Amazing clownfish!!

spleify

Premium Member
Hello all
Back in early January We had some friends stay with us. The first day they were over they were looking and and enjoying the tanks. Day two one of them asks, "didn't you have a clown in both tanks"? "I don't see the one in the Nano". We looked and looked and looked to no avail. Its a 12 gal Nano cube for gods sake, how far could it have gone?

I was totally bummed, but figured he was in a better place. So I wrote him off.

Today, I was checking out the temp in the tank, so I lifted the hood, and reached in the back to pull out the thermometer. And low and be hold there was that crazy son of a gun.:eek2:

I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought I was seeing things. But sure enough, it was the long lost clown. I scooped him up and threw it back in the display.

It's been 4 months, with no direct light, no direct feeding, and ABSOLUTELY NO SWIMMING ROOM!!.

I have done at least 6 or 7 water changes and took all the filter and media bags out and cleaned and or changed the media, and put it all back in.I just did this again today. Hours before I actually found him. I had to share this with everyone.

Here is a picture of the crazy little bugger. Did I mention it was 4 MONTHS!!???!!?. He is swimming and eating like a champ. And has actually grown. He is a little pale, but I assume that is because of the lack of light, and he will color back up hopefully.

IMG_1815.jpg


Thanks for reading.

Spleify
 
I had a firefish do the same thing for the same amount of time in the same size tank. It sure is weird when you finally find them because I had looked and looked back there and used a flashlight. They sure can hide it seems.
 
I am just glad he is still alive. I was so wierd, because I like to think I pride myself on good water quality and doing my water changes religiously. I just couldn't figure out why he was happy and as healthy as can be one day, and the next....Poof, gone.

Thanks

Spleify
 
he deserves an anemone

he deserves an anemone

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12348118#post12348118 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nugzo
He deserves an anemone!!

great reply nugzo you made me laugh, great line:)
 
I had a clown who did the same thing. . .three times. I'm amazed yours survived for that long, though. Get that gap between the back wall and the hood closed off, though. The third time my little escape artist tried that trick was after I replaced the stock pump with a Maxijet 900, and he ended up getting sucked into the inlet. . .very sad day.

Of course, now you're going to have a host of newbies out there putting clownfish in 1g fishbowls citing this story as proof that's all the space they need. . .
 
I had the same thing happen with a serpent star... He was missing for MONTHS, so I bought a new one. Yup, a couple days later I found him under the sponges in the back chamber of my nano!
 
I had the same thing happen with my Starry Blenny in my JBJ nano QT. I cut some "Craft It" in a strip wide enough to fit across the back compartments and deep enough to overlap the front edge of the compartments. The top holds it in place and Mr. Blenny hasn't been able to surf around back there since. I think they just follow the flow naturally and get stuck back there.
 
I've got a pair of black ocellaris clowns, and I have to fish one out from the back chambers every week or two. They love to leap, and scooping them out is sometimes quite the pain.
 
My false percula, named Steve, disappeared and I gave him up for dead. About a week later (thought that was a long time!) I was doing my dailly check on things in the sump and in-sump refugium when Steve came swimming up wanting to be fed. (He will also come up and let you pet him.)

He went through the overflow, down the tube, through a "Y" connection and into the main sump, with an uncovered return pump and a large Berlin skimmer.

Steve is now at least seven years old and doing fine. But I did use egg crate to cover the overflow opening so he can't do another escape.
 
Leif - your mandarin is an amazing little guy. I can't even muster the nuts to put one in my 65 and yet yours definitely wasn't skinny when I was there.

I once lost a yellow watchman goby only to find him a year later living in my sump. He was bulging like a blimp from pod hunting.
 
It's incredible how delicate, but yet strong, some of these animals are.

The Nano will only be set up a little longer, as I am in the process(and getting closer) of setting up my new 65 Cube
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1343381

I can't promiss him an anemone, but I am pretty sure there will be some Hammers and Frogspawns in his future.

mysterybird, yep thats a mandarin, he's awesome. Had it for almoat 2 years. He eats EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. The guy is a total pig. I alslo hand pick copepods out of my bigger system, weekly to the tune of 20 or 30 at a time. He eats at least half of what I put in within minutes.

Spleify
 
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