[Tex Gal]

Thought this might be an interesting thread. I'll start.

I changed out substrates. Took out all my hardscape. I was able to get the fish, DW, and plants back in but ran out of time for the rocks. The next morning I got up and started putting rock back in the tank. They had been out of the water all night long. Lo and behold as I picked up a rock I heard flapping. One of my plecos had wedge himself down in a hole, stayed there OUT OF THE WATER all night and was still alive. I stuck the rock in and he swam out! I picked up the next rock and there was another!!! TWO plecos were stuck in rocks all night, out of the water, and they survived. They are alive in my tank right now! AMAZING!!!

 

[utricseb]

Wow, that's an amazing story. I'd love to read others stories. I don't have such type of story.

 

[dymndgyrl]

I was overwintering some 8" koi in a tank in the garage. On the floor next to the tank were a couple of potted lilies in buckets with about one inch of water up over the tops of the pots.

The koi tank had an attached cover of wire fencing with 2"x2" openings.
One morning I went out there and found a koi in one of the lily buckets, basically sitting in 1" of water - alive.

It had somehow jumped through the relatively tiny 2" opening and just happened to luck out and land in one of the buckets! Who knows how many hours it was just sitting there.

I put it back and it recovered without any stress related issues, thank goodness Fish can really amaze you, sometimes!

Cheers,
Ci

 

[gibmaker]

I was walking by my tank and a SAE jumped out and hit me in the chest, he was lucky I just happened to be passing by.Then there was the horrible horrible time that I woke up from a dead sleep (up stairs and my tank was downstairs) and I could hear my co2 reactor working very hard (lots of co2 in it) I went downstairs to see that my needle valve had broken and my co2 tank was just dumping into the reactor. All of the discus and other fish were floating, they were floating so long that they had dry spots on there bodies. I grabbed them by the tales and started pulling them through the water in my 125 gal to get oxygen to flow over there gills and I then proceeded to do this with everyone of my fish standing in my living room in my boxers. the cories were just amazing they were all laying on there back getting shoved around by the current, I thought they were dead and after an hour of doing that they all just kind of woke up and started to swim around. The night before I took a pair of breeding discus out of that tank and put them in there own 30 gal. I lost a few fish but revived about 90% of them, it could have been worse.

 

[Tobias]

The only story I can compare was my daughter deciding my sons betta needed a bubble bath. She was only 4 and did not understand the consequences. The little filter turned the 5 gallon tank into a frothing mess. I ran a net around until I came back with the betta and dumped him in some water I had conditioned the night before for a water change. I thought for sure the fish was going to die. I am not sure if I caught it right after she had dumped it in, the fact that it was no tears kids bubble bath stuff, or betta's are just that tough but the fish seemed no worse off than normal and we still have him.

 

[Tex Gal]

Great stories guys! Keep 'em coming!

 

[Cavan Allen]

Before I wised up and got a Python, I used to do water changes on my old 30 with a siphon and bucket. I had several Apistogramma borellii in there, including a mated pair and their offspring. A juvenile male was tolerated by the adults but never really grew much. One day, I was dumping the bucket of mucky water into the toilet and noticed that the juvenile male was swimming around in the bowl! I netted him out and returned him to the tank. When his father died, he quickly grew into one of the most beautiful specimens I've ever seen and was the foundation of a good breeding stock a friend of mine got going.

 

[Squawkbert]

I've saved an 8" JD from a near death brush (carpet surfing - required some manual pushing of water through opercula to revive him), and I found a juvie ACFrog hopping down the hall at least 10' from the little box he escaped from. I also had to run down an escaped Crayfish in a college science building once - he too was many yards from his aquarium.

 

[Tex Gal]

I've saved an 8" JD from a near death brush (carpet surfing - required some manual pushing of water through opercula to revive him), and I found a juvie ACFrog hopping down the hall at least 10' from the little box he escaped from. I also had to run down an escaped Crayfish in a college science building once - he too was many yards from his aquarium.

The word's out - they're closing Guitmo! Have fish/invert/anphibian will travel!

 

[niko]

Last summer we sent about 30 Amano shrimp to a guy in Texas. The address was wrong and the shrimp where in the mail for 11 (eleven) days instead of 1 to 3. When we got them back all but 1 where alive!

