What Should I Do After This Happens?

[afireinside]

Okay, I could've posted this in the New World Cichlid forum, but this is useful knowledge for any fish. Now, my Oscar is obsessed with food. I mean it. You should see how excited he gets when I pull the food out. He swims all over the tank looking at the food. It's quite amusing. Now, he always jumps at the food, but holy crap. He jump out of the tank this time. Jumped about at least six inches out, and fell at least five feet out of the air. He was flopping around like mad. I was extremely careful getting him, not injuring him. It took sometime however. I finally got him in the tank. He moped around for a bit, but now he seems fine. Is there something I should do after an event like this? It was quite the shock to have a fish about 5-6 inches jump out right in front of my face.

 

[GuppyDude]

He should be fine. Iv had fish jump out like that before too, I've never any of them fall ill as a result. The best you can do is just keep an eye on him. You might also want to make sure your tank is completely covered and secure to prevent future incidents.

 

[Tolak]

Without a doubt make sure any areas of the tank he could jump out of are covered. If you aren't around, and your oscar sees some sort of bug flying over the tank it could jump after it, with some bad results.

This is typical cichlid behavior, it helps to drop food as close to the center of the tank as possible. This gives them more water area to land in should they become airborne.

The only usual problem is a little loss of slime coat or a scrape after a little trip out of the water. As long as the water in the tank is clean there shouldn't be any worse problems then after being netted by a rookie teenage employee at Petsmart.

 

[afireinside]

Maybe I wasn't being specific enough. I have every every opening sealed off. He jumped out when I opened the hood to give him his meal. He jumped out as I was putting some more food in. But he does seem like his normal self now.

 

[Essjay37 152]

My female bettas do this too. There is a small hole in the back of the hood, which is just too small for them to fit through. I've started dropping the food through this instead of opening the flap at the front. It is a bit of a fiddle to get all the food into it without dropping it on the hood, but it's easier than trying to catch a flying fish with one hand while dropping the food in with the other.