Your rescue story here

[HolyKnightBeral]

Hello, I want to start this thread because people should be allowed to show off their fish rescue stories. We need more feel good around here

Well I'll start. about 2 weeks ago I picked up a LARGE Oscar and Goldfish from my LFS. They had been in a dirty pond at a house that the family had moved out of and were waiting for a sale on it. The Oscar had a serious infection (he lost an eye, but my LFS manager managed to get rid of the infection. Now he's at home with me, and Dr. Who loves his 45 gallon indoor pond soon to have aquatic cabbage and a few hiding places.

Now for the Goldfish... who I have "lovingly" called Schoolbus. He's a pretty thing and old as dirt. he was on his side with not hardly any room to move because the pond's top portion had almost totally evaporated. He himself also lost an eye to trauma from thrashing about. Now he lives happily in my family's outdoor pond (~150 gallons top and bottom) with several smaller mates.

Now for what made me anrgy my LFS wanted to kill them. I understand now that the Oscar was way too hard to keep and was costing a lot of stocking room. but the gooldfish was happy in the store's demo pond and they just wanted to get rid of him because the missing eye was supposedly scaring customers. thank the heavens my buddy who takes care of their stocking remembered to call me.

Enough about me though, everyone else, lets have some warm fuzzies

 

[SirMinion]

The house next door to mine is rented and often changes hands with new tennants.

A couple of years ago, we had a family move in there that very quickly became the neighbours from Hell. Screaming at each other at all hours, going out to the pub and leaving the kids home alone to cry all night, throwing stuff over the garden fence and generally being a bunch of arses.

After a few months of trashing the place, the landlord gave them notice for eviction and they left one night and vanished without paying any of the backlog of household bills & rent.

The next morning, I noticed that they had left the back door and all the windows wide open, I didn't know what to do about it and I didn't have the landlord's number so I went inside intending to close all the windows and doors, then leave locking the front door behing me.

Inside the place was a mess, torn paper everywhere, the kids had been drawing on the walls and there was poop smeared up the walls in the bathroom. The carpets were actually sticky in some places with God knows what.

In the corner of one room I noticed a jar, the kind you might get picked eggs or wallies in, filled with swirling opaque green liquid.

Intrigued, I took a closeer look and found in the liquid which turned out to be algae, ammonia & bacteria soup, two live goldfish.
I was hugeley surprised to find them alive in that muck so I grabbed the jar, screwed the lid back on and took them back home.

The jar was so small that one of the fish had to bend in the middle or rest diagonally.

At the time, I wasn't fish keeping so I had no where to put them, so I went straight out to a local pet store and bought a 20G tank and all the trappings, went home and set it up. an hour later, two much happier fish were exploring their new home.

After a couple of weeks of recovery and good feeding, a friend at work agreed to take them for her pond, and to my knowledge, they're in there now.

Happy ending.

 

[Matty]

wow..I guess that's how you got your start as a fishkeeper?

 

[SirMinion]

wow..I guess that's how you got your start as a fishkeeper?

Actually no. I had kept fish for years before I left home to go to college, but after I bought my house I didn't re-start untill I had an empty cycled 20g lying around!

 

[Teelie]

I "rescued" some Khuli's from certain death at PetCo last week. I bought up their entire stock (5) figuring anyone who bought them wouldn't know to have a proper substrate for them or hiding places. It didn't hurt I had been looking for them for months myself either.

 

[Wisperian]

Okay heres mine =D

Some of you may have heard it b4 but I rescued a big fat kuhli who I name Arashi. She is like too big to be normal and the lfs wanted to throw her out cuz she was too big =( So I rescued her.. but anways

hers the most recent one: I went to my lfs to see a red eye puffer (male) in a 0.5g so I took him home... I asked them what they fed him, they said "Snails" which were pretty good cept when I looked harder, there were snails crawling around uneaten and you know why? The puffer had ich and it just sat there so I got some ich medicine and took him home =) and there was also a black and steel coloured ct in a zebra danio tank and I like asked them why he was there and they asnwerd: "He came with his tail ripped so we put him into the zebra tank but we think he has finrot cuz his tail gets smaller and smaller" so I looked at him like i think you guys know why the tail was getting smaller so I told them to isolate him =) which wasnt really rescueing then i guess

 

[NinjaSmurf]

Well, I sorta rescued someone elses fish... I was at walmart (I think, I've gone to so many stores over the years I forget) and these people were about to buy 'one of those cute white frogs'. I didn't know much about aquatic frogs, but I'd heard the white ones got huge and ate other fish, so I passed the info on to them. They passed on the frogs. I can't really think of anything else at the moment...

