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

[Entropy]

I found a Mexican reg leg hermit wondering around on the floor covered with lint. I am not sure how long it was out (or where all the lint came from) but it did survive for about 2 weeks after I put it back in my refuge. I learned from that to cover the top of my overflow with eggcrate and have not had a problem since.

 

[slave-of-rock]

the worst thing ive seen survive is my green moray when i first got him, when i fell alsleep he jumped out of the tank, i woke up iwht the cat eat its tail end.... he survived the hole bit and still has a scar from my dam cat

 

[scchase]

I had a baby carp that one of my cats caught and had out of the fishtank. By the looks of it it had been out most of the night and the cat had eaten half one side and the eye on one side. Put him back and and he recovered just fine. Though was even uglier then ever after everyhting regre/scared over.

 

[friogatto]

My clown goby took the water slide to my refuge, then to my sump (through my bioballs) and back up my main return bump.
Total trip time, 2 weeks
The first week and a half he was in my over flow.
3 days in my fuge, next morning my battered clown goby is sitting on my Brain coral like nothing happened.
And they said pump kill pods, but not a goby.
I still have him

 

[JENnKerry]

Our very first fish was a four striped damsel (still have him). We cycled our tank with him. I know it's cruel but this was before we found reef central and found that there are less cruel ways to cycle. Well he survived the cycle. Then we put all our fish in QT. Our heater in QT took a crap and sent a stray current in the water electrocuting and killing all of our fish except our damsel. I don't think he can be killed by conventional weapons. He's a wuss but we like him.

 

[achilles1]

Too funny about the clown goby. Must be a goby thing. I had a neon take a ride over the overflow over the filter floss and through the bioballs to the sump back when I had balls. Correction, BIO-balls!

 

[mille239]

Had two clowns jump in one night, one I found in the return portion of the sump, (musta bounced off a few pipes and wires on the way down to deflect under the tank like that, (couldn't have gotten to that chamber through the overflow)

the otherone was not so lucky... found him as reef-jerky about a week later.

 

[Reefy]

otherone was not so lucky... found him as reef-jerky about a week later

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I've made Yellow Tang and Blenny jerky before.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

it seems that fish can survive a lot, really. I don't have any major stories. It would be nice if my damsel made it through my needle wheel pump safely, but it didn't Here is a picture to show how extrordinary fish resilence can be

*I found this picture while searching google for "frogfish". I found this site. The picture is features about 3/4 of the way down at 6/13/03

 

[davidcalgary29]

Last winter, I slipped on the street and dropped a plastic bag containing two blue rams that I was transporting to a friend's house. The bag burst, and the poor rams ended up in the snow (-20c). I didn't think either would make it, but they were both fine after I picked them both up and threw them in my friend's QT. Unfortunately, he later placed them in a freshwater display containing a jaguar, and they became lunch.

 

[fishpimp69]

flat worm exist poisioning. My fish were not moving with their mouths fully open, but came back to life the next day.

 

[Biggie]

Blue damsel, Survived every newbie mistake I made, Salt burns, ich, lateral line, fin errosion, chlorine poisoning, over heating, cold water shock, over flow entrapment, sump inhallation, ammonia over load, nitrate poisoning, over feeding, under feeding, a couple trips to the carpet by leap of faith. A cat carry off. This thing is a trooper. Hes got the respect of every fish in the tank. I treat him like a WW 2 Vet who saw multiple tour in the trenches. My little buddy is thriving and fully recovered from every one of my ignorant mistakes. He still got stones enought ot defend his territory from would be testers of his might. Love that fish.
P.S. He came the closest to death from the cat hit and run. It was a gauntlet thru the house with a piece of air hose in one hand and a fish net in the other swatting feverously at the mammal to release old blue from the jaws of death.

 

[dugg]

I used to have a Koi pond in my back yard. We filled it in with dirt one day, but missed 2 of the fish when we caught everything out. The pond was almost 3 feet deep so they were next to impossible to catch. Almost 3 weeks later we got a hard rain and there they were flopping in a puddle. They had worked thier way up through 3 feet of dirt after being buried for 3 weeks.

How is that for survival?

 

[thehedge]

Christmas Wrasses are unkillable.

My friend had one that he banished to an Angler tank because it was twice the size of the Angler...the Angler still ate him, we tried to get him out, but then gave up after half an hour, but the Angler ended up spitting him out after an hour.

This same Christmas Wrasse was caught fishing, accidentally stepped on, and bitten by an eel.

He is still alive today.

 

[jgoodrich71]

I used to work at a LFS and peeling eels off the floor is nothing new.



