Fish do jump, whether they get spooked by outside noise or movement, other fish, they jump. Ever been to a lake, river, pond, ocean, fish are jumping all the time for one reason or another.
Sometimes in our hobby they actually manage to jump out of the tank, it happens to most everyone. In my most recent foray back into fishkeeping, I lost one of my brilliant rasboras, he jumped out of the planted tank and ended up on the carpet behind the tank and wasn't found for a couple days, very shocked a kitty didn't find him first. From then on, the glass lid is always back in place no matter what, but there's still about a 2" gap at the back, so it's just a somewhat preventive measure but I do think it helps. Most recently and oddly, a blue mystery snail went up the side and over the lip of the tank, falling to his death on the hard floor, not pretty and no idea why. This tank had a lid, but the snail went through the gap at the back of the tank and ended up behind the tank.
My most distressing fish accident happened to a very beautiful lyretail anthias we had in our reef tank years ago. We had strong metal halide lighting and we used eggcrate over the surface instead of glass lids, there were still open gaps over the tanks opening, but we had a full canopy so thought little about it. I removed the cover for feeding later one day and discovered my poor anthias baked on top of the eggcrate...very terrible to see. And we lost a clownfish who jumped over the edge too, after being "saved" twice, he finally met his match with jumping out of the tank.
It's not anything specific you did wrong to feel sorry about. As long as you do your best to provide a good, clean tank for your fish, that's about all you can do. Sorry for your loss, but you're being way too rough on yourself about it. Try to prevent any more escapes is about all you can do. Best wishes.
Sometimes in our hobby they actually manage to jump out of the tank, it happens to most everyone. In my most recent foray back into fishkeeping, I lost one of my brilliant rasboras, he jumped out of the planted tank and ended up on the carpet behind the tank and wasn't found for a couple days, very shocked a kitty didn't find him first. From then on, the glass lid is always back in place no matter what, but there's still about a 2" gap at the back, so it's just a somewhat preventive measure but I do think it helps. Most recently and oddly, a blue mystery snail went up the side and over the lip of the tank, falling to his death on the hard floor, not pretty and no idea why. This tank had a lid, but the snail went through the gap at the back of the tank and ended up behind the tank.
My most distressing fish accident happened to a very beautiful lyretail anthias we had in our reef tank years ago. We had strong metal halide lighting and we used eggcrate over the surface instead of glass lids, there were still open gaps over the tanks opening, but we had a full canopy so thought little about it. I removed the cover for feeding later one day and discovered my poor anthias baked on top of the eggcrate...very terrible to see. And we lost a clownfish who jumped over the edge too, after being "saved" twice, he finally met his match with jumping out of the tank.
It's not anything specific you did wrong to feel sorry about. As long as you do your best to provide a good, clean tank for your fish, that's about all you can do. Sorry for your loss, but you're being way too rough on yourself about it. Try to prevent any more escapes is about all you can do. Best wishes.