 

[ferrikins]

I rescue as many fry as I can manage, from any LFS.

Acherly some of my best stock are from fry that I have rescued.

So maybe not as good as some of you guys, but I always say, "they have a better chance in my fry tank, than they do in with there perent and being sold to people who just think there cute and complain when they die."

Currently have 2 Black-chinned Livebeaver (matalic Livebearer) Fry. That I got last weekend when I was looking for adults. (my sig says 3, but one died)


Oh I do have another, I rescued a ADF from my LFS, that was in a tank full of crabs, he had a bent back, and was drain damage, I called him "skizzy" he could swim up, but summersalted back down. He life in my fry tank with his mate "Stumpy" Who has only 3 feet as one was mangled in a filter months ago. For a good 6 months before life became to much and he died.

I still have "Stumpy" he life in my new fry tank, with his new friend called "Stumpys Companion" ( anyone with better names please let me know.)

 

[Synirr]

I suppose you could consider any betta I've ever bought from Walmart as a rescue case, lol,
Let's see... the first betta I ever bought was missing an eye and had a crooked spine... and I once bought a firebelly newt with five legs, but that was less a rescue and more a curiosity buy
Just yesterday I went to Walmart and found two betta cups with two bettas in each. I seperated the most injured ones into a couple of the bigger tanks which housed suitable tankmates, and gave the ones remaining in the cups some clean water. I also medicated them with some Melafix I found in the employee cabinet

 

[aloaring]

I went to our new "aquatic retail outlet" - Pets at home just to have a nose and saw three poor little female siamese bettas in a tank full of big nasty black sharks and some other nasty looking fish. I had been planning on buying some more girls form the shop that sells quality ones. but i couldn't say no to these littel girls so i bought all three of them and they now live with my XL girls. Within a week they were all healed, no stress bars and looking good!

Another good story was we were walking around our LFS entranced by the tanks when i stepped on "something" quickly realised it was a fish and it was still alive. Boyfriend picked it up with his bare hands and put it back in one of the tank. We thought it was dead but after a couple of minutes it revived and started swimming again!!

 

[Rybka]

I've had countless stories of fighters needing resuce after owners have no room etc...and just want to flush them. Over the years i've resuced fighters that have been kept with other males...no fins and suffering fin rot and many similar cases. I've also rescued a few cories when a man thought it was ok to have 50 cories in a 10g because he saw it at the lfs.

 

[millym]

some great rescue stories folks......
.my only one is a little leopard danio we'd seen by itself in a petshop - the owners had decided to stop selling tropical fish & the leopard was the only tropical they had left. well we first saw her swimming around in an empty tank a few months before last christmas & thought about getting her but would have had to go straight home (we were planning a pub crawl!!)
anyway about 3 months later i went in the same shop & here was the poor leopard danio STILL swimming around in an empty tank all by herself........well it had to be done took her home on the tube & put her in our 4ft with loads of danio friends i swear she was smiling from ear to ear (do fish have ears) as she zipped around exploring her new surroundings, we had her for about 9 months before she died of an unknown cause but im just glad she had that time in a tank with friends,plants,rocks & good food etc

 

[Angry_Platy]

A little yellow comet platy (or otherwise known as twinbar platy) at the LFS...in a tank with other platies who were picking on it....I went there a few times over the period of the week...all times she came to the front of the tank and looked sadly at me....all the while wiggling her tail...

She had finrot, ich and looked very thin...she looked like she was going to die....

I had just finished cycling my quarantine tank....i figured it couldn't hurt....so I bought her...and didn't name her as I expected her to die....I treated with aquarium salt and Ichonex (contains malachite green and formaldehyde)...within 3 days the whitespots had gone...within a week she was a normal platy size and within 2 weeks the fins were completely healed....I am not talking minor finrot, I am talking majorly shredded tail fin, dorsal fin and ventral fins....red edges and yucky....

I talked to her everyday telling her how special she was to me....and she ate well....swam around happily....FROM DAY 1.....

4 weeks after I got her she was put in my community tank where she made lots of friends and wasn't picked on.....

That was 10 months ago and she is now my happiest and healthiest fish....had I not bought her the chances of her dying were extremely high....when I bought her the people at the LFS said "good luck with her, she's been nothing but trouble, we tried everything"

Makes me wonder what they tried really

But she is my little angel now