My Fish Came Back To Life!?

Guppyz · Sep 4, 2011

So I needed to get something that fell behind my desk. On my desk there is my 10 gallon thank with a heater that was unpluged and a running interior filter. I moved my desk about an inch and herd a buzz sound. I looked up and one of my four platies in my tank was dead. I started to panik thinking I had killed it. I left the room and when I came back fifteen minutes later the fish was swimming around like normal again. What could have gone wrong? Do platies ever play dead or come back to life? When i looked at it, it looked REALLY dead. And I know it was "dead" for at least ten minutes. I took out the filter and don't want to put it in again just yet. How long can my four platies go without a filter? Shoulld I get a new filter or just let this one sit?

fidjet2 · Sep 5, 2011

they need a filter so yeah, you probably need a new one. Not sure what happened to him though

soybean · Sep 5, 2011

Obviously it wasn't dead, just stunned. Did you trap a wire when moving the desk? Check the heater cable too.

fluttermoth · Sep 5, 2011

You'll need to do 50% daily water changes until you get a new filter. Can you rig up something to keep your filte medai alive? Putting it in an old, cut down soft drink bottle, with holes all round the bottom and an airstone would probably work.

Guppyz · Sep 5, 2011

I'm just gonna plug it back in. And why werent the others affected? And it was dead still. No gill movement.

Didge007 · Sep 5, 2011

Something similar happened to my boyfriends aunty. Not sure what fish she had but it had jumped out of the tank & by the time she found it it was stiff (& definitely dead). She was running late for work & tossed it back in the tank (not sure why) & when she came home it was alive & swimming

soybean · Sep 6, 2011

Guppyz said:
I'm just gonna plug it back in. And why werent the others affected? And it was dead still. No gill movement.

It must've been stunned or shocked in some way. Unless it's a ghost now.

If you think your filter went fizzbang and killed a fish, why are you plugging it back in on the tank? Try it in a bucket of water first.

Have you had your filter media running in another filter or at least had an airstone bubbling through it? Else you may have lost a lot of the bacteria. You'll need to be monitoring your water daily to check and do water changes as required.