But I've got you all beat

There is a 180 gallon in a restaurant that was full of lava rock and bleached coral. The guy was willing to pay me to come out once a week and make the tank spotless. I tried to convince him of going another route, but he wanted the tank to remain the same, just cleaner. He was willing to spend money on me, just not the tank itself?

So anyway, there were 2 yellow tangs, couple of Monodactylus, some damsels and a lunare wrasse. When I would clean the tank the wrasse would just go hide in some of the rock. I would remove the white coral, put it in a trash can, fill it with water, add bleach, and wait for the coral to turn white again. Drain this water, set the coral outside on the sidewalk until dry, rinse it off, put it back in the tank.

Well one day nearing the end of the water change, while the bleached coral was airing out, a guy comes in and says "you know there is a fish out on the sidewalk?"

I go outside, and there was the wrasse laying beside the largest piece of coral in the tank. He had been submersed in freshwater, bleached for 10 minutes, and left outside for 10 minutes.

I threw him back in the tank and he was still pumping his gill, so I told the owner, when he dies, just pull him out, and I would bring him another one the next week.

The next week I bring another one, but there is already one swimming around in the tank. That one had lived. I questioned everyone who worked there who put the wrasse in there. They all said that it was the same one.

 

[ricpan]

I was taking a bath when I heard my wife yelling. She just came from the grocery store and handed my then 12 year old son a box of Tiddy Bowl and told him to put it in the tank. Well you guessed it....it went into the freshwater fish tank which turned royal blue. We took all the fish out and into CL2 killer....all survived. My son spent the rest of the evening helping me clean the Tiddy Tank, hehe.

 

[catdoc]

My pink-spotted goby jumped out of his tank and was rescued by one of my coworkers. He lives in my tank at work and the groomer happened to hear a strange, loud splash from the tank and then some wet noises. She went to investigate and finally found him flopping on the hair and lint-covered tile under the tank. She tossed him back in and he did fine.

I also had a baby cichlid survive a close call. I had obtained some cichlid fry from my LFS (they thought they were parasites, I was trying to raise the fry to convince them they WERE baby fish!) and had rigged up a grow-out basket for them in my discus tank. The fry were in a basket coffee filter suspened at the water level and one fry went missing. I assumed he was a victim of the filter and didn't see him again. About that time, I decided to get rid of the discus and took all of the fish in the tank back to the LFS.

I turned off the filter and heater on the tank, planning to drain it right away but got busy with the kids so didn't get around to finishing for a couple of days. I drained the tank comletely, then filled it up from the garden hose at full blast, stirred up the gravel (which made it look like mud!), and drained it again. Then I filled the tank again, added the dechlor, and let it cycle again.

A couple of weeks later, I moved some of my angels and plecos from another tank into this one. At feeding time, I noticed a 1/2" fish darting in the rockwork snagging bits of flake. It was the forgotten cichlid fry! I kept him another 2 or 3 months, then (as expected), he got mean and I took him in to the LFS too.

 

[Samala]

Like Biggie, I've had fish survive cat attacks and munching. That poor percula clown never knew what was coming.. cat carried him off, I hear flopping and hissing.. cat is allowing the fish to bounce down the stairs while he swipes at him and attempts to make him lunch. A few bite marks later the clown, minus one pectoral, most of his caudal and two puncture wounds that just missed his air bladder and major organs.. goes back into the tank. Peanut Butter (his mate was Skippy) still lives on to this day. That was three years ago now.

>Sarah

 

[TheBimbo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6495160#post6495160 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Samala
Like Biggie, I've had fish survive cat attacks and munching. That poor percula clown never knew what was coming.. cat carried him off, I hear flopping and hissing.. cat is allowing the fish to bounce down the stairs while he swipes at him and attempts to make him lunch. A few bite marks later the clown, minus one pectoral, most of his caudal and two puncture wounds that just missed his air bladder and major organs.. goes back into the tank. Peanut Butter (his mate was Skippy) still lives on to this day. That was three years ago now.

>Sarah

Wow... never had things like this happen... Had one carpert surfer, and I did have a clown named skippy... ...


TheBimbo...

 

[ACBlinky]

Not as good a story as some of yours, but I've got a fish I'm pretty proud of
I arranged a trade with somone shutting down a tank, who wanted to get rid of his neon dottyback. He was trading for some FW plants and decorations, which I had ready and waiting for him right after he called to say he was coming over. He lives two or three miles away, about five minutes by subway. After a good half hour or more, I started to wonder what was going on. An hour after I expected him to arrive, he finally did. One look at the fish, which was in a bag, unprotected from the freezing weather, and I was instantly angry - the fish was definitely dead. Well, I dripped him anyway, hoping against hope, and he recovered. The water in the bag must have gone down from 80F to about 50F or less; the fish was just about literally frozen, but he made it.