Killer Decor?

pedzola

pedzola

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Aug 26, 2005
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>:|

So I get home and look in my tank to check on the 3 clown loaches which I recently moved there. They have been kinda pale and skittish for the past couple of days since I put them in the new tank.

I only saw one swimming around but thought nothing of it...

A little later I fed them some frozen brine shrimp (which they love) figuring they'd all come out. Well I only saw 2. So... curiously I picked up the only decorations that could possibly conceal #3 and saw nothing... So I decided to take the decorations out and search hard cause the thing has to be SOMEWHERE, and I hoped he hadn't died under the stress of moving to a new tank...

So as I'm taking out this rather large coliseum decoration I see a fin! The poor thing was STUCK in some flashing at the bottom of the decor. IT was curled around the bottom, just a big enough space for him to squeeze his body into (forward). He was still trying to wriggle so I quickly grabbed a pair of pliers and a bucket full of tank water and proceeded to break apart the decoration...

once I had broken away enough of the thing he dropped into the bucket and began swimming like mad (WHEW!!)

So after this stressful experience I hope the poor little guy survives! After taking the tank apart like that all 3 have turned white again and are swimming around like crazy.

I think I'm off to the fish store to find a large safe-looking decoration for the loaches to hide in... taking the big one out theres not much place left for them so I'm sure they'll be stressed out...


Anybody ever lose a fish to "killer decor?" Any similar stories to mine?

Just for clarification, I thought at first he might be able to get out on his own and tried coaxing him out by touching his head w/my finger... if anything is gonna get a loach out of a tight spot its that!! Needless to say he couldn't move, so I had to take drastic measures....
 
I have a good one, I had a large conch shell that I bought, some of my gourami loved it and used them as a spawning type thing, all of a sudden I am missing my fav powder blue one, I look in the shells and I find it at the very top in the point basicly. I broke the shell and it still died...
 
A simmiler expierience for me too. It was also with a gourami. He tried to swim through my bridge decoration and got stuck halfway through. I managed to push him through but I had to push pretty hard. I broke one of his wiskers off in the process. He was pretty stressed out. Would barely move at all. I moved him to a fish trap so the other fish wouldn't bother it. He took a few days to recover. But he was back to normal. So I took out that bridge. Then a few days later he got stuck in my castle. Unfortunatly he was stressed beyond recovery this time. He died a few days later. Silly, sillly fish. I took out all the fake decor after that. Good riddence I say. I'm much happier now with a more natural look.
 
Yeah I just went out and bought a new rock w/a couple nice holes in it... also stopped by home depot and picked up a funky piece of black 1-1/2" pvc.

The pvc is now the only "non-natural" object in the tank (unless you count fake plants...). I figured the pvc would be a nice spot for the clown loaches to hide... and theres pretty much no way any of them can get stuck in it.



A little off topic... while I was at the fish store getting the new rock (and some food and a couple other items) I overheard another customer talking to one of the employees... apparently he just sold his house and he had a 3000 gallon koi pond w/15 kois in it. He wants to take a handful of his "prize" koi from the old house but the new house doesn't have a pond... so he thought he would get a big aquarium instead. Of course the largest aquarium the place had was 110 gallons and was going for over $2k w/stand and hood... and the guy was like... well I might just have to go for the big one... I think they will be happy in 100 gallons.

The dude was talking about like 3-5 twenty-plus inch koi... all I could think in my head was that he probably needs closer to 1000 gallons to keep them happy... and for $2k he could get somethin much bigger than 100 at least!


Anyway... anyone else have fish that got stuck in decorations? ;(
 
From what I've seen gouramis are prone to that kind of thing.

My kuhli is always exploring, poking his head into tight spots and crevices in the driftwood but he hasn't gotten stuck yet...

I don't like any of those "fake" decorations for that reason. It is not a natural object so the fish don't know how to navigate through it I think...

The only thing I have in my tank that is "unnatural" is my filter (Whisper 40 in tank which the loach has actually been inside and out of, along w/ my crab), and a small vase that only the kuhli can fit in (so he has a safe place to sleep, which of course he does behind the filter usually instead, you can lead a horse to water and all that...).
 
My first gold fish i ever had got stuck in a castle and couldn't get out. This was years ago and the first tank i ever owned. It was 10 gallons and way overstocked. One day I noticed that he was missing and I lifted the castle just to check, because I didn't actually think he could fit in there. Anyhoo, there was my Spencer. I have no clue how long he'd been in there. At least 3 days. I'm a much better fish mommie now though. I actually pay attention to them.
 
yes but not a decor. Came home one day and saw a danio in my ugf. I was sure it died and got sucked into the filter, to give you an idea the filter opening was extremely tiny and covered with rocks. There is also no room to move at all in the filter(between the plastic casing and cartridge). So i opened up the filter casing and wow, the danio JUMPED out literally and swim around like mad. I almost jumped too, had no idea it is still alive!

it's a miracle! and good thing it's a glofish(bright red zebra danio) otherwise i would never knew it was stuck in there at all.
 
Hmm.. filters were mentioned, I had a school of neons that were slaughtered by the filter even though it was covered. That sucked.

I also had an ornament from wal-mart (a log) suddenly push up from the gravel and float to the top, slamming my frog's head in. He acted odd for a week after.. but with the 3 brain cells he has anyhow it didnt matter much.

edit: mm yes, let's not forget the danio that somehow managed to get itself stuck in one of those filters for small tanks that you hook up to an air pump.
 
When I first got my 2 clown loaches, Romeo and Juliet, I had them my 2.5g Explorer QT for a week or so before I had room in the 10g QT. Romeo would always be found in the filter under the Bio Wheel.

Roan
 
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