Amazing Happy Story - I Can't Believe It!

[greengoddess]

Hi,

I had to share this with you all. I have a 240 litre tank with 2 fancy goldfsh and some White Cloud Mountain Minnows. All have lived happily together so far. At Christmas 2010 we went on holiday to France for two weeks. I could see on this forum that it is generally thought to be OK to leave fish without food for up to 2 weeks so I did not bother setting up an automatic feeder. Anyway, we returned from our holidays and 2 of our minnows were missing, leaving only 10 fish instead of 12. I checked the filter but there was no sign of them anywhere. I concluded that my previously friendly goldfish must have caught them and eaten them. Since then they have all continued to live happily. 2 months ago we went on holiday for 1 week. Again, I chose not to feed the fish when we were away. When we returned I was shocked to see that all of the minnows were very ill looking. They looked sort of transparent and two of them looked dead (they were lying on their sides really still). I put in some food and, to my astonishment, within 1 hour they were all back to normal including the ones that looked dead! I then realised that the little minnows could obviously not survive as long as the goldfish without food.

Anyway, yesterday I did my usual water change and I also decided to clean out the filter. I took the top off the filter housing and, to my utter amazement, there was a little minnow staring up at me!!! He had been in there since December last year!!!!!! 7 months!!! I put him back into the tank, he was almost a third of the size of the other minnows, very very thin and his red fins had faded to a pale pink. Today he looks a little better, his fins are starting to go red again and he is happily swimming with the other minows and gobbling up food.

Is this some kind of record? I simply cannot believe that the poor little thing had been stuck in the filter for 7 months!!! I cleaned the filter a couple of months ago and I didn't see him then, he must have been hiding in there somewhere.

So, a very happy story. I still don't know what happened to the 12th minnow.

 

[Twinklecaz]

OMg! That's amazing. He must feel like he's been in prison!

 

[fluttermoth]

Without wanting to sound cynical, I think it much more likely that the WCMM have spawned in your tank, all the other eggs/fry have been eaten and that's the only survivor.

WCMM are very easily bred; I've even heard of them spawning and the fry surviving in Biobs!

 

[moochy13]

i wouldnt be so sure, i used to 'reguarly' get fish in the top of my juwel filter. a minnow could easily fit through. ive had fish in there a couple of months, with no ill effects. ive also had a shrimp live in there for at least a year. would imagine its a perfect shrimp haven at the bottom of a juwel internal filter.

 

[greengoddess]

Without wanting to sound cynical, I think it much more likely that the WCMM have spawned in your tank, all the other eggs/fry have been eaten and that's the only survivor.

WCMM are very easily bred; I've even heard of them spawning and the fry surviving in Biobs!

I didn't think of that! However, the one in the filter was the same length as the other fish but extremely thin and obviously malnourished. I have certainly never noticed any babies swimming around.

 

[fluttermoth]

Oh, I certainly wasn't tryingto say it wasn't possible; I do agree fish and shrimp can live a long time in filters; I just thought as the OP hadn't seen it during previous filter cleans it's possible that that's because it wasn't there during the previous cleans

 

[greengoddess]

Oh, I certainly wasn't tryingto say it wasn't possible; I do agree fish and shrimp can live a long time in filters; I just thought as the OP hadn't seen it during previous filter cleans it's possible that that's because it wasn't there during the previous cleans

You could well be right but my gut instinct is that it's the long lost minnow from December. I keep a close eye on my fish and have never seen any babies.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Great story, amazing how the WCMM somehow missed being minced up by the impeller all that time, presumeably while still getting the odd bit of nutrition that made its way in!