fast fish

[kevinf]

Hi, I am relatively new to aquariums(3 months), one 29g and one 21g. both have live plants with drift wood. In one aquarium I have a few barbs and carps (2x barb (denisons barb), 2x inlecypris auropurpureus(carp)), they are doing great so far except I am a bit "jumpy" after one of my carps jumped out of the tank while I was working on it adding plants. I got him back in and he seems fine so far , 3 days later....I now need to remove snail eggs, and I am a bit nevous regarding juming fish, while I work in the tank....any suggestions? and who knows if the snail eggs will easily stick to a long thin stick?(this would allow me to open the tank very little, preventign jumps out of the tank)

 

[Durbkat]

The reason the fish might be jumping out is because he might be unhappy. Like if he doesn't have enough space or bad water quality or not enough hiding spaces. What you could do is if he is small enough and if you have a holding container ( maybe you've seen one its those container the people use at your lps to put the fish in before they put it in a bag) And then put a cover over it. And if yopu just don't want to risk him jumping out at all you can wait to the eggs hatch and put a lettuce leaf in the tank and all the snails should get on it to eat it then you take it out and flush the snails.

 

[a1wonder]

I actually disagree with durbkat a bit. It is not nessarly that your fish are unhappy some fish, such as silver dollars for example, are simple fish that are continual scared stupid. However I do agree on the point it that it may be due to not enough hidding spaces, but I have continually seen fish jump out of the tank for no appearent reason quite frequently in my years of fish keeping. The best thing to do in the long term is to get a very secure lid on your tank. When I'm working on my 33gal I found that a few of my barbs tended to jump a bit so working at a craft store I thought of a very interesting solution. There is this creat stuff that people use to stech yarn through. It's made of plastic and it has holes big enough to let in some light into the tank, so I could see what I was doing, but small enough to prevent fish from flying out. And best of all it CHEEP and comes in a variety of different sizes. I'd suggest picking some up and cover the top of the tank with it and then expose the area your working on. Fish will most of the time not jump directly beside you but they get all worked up on the other end of the tank.
I hope this help, and I'm pretty sure that your fish are happy

 

[Dubby]

I have a few fish that are jumpy as well. I always let them get used to my presence near the tank before I put my hands in. If I need to really mess about the tank then I do it when I do water changes. That way the water level is much lower and prevents the fish from jumping out of the tank.