Fish Survival Stories

[mlawson]

I have just come back from a week holiday and I was astonished to find
my dwarf puffers tank covered in algae. I soon realised that the light timer hadn't
been turned on properly and the light must have been on for the whole week!

I was surprised to see my Dwarf Puffer still casually swimming around as if everything
was perfectly normal.

I have also experienced another nightmare strory which I refer to as 'The Great Boil of 99'.
Some of you may have experienced something similar when your heater fails.
I was unlucky and the heater happened to break in the on position. Unfortunately it took me
a while to realise, as when my friend was walking past the tank he said he could smell burning
fish. No, it wasn't that nights dinner, it was coming from the aquarium. I looked in to see about
10 dead fish floating at the top of the tank. I put my hand in and it must have been about 50 C!
I quickly changed 50% 0f the water with cold water which quickly took the temperature back to
25 C and added another spare heater. I was amazed to find a plec and 2 scissortails swimming
around, and I still have the very same ones today. Since then I have never trusted heaters.

Post your fish survival stories here!

Thanks

Mikes

 

[Castellop123]

Cheers...

 

[Katchan]

Hmm, to go along with mlawson we shall call the the great boil of '01

cause - faulty bar heater
result - crisped loungeroom, extensive smoke damage through rest of house

info - after police investigation (about 1/2 hour interview outside of house), and insurance investigation (nearly 3 weeks) we are allowed in to reclaim whats left of our stuff (other than the emergency clothes etc we already got). We start clearing out etc and get to the fish tank (2' non heated tank filled with whitecloudes) , about 1/3 full, no working filter (cord burnt through, no power to house anyways), and fairly blackend tank, figure all the fish have gotta be dead by now, boy was I suprised, there were 2-3 whitecloudes left, thats what I call survival (the tank was less than 2 meters from the central fire point)

Andrew

 

[jarcher1390]

My greatest incidence was the great freeze of 02'
We were having a barn conversion done and could not afford our old house and one autumn frosty moning i woke up on the weekend, went down stairs and in astomishment my gold fish tank had completly froozen, with the gold fish half way froozen in the ice like they been there for ages. I quickly got a knife and started cizeling away the ice just to save the tank mainly 5mins later i reached the leaval of the gold fish and to my atomish ment its was still alive i picked it up went out side to my deep pond smashed the ice with my foot placed the gold fish into the pond it quickly darted off. it was time to see if the other 2 were still alive and they were. and i put them in the pond as well they still alive today.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Was moving some danios a long time ago and put them in a container on top of one of my tanks. Well i stupidly forgot to cover the container and within minutes i turned around to see one of the danio's jump out of the container and fall to the floor- the little fish dropped like 5ft to the floor. I quickly scooped it up and put it in a tank and it swam off like nothing had happened at all, danio's are definately tough little fish lol.
Saw a similar thing happen at a lfs where one of the employee's dropped a fish from a ladder he was on that he was getting for me from one of the top shelf tanks in the shop, little danio dropped like 10ft to the floor and amazingly survived (stupid employee dropped a second later which didn't survive unfortunately though ).

Oh, i have another true story as well. One day i was removing some driftwood from a tank and putting it into a bucket. I always check the driftwood very thoroughly for amano shrimp clinging onto it when i take it out of my tanks, but this time one must have missed one in my close inspection of the wood. Because i was very busy that week and didn't have much space in the house due to lack of tidying up that week, i left the driftwood in the bucket with about 1cm of water in it.
4 days later i finally got around to tidying the house up and to my shock i saw oneof the shrimp lying on its side in the minimal amount of water in the driftwood bucket. I thought it was dead at first but as i went to pick it up it tried to scramper away. I was totally shocked, i never expected a shrimp such as an amano shrimp to survive in so little water for such a long amount of time- needless to say i quickly filled the bucket up with some tank water and let the shrimp settle down a bit before i put it back in one of the tanks to recover. Amazingly, 2months later it was carrying eggs so it made it a good recovery . Tough little shrimp !

 

[mlawson]

My greatest incidence was the great freeze of 02'
We were having a barn conversion done and could not afford our old house and one autumn frosty moning i woke up on the weekend, went down stairs and in astomishment my gold fish tank had completly froozen, with the gold fish half way froozen in the ice like they been there for ages. I quickly got a knife and started cizeling away the ice just to save the tank mainly 5mins later i reached the leaval of the gold fish and to my atomish ment its was still alive i picked it up went out side to my deep pond smashed the ice with my foot placed the gold fish into the pond it quickly darted off. it was time to see if the other 2 were still alive and they were. and i put them in the pond as well they still alive today.

Wow, thats incredible!

Was moving some danios a long time ago and put them in a container on top of one of my tanks. Well i stupidly forgot to cover the container and within minutes i turned around to see one of the danio's jump out of the container and fall to the floor- the little fish dropped like 5ft to the floor. I quickly scooped it up and put it in a tank and it swam off like nothing had happened at all, danio's are definately tough little fish lol.
Saw a similar thing happen at a lfs where one of the employee's dropped a fish from a ladder he was on that he was getting for me from one of the top shelf tanks in the shop, little danio dropped like 10ft to the floor and amazingly survived (stupid employee dropped a second later which didn't survive unfortunately though ).

Oh, i have another true story as well. One day i was removing some driftwood from a tank and putting it into a bucket. I always check the driftwood very thoroughly for amano shrimp clinging onto it when i take it out of my tanks, but this time one must have missed one in my close inspection of the wood. Because i was very busy that week and didn't have much space in the house due to lack of tidying up that week, i left the driftwood in the bucket with about 1cm of water in it.
4 days later i finally got around to tidying the house up and to my shock i saw oneof the shrimp lying on its side in the minimal amount of water in the driftwood bucket. I thought it was dead at first but as i went to pick it up it tried to scramper away. I was totally shocked, i never expected a shrimp such as an amano shrimp to survive in so little water for such a long amount of time- needless to say i quickly filled the bucket up with some tank water and let the shrimp settle down a bit before i put it back in one of the tanks to recover. Amazingly, 2months later it was carrying eggs so it made it a good recovery . Tough little shrimp !

