Tough fish!

[andrewr]

My dad started in saltwater aquariums in 1968 (oh the stories would make you cry from back then, but thats another thread)and has done it off and on to the present, so needless to say I have grownup with fish around me for my whole life. I thought I would just tell you a couple of stories that show that some fish are incredibly tough:
1) Last summer I finally convinced my father that it was time for the crushed coral to go, as he was having problems w/ his water quality. We decided to put about 400 pounds of sand into his 220, which is no small task. I had a big Rubbermaid cattle trough so I took all the water out and put it in the tub and some into Brute containers. We drained all of the water out and we found that we were missing a little blue damsel. Well we were getting tired and figured that it would "show up". We got the sand in, then we put the rock back in and aquascaped, and then started pumping the water back in. We couldnt get all of the water out of the Brutes and it was nasty anyways so I took it out the side door. I poured the last few gallons out in the street and low and behold that damsel "shows up". The water is running down the street by the curb and the damsel is swimming with the current. I chase after it, then it turns around and swims the other way. There was just enough water for this guy to swim pretty quick. Well after about 30 seconds the damsel gave up. I grabbed him in my hand and tore off into the house (about 40 yards away). I ran in the house, with the damsel in my hand and dumped him in the tank and he lived happily ever after lol.
2) A LFS was closing down a part of their store. They had 3 rooms, 2 of which were sw fish. They were closing a room of the sw fish. I hope this is making sense. They moved all the fish from the room they were closing to the room they were keeping. Little did they know they missed one. They had all of the pumps and heaters and everything shut down in the room that they had moved the fish from for about 6 weeks. One of the guys, (just so happened I was in the store at the time) went into the room that was shut down. I hear "oh Sh**" They had forgotten a lionfish in one of the fish cubicles. The cubicle originally held maybe 7 gallons of water. After 6 weeks 3/4 of the water had evaporated. The water was stagnant and nasty and the fish was still doing fine. The guy snatched the fish out of the water, acclimated him to the new system and it was eating 30 mins later. Looking back I should have seen what the salinity was in that tank lol
3) This is the kicker for me and the reason I thought I would write these stories out. Today, my brother wanted to finally breakdown his 90 that had been overrun by mojanos. I wanted the rock but definately w/out all of the mojanos. I took out the rock and took it down into the basement. I divied the rock up into 5 gallon buckets and started filling them with fresh RO water. I am going to leave them in the water until I know for sure that everything is dead. I did this at just before 11 am this morning. The family came down and we all went out to eat and came home. I was getting ready for work (where I am right now, great job ehh?) and my brother yelled down to me (caviat: we share a condo, I am a college student) "Hey where did that lawnmower blenny go?" I thought oh crap, he must have wedged himself in some of the rock. My brother and dad coming running downstairs and we start looking through the buckets. They were freezing! The upstairs at the house is 65 degrees, the basement, probably less. So we were looking through freezing cold RO water looking for a body. I pull out a rock and there is the blenny. I shouted "crap" and put the rock back in and started the apologies to my brother on killing his fish. I go back and continue getting ready and my dad says, "how long has that blenny been in that water? I looked at my watch and said, "about 4 hours now I guess." My dad said, "lets find him, just to make sure" So we go through the bucket again and find him, I reach down in the freezing water and I pull him out, then he starts flopping in my hand, "double crap" I put him in a pitcher and slowly acclimated him and put him into my 215 where he is doing great! It just struck me how tough these fish can be sometimes, and thought some might like to read the perils of a fish in my hands

[YellowDesmo998]

Great stories!! I've always had Aquarius since I was 10 and my son has grown up with them as well. I hope one day he can post a thread like this with all the bloopers and triumphs that we've gone through. He has a 5.5g FOWLR in his room that he's responsible for. At 7 years old, that's a big task. But I'm always there to lend a hand!

Thanks for the cool stories!

[awestruck]

Thanx for the stories--they're great!!

[andrewr]

No problem YellowDesmo, I had a tank when I was younger and saved my paper route money and got a yellow headed moray eel because I heard they were mean as could be, well it ate my lionfish right in front of me and I lost all interest in highly aggressive things from then on....but I have always wanted a conesnail

[andrewr]

Anyone else want to share their "tough fish" stories?