for all the darters and  bottom dwellers.

 

Before I started moving all the fish, I drained the water down so there was about 3" remaining.  I also removed most of the med & lg stones to uncover any hiding fish.  After moving all the fish to the big tank, I put all the rocks back in and refilled the tank directly from the tap.  I did add dechlorinator once the tank was refilled.

 

At the time, the ambient temp in my basement was ~65F.  The incoming cold water from the tap was ~40F.  (I'm sure some of you are figuring out where this is going).  WeekS later, there was one of the smaller, ~1.5", Snubnose darters happily zipping around the bottom.

 

Being able to survive the temp change from 65 down to 40 doesn't surprise me.  Surviving weeks without being fed [by me] doesn't surprise me.  I assume there were plenty of blackworms that also survived the event that it was feeding on.  However, the 85% w/c with tap water and exposure to chlorine, the sudden temp drop and other stress-related events to the tank, WQ, and fish itself....is pretty amazing that the little guy survived.

 

Just goes to show the resilience of fish.  

Anyone with similar stories of survival, disappearance/reappearance, overcoming injury/illness, etc?  A quick, non-native, but related story: Some 2", 'starter' goldfish were put into a 500g pond that my dad built when I was younger.  One got sucked up by the large, submersible pump that ran the waterfall feature.  The fish got pretty mauled up by the impellers.  What caught my attention was that another goldfish seemed to recognize that his buddy was injured and swam directly next to the mortally wounded fish--such that they were touching.  The uninjured fish appeared to be trying to help the injured one swim for as long as possible.  The one goldfish eventually died not too  long after the incident.  But it was probably one of the most amazing things I've ever seen when it comes to fish.  Especially for a "goldfish that has a 3-second memory".
Cheers.

[Mike]

Well, this happened over 23 years ago because it was before I bought my house. I was fishing at Great Bear Lake in MI and caught a number of fish I was going to clean including a 12 inch Yellow Bullhead. It was time to go home about a 2 hour drive to IL, so I bagged all the fish and cleaned them when I got home, The Yellow Bullhead was very lively (he was wet and cool) all the panfish died. So I told him here is your chance, my 130 gal tank was full of water but did not have any fish in it, so I threw him in. He lived another 5 years after that, and became my garbage disposal for any fish that died in my other tanks. It was fun to drop in a night crawler on the other side of the tank and see how quick he would sense it in the water.  

[Matt DeLaVega]

I have a couple quick ones to add. 

 

Brought a 26 pound flathead catfish home from the Ohio to a local farm pond. It traveled nearly an hour wrapped in a wet blanket. I released it and caught it again about 3 years later.

 

Before I got wise and started using a float valve for water changes, I would often do something else during water changes. Well I got side tracked while changing the water in my 240 and I mean side tracked. Mowed the lawn, did not feel the vibrate from my phone alarm, and ultimately went to bed. Flooded basement and 12 hours of overflowing chlorinated water running in the sump pit. Lost one out of 20+/- fish. they looked horrible in the morning. Laying on their sides. Heavy dose of sodium thiosulfate, and a bunch of vitamin C and all but one recovered and lived long.

[littlen]

'Fish outta water' stories are always good.

 

What kind of fish survived the chlorine event, Matt?

[Matt DeLaVega]

Sad to say, they were tilapia that I was breeding for an aquaculture project. So not native. Possibly the fact that the water cooled to around 55 degrees might  have saved them. Slowed down metabolism so much that they were breathing less and the chlorine did less gill damage.

 

 Oh and on the catfish. It is totally legal to catch fish from a river and stock a pond in Ohio. In this particular case the pond was on the 75 acres that I leased for cattle. Not connected to a stream or river in any way.

[Betta132]

I once lost a 2" goby in my saltwater tank. He was gone for about 5 weeks. This was a Biocube, which has three filter compartments in the back. There's a compartment that holds the floss/physical filter, there's a section for bio-balls or rock rubble, and there's a section with a pump in it. The compartments have a base of about 3X4", and are nearly 18" tall, so it's nearly impossible to see the bottom. 

I left the third compartment alone for the most part, since it never needed cleaning. I thought the goby had died, and I didn't think it could fit through the slots into the filter, so I didn't bother checking in there... not until I saw a flash of white surface for a moment while I was cleaning the first compartment.

One flashlight check and thirty minutes of fishing around with a bent net later, I'd retrieved the goby from the filter compartment. He was very pale, but he wasn't badly underweight, so I think he must have been eating amphipods or worms of some brand. I put him back in the tank, and he regained his color after a couple of days. 

I'm still not certain how he got in there. 

Edited by Betta132, 04 August 2015 - 01:23 AM.