Hmm, to go along with mlawson we shall call the the great boil of '01

cause - faulty bar heater
result - crisped loungeroom, extensive smoke damage through rest of house

info - after police investigation (about 1/2 hour interview outside of house), and insurance investigation (nearly 3 weeks) we are allowed in to reclaim whats left of our stuff (other than the emergency clothes etc we already got). We start clearing out etc and get to the fish tank (2' non heated tank filled with whitecloudes) , about 1/3 full, no working filter (cord burnt through, no power to house anyways), and fairly blackend tank, figure all the fish have gotta be dead by now, boy was I suprised, there were 2-3 whitecloudes left, thats what I call survival (the tank was less than 2 meters from the central fire point)

Andrew

It's strange how fish and aquatic creatures can sometimes survive extreme conditions such as
boiling or freezing water, yet die from things which can be unnoticed such as high nitrates.

 

[SamUK]

came back from a 2 day business trip to find my betta sat on the floor of his tank and looking rather still.

turns out his tank was at 15 degrees, probably lower cos his heater had come unplugged (its plugged in at a weird angle).


the hole thing was made worse by the fact i left my bedroom window open. god knos what the temp was in the middle of the night and i dont have a clue how he survived.

 

[LisaLQ]

I ordered two festivums off Ebay once, sent FCR, would have arrived the next day had royal mail not been a bag of poo (to be fair it was the run up to Chrimble), but they ended up "lost" in the post, and turned up 5 days - yes 5 DAYS - later. Bear in mind it was winter. And very cold.

They'd had a 24 hour heatpack, but it had obviously run out. They were absolutely fine.

Sadly. Turned out to be evil sh*ts who killed a few of my fish. Felt like sticking them back in the post...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Felt like sticking them back in the post...

Lol

 

[millym]

our first 2 week holiday away after starting our 44g tropical we came home to find that not only had our light timer failer but so had our auto feeder.....we'd starved our fish for two weeks.........omg the guilt, we were met by 27 very miserable looking fish but all survived!

also around 3 yrs ago i was sitting at home having a cuppa when i noticed an unusual 'trickling noise' ignored it for a while then looked down at my feet...........a lake was forming! our 4ft's seal had ruptured ( at the back ) aaaaaaaargh, then followed a very traumatic day, we live in a 1st floor flat & to cut a long story short i ended up using every towel,piece of bedlinen & t shirt in the house + mop mop mopping for england as 44g spewed out onto the floor!
i called husb home form work, got all our fish into a teeny hosp tank (27 fish in a 1 ft tank) he got buckets then went to a lfs to get a new tank..............by 5pm new tank set up, fish in, 2 very knackered people!!!!!!! lost a hillstream loach stress too much i guess, all other fish survived!

 

[my fat fish]

mine happened last week

came home 1 day to find a increase in green water in my tank thought nowt off it
went bed woke up late next morning to find the water very green and murky all my fish gasping for air and my filter for ym 47gal tank down to a trikel
immediatly cleaned filter and got the air flow going thru athen done a 30% water change and had 2 go out got back to 3 dead fish and still gasping for air the tem had dropped dramatically as i had knocked a heater out, so i floated soe hot water in bags in the tank and got the heater back on wacked in a uv steroliser and prayed for the best luckily all my other fish are fine now and water is chrystle clear

 

[DiscusAngel]

i had 2 african butterly fish a while ago but rehomed them because they were a pian but more to the point. as they jump out of the water i made sure the top fo the tank was tight, me being me never thought anything of the holes at the back for wires! about 4 weeks after getting themm guess what i come down to get breakfast and always turn the lights on in the tank. i turned it on and always do a count lol! i did a count and couldnt find a butterfly. so i checked lower down the tank as they sometimes go down. but he wasnt down there i was like o know one of my greedy discus has eaten them! and thought jesus he could have jumped out somehow. so looked round the whole room and couldnt find him but then looked behind the tank about 20 mins later and there he was like a crips all hard and stuck there i quickly picked him up and looked at him he tried to wiggle so i chucked him in the tank and he sunk.. 3.. 2.. 1.. wee he shot back up to the top and was swimming happily after that i taped up the back so they couldnt get out. but now after being such a pain with not feeding i decided to rehome them they went to a lovely home and still living now!

so theres my story.

 

[Native American]

It's not fish, but it's still amazing.

I broke down my son's 10gal tank after New Year's day, washed the gravel in tap water repeatedly, then let it sit in a 5gal bucket filled w/ water.

Over a month later, after Valentine's day, I rebuilt the tank, tossed in the gravel, and ran the filter and heater. Lo and behold, the MTS (Malaysian Trumpet Snails) that had been in the gravel started popping out and coming up the sides of the glass. I don't know what they fed on for a month, as the gravel was quite clean, but there they are.

Amazing.

v/r, N-A

 

[kribensis12]

I have 2 stories. First one takes place at school. I was going to check on my teachers tank and thte room was extremely hot. All was dead except the long fined baby dalmatoin mollie and it just died about 2 months ago from a unknown reason. The water was 126 degrees and the amazing thing is that mollies dont like heat!!!!!

Another, My uncle had a baby oscar and it jumped out of the tank. It was out of the tank for over 10 hours!!! He put it back in the tank and it got back to health, lost its skin, grew it back and lived to a ripe old age of 5 years. He died when my uncles tank heater exploeded and he put it in a 5 gallon bucket and it died from stress.