What's the worst thing you've seen a fish survive?

[achilles1]

Over the years I've strolled through many LFS and witnessed many sinkers, floaters and gaspers. Do any of these fish survive or are they all doomed? I've aslo had my own drama and battles.

The worst thing I've had a fish survive other than ICK is a Rio melt down. One of my clowns leaped to his doom the other just dies and my little purple tang was stiff as as board flipping, rolling sinking and rising in the currents of the tank, and panting like a dog on hot summer day. When I saw this I pulled him out and threw him into the sump of one of my other tanks. He was perfect the next day and that was over a year ago.

How about those fish panting in the bottom of tanks due to shipping stress or whatever. Do they make it? Or the ones with lesions and other sores.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

I think it is the all-nite carpet surfing adventures of an eel that somehow is still alive when the owner finally finds it under the couch like 6 hours later.

 

[TheBimbo]

We used to get some pretty awful looking fish in when I worked at the pet shop... The owner would mark them as Dead, and by the end of the night or the next day, they would actually be just fine... We'd acclimate the heck out of them, it was actually a good process that we did, considering there weren't any quarantine tanks set-up... Fish came in, figure out what species they were, boxed them accordingly, cut open the very top of the bag, they were packed soooo tightly in the boxes, started to add a little tank water into each bag, let sit for 10-15 minutes, do the same thing again, and again etc... while they were acc. we'd mark the tanks that they'd be going into with the prices, if the store wasn't too busy that is... But the owner knew that this was, what I had always believed in, to be the only procedure that we could do for them... Wonder if he still treats the S/W fish the same or has he by passed this process up??? But I'll never know B/C I'll never step one foot into there again... Christy :wave:

 

[misery]

As of right now, I had a lawnmower blenny get stuck in a powerhead, folded in half style. It's been twelve or so hours, and he's still kicking it, albeit breathing a little quick. Needless to say, My ph's have already been foamed

 

[moogoomoogoo]

After packing up all my fish for a 24 hour move, I opened the cooler and the plastic bag housing my chainlink eel. I went to do something else and whe I returned he was lying on the floor motionless. I picked him up and shook him; still no movement. I the dunked his head back and forth thru the fresh salt water I had just mixed up and he twitched a little and sunk to the bottom. He eventually survived but had a dramatic change in his personality. Instead of hiding under rocks all the time, he freely swam around the tank like all the other fish and lost all of his shyness. Kinda like a lobotomy?

 

[Jaffa]

My royal gramma had been lying on his side completely motionless and panting heavily with heavy bruising on his face in the LFS. They had him, and another that was freely swimming around and in great shape. Well, I picked the one that was near death. I'm looking at him right now. Totally healed and he has grown considerably. Tons of personality too.

 

[cdgrover]

I had a Vlamingii tang survive a 13 hour power outage with noone home. All my other fish - 8 total died!!! Needless to say it was disheartening to come home and see that. All of the fish were dead upon my arrival and the tang was on it's side at the bottom breathing VERY heavy. Another needless to say it has been 2 and 1/2 years since that terrible event and he is my baby!!

 

[Froggy]

I have had a blue damsel survive a RIO 2500 meltdown that killed all 5 other fish in the tank 2 years ago. I also have a Royal gramma that dissappeared for a week with no trace. Suddenly the gramma reappeared and had a lot of exterior damage (scrapes, cuts, torn fins and was very pale. He looked like he had went to war with something. I still have the same gramma now (1 year later) and he has no outward signs of injury and has been restored to its normal beutiful coloration. To this day I still wonder what the gramma went through to get in as bad of shape as it was in. I am convinced that there are many evils lurking in our tanks unseen

 

[Elorian]

I worked at a LFS for a short while and watched as a medium sized oscar jumped out of his tank (which was 6 feet or so in the air) for a swan dive onto concrete. I ran over as he flopped around, picked him up and put him back in the tank. He was none the worse for wear.