For those that don't know Texas is very hot during summer, especially that close to Houston - 95F-100F is usual temperature. The shrimp spent 11 days in the area between Dallas and Houston - hot, hot, hot.

--Nikolay

 

[freydo]

the one i remember most is when i had just purchased some pork chops for my tank... about 10. naturally i couldn't count all of them because of the plants. fast forward a little over a month's time, it was time to clean out my XP3 filter, which had needed one after 6 months of constant use.

as i've just removed the motor housing and was draining the water into the tub, when i noticed something wiggle towards the drain. it was a porkchop!

apparently it had been sucked into the intake and had survived... somehow, in the motor housing. it was extremely thin and pale. i managed to catch it and get it into the tank. it managed to survive for a few more months before it finally did pass away in a more calmer environment.

r.i.p. little porkchop.

 

[Tex Gal]

Freydo - what is a pork chop? All I can think of is a pig.

 

[vancat]

Hmmmm. So that's where pork chops come from. I had no idea it was seafood.

yeah, what's a pork chop?

 

[Cavan Allen]

I think he means a harlequin rasbora (Trigonostigma heteromorpha).

 

[vancat]

ah yes, they do resemble a chop of pork. Who knew?

 

[freydo]

i thought everyone knew what pork chops were

 

[The old man]

One day when doing a water change with a python I got a call and went to another room to answer it. I spent to long on the phone and came back to see the tank over flowing with water all over the carpet.
What has this to do with survival you ask?



My wife didn't kill me!!!!!!!!!

 

[JanS]

One day when doing a water change with a python I got a call and went to another room to answer it. I spent to long on the phone and came back to see the tank over flowing with water all over the carpet.
What has this to do with survival you ask?
My wife didn't kill me!!!!!!!!!

LOL!

I've had a few over the years.

We've had a few power outages (before we bought the whole house generator) where it's been out for days after a storm and the house has gotten either really cold (below freezing) or really hot. Some of the fish were to the point of being almost white from the stress, but they managed to pull through and recover fully after things were back to normal.

I've had some saltwater snails escape from the tank and make their way across the room, and found them in the morning thinking they were toast, but fully recovered after putting them back in the tank.

Then there are the times I've unknowingly sucked fish into the bucket (especially rasboras) and didn't find them until they were flopping in a snow bank, and grabbed them, put them back in the tank and they started swimming like nothing ever happened.

And lastly for what I can think of is finding a baby Bristlenose in my Eheim when I was cleaning it, and found the poor little guy in the bottom of the canister when I was dumping it out. He was covered in filter filth, so he's affectionately named "Pigpen".

 

[xtremefour]

Not a fish story but I had an AAfrican clawed frog (not dwarf) for 15 years. One time he jumped out of the bowl and went down about 12 steps to the basement and was covered in dirt and cat hair. Do not know how long he was out of water. He was the size of a quarter at this time. Tossed him back in the bowl and he was fine.

Then when much biger body about 5" long not counting his legs he got out during a cleaning and fell into an open heating duct. He somehow managed to make it over the metal screws in the heating system without getting even a scratch. My dad and I could hear him moving around in the duct work. We unscrewed a few pipes and he fell out. Put him back in the tank and he was fine again. He died the night I graduated from H.S.

Matt

 

[Felf808]

My CRS story...

It seemed like I was buying C grade CRS every week because I would somehow find a new way to kill them each time...After doing this for a few months I gave up but continued researching everyday until I was finally ready to order some A grade shrimp: Through breeding 10 shrimp became 20, then 30, then my co2 regulator went crazy and they all died...I ordered 10 more from another source and once again...10 became 20, then 30, then we had a heat spell and I was left with 3; one male and two females. The females both berried but both died(including the male) while still carrying the eggs so I removed the bodies but left the eggs in the tank. I didn't see anything after two months until one day I removed my 3" thick HC lawn and 10 babies shot out. I put them in a bucket while redoing the tank but for whatever reason only 2 survived...It took them three months to sexually mature and at the end of the three months I was somehow blessed with 1 male and 1 female. I now have 40+ A-S grade CRS from those 2 sole survivors. Very expensive lesson but well worth it.