 

[Merkur]

while draining water from the LFS bag i dropped a baby clownfish into my garbage disposal, it took me over 1/2 hour of failed attempts to get him out before i finnally ripped the disposal out from under the sink. numerous scratches and bumps, and over 45 minutes out of water and he acted like nothing ever happened when finally added to my tank.

hows that for aclimation...

 

[cheeto]

When I had my cichlid tank I bought 2 baby daffodils, after acclimating them I thought I released them into the tank. 30 min goes by and I can't find them anywhere in the tank. So then out of curiosity I look the bag over again and realize they both got stuck to the side of the bag and never made it into the tank. I dumped them in and they lived till I traded them back in a year later.

 

[ckaldahl]

My Six Line Wrasse disappeared one day. I looked for him to no avail. About a week later I cleaned my HOT Magnum filter and found him inside still alive! I threw him back into the tank and he lived for another six months till a power outage killed all the fish in my tank besides my two ocellaris clownfish. I still have no idea how he got into the magnum.

 

[Jamesurq]

probably the worst thing I saw a fish survive was on Jack@ss when Steve-o swallowed the goldfish and it took him like 5 minutes of gagging to throw it back up.

 

[kmc]

I have a story from around 1979 when I was 12 and set up my first SW tank (to be honest, considering how little I knew about SW fish at the time and how little reliable information was out there, it's amazing anything lived in my tank back then). About six months before setting up the tank, I bought a blenny (I believe it was a horned blenny -- looked a lot like a lawnmower but had two long horns on his head). Over the course of about 12 hours, I completely acclimated him to my ten-gallon freshwater cichlid tank. I didn't know any better at the time. He did quite well in the freshwater tank. Six months later, I set up a 55 gallon SW tank, and I put him in the tank (again after about a 12 hour acclimation back to SW) to cycle the tank. He came through the cycle with no problem. He lived for nearly two years in the SW tank until we lost power for 3 days, killing all the fish in the tank. Now I'm definitely not advocating putting blennies or any other SW fish in a freshwater tank. Knowing what I know now, it could not have been a pleasant experience for the fish, and I'm absolutely amazed he lived through it all and seemed to thrive.

 

[futurereefer]

its not saltwater but we have goldfish in our fountain for our dog to chase and she bit a chunk out of this one mm less from the eye we thought it lost its eye and was going to dye but it didnt and lived

 

[d4a2n0k]

About 5 years ago I had a FO tank with a 2 foot snowflake moray. He had already escaped once so I sealed off all holes on the back of the tank and thought everything would be ok.

Well, a few months later I came home from work and went to go take a look at the tank but as I was approaching the tank I noticed my 3 cats were circled around something on the floor. I realized that it was the snowflake and my cats were beating the h*ll out of him. I dont know how long he was out of the water, my guess is a few hours because he was bone dry. He felt like a snake not a slimy eel. He actually opened the lid on my canopy!

I thought all was lost because he had about a hundred holes in him plus scratches all over his body. I went to pick him up to do the porcelain burial and as I did he moved to bite my hand! I threw him back in the tank and he fell to the bottom and didnt move much.

The next day he was eating again and I had him for another year before I gave him away to a friend.

I found out afterwards that some eels can seal the moisture in their skin just in case they are in shallow water and the tide goes out, and can live for many hours in no water. I also found out that they can take a beating from cats too!

 

[Footbag]

I once saw this clown fish named Nemo... He jumped into the toilet and ended up finding his father in the bay outside the dentists office .

 

[impur]

I had an arowana jump out of the tank onto the ground. This was soon after feeding the tank. I had been watching tv and noticed the cats huddled around something on the floor near the tank. Sure enough it was the arowana, they had been taking turns beating it around. I scooped him up and put him in the tank. He started swimming like nothing happened. I traded him in about 1 year later at 21".

 

[treszoks]

I had an Ocellaris a year ago that went carpet surfing and he was pretty dry when I put him back in but he made it until another carpet surfing event that I wasn't around for Needless to say I've had a hood ever since then.

 

[keckles]

I once saw this clown fish named Nemo... He jumped into the toilet and ended up finding his father in the bay outside the dentists office .

Nemo never entered a toilet.