Hardiest fish you've kept

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Trainer_Ruby_

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 3, 2015
Messages
898
Location
Eastern America
So I started a thread of the hardest fish you've kept so let's change gears and do the hardiest fish you've kept. For me it has to be my betta he's managed to escape his tank no once but three times. Ones on the floor for a short while one to a 20g beside it with another betta in it(they got along quite well surprisingly) and once to a 55g tank that's separated by the 20g tank. What are some of your stories of your little friend's adventures


Keep calm and drum on
 
Dojo loaches or white skirt tetras. Both have been with me since the beginning and endured a guy clueless about cycling then an ich infestation.

They both were able to rough it out with no casualties. Still have all 5 white skirts and my dojo is almost adult size now :)


Caleb
 
Dwarf puffers. Had mine in a 2.5 gallon minibow for a while, never did water changes and it was over run with algae. This was when I was first beginning, and that was last year. He died unfortunately of parasites, but that was kind of inevitable because of the water quality.
 
African clawed frogs. They lived about 10 years. I had them in high school and beyond. The last one lived until I was 26. I never cycled, didn't know about cycling, sometimes kept them in poor water conditions, you name it I probably did it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
Indian glass fish (non painted). My lfs got it by accident from a wild catch and it's my oldest fish. I've had it for many years. He's also gone through many tank transfers.
 
A paradise fish. About 14 years ago we had a nasty snow storm knock the power out, I had gotten home from work to find all of the fish dead and the temp in the mid 30s, so I packed for a few days and headed for the parent's house. When the power came back on, I started cleaning the tank, and found the bugger swimming around like nothing ever happened.

Sent from my 5560S using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
That will be my sunfish. One of them jumped out of the container onto the floor of my car while transporting them. We stopped at a restaurant to eat. When we came back to the car I even put my purse on top of it unknowingly. It wasn't until later that I decided to check on them and noticed it missing. After looking all over the car I found it on the floor under my purse. Still alive today! It was out of the water for a loooong time.


Sent from my iPad using Aquarium Advice
 
I posted this on your last thread when I miss read the title :)

It is still my little Colombian tetra I have named Survivor. I moved a plant out of one of my tanks that has Colombian red fins in it to a non heated goldfish tank.The tank was drained down to on an inch of water in order to move it. Then I filled it with tap water and moved the gold fish in. A few weeks later I see a little fish swimming around couldn't even tell what it was. 4 months later I have a good sized Colombian Redfin swimming with two fancy gold fish. It even survived a battle of ich I received complementary of one of the goldfish I bought.

This little guy is going against everything I knew about fish. I hope he will become the oldest tetra ever :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My first group of kuhlis. They survived being in my first tank which wasn't properly cycled :hide: Multiple house moves, a number of tank moves, power outages. I had those crazy fish for years!
 
Do you keep yours in fresh or brackish water?


Keep calm and drum on







I've had them in both.

How well they do in either or, depends greatly on where they were collected. Fish collected from fresh water populations will obviously do better in fresh water, and brackish populations in brackish. It's nailing down a collection area that is the tough part, so people usually have to fiddle with the salinity one way or the other to find what the fish like.

Sent from my 5560S using Aquarium Advice mobile app
 
A few years ago I had an Oscar that regularly jumped out of the tank during feeding time. I'd pick him off the carpet and pop him back in the tank. No damage, no fungus etc. He was 8" and was a devil to catch as he flapped around. He just got over excited at the sight of food.


Sent from my iPad using Aquarium Advice
 
Thanks to my 80's slacks...

I was 10.... and of COURSE I won a feeder goldfish at elementary school Bingo. Named her Harriet. She was a jumper and I filled her bowl (I know, please forgive me - I was 10) too full one time. She jumped right out, and I thought for SURE she'd gone straight down the heat register right below.

I looked and looked and cried... and then about five minutes later, through my tears, I thought wait - what if?!?! And yep, she was in the cuff of my pants. Plopped her right back in the bowl and she (somehow!) lived three more years.

80s style slacks to the rescue!
 
My first fish was a 5 year old gold barb who I "rescued." His previous owners kept him in a 10 gallon tank with one other gold barb, some tetras, a snail, and a huge goldfish. After the goldfish ate everything else in the tank and then died, he was the only one left. After that, his owners got tired of him and neglected to feed him, change the water, or do any basic maintenance at all in an attempt to get rid of him, yet he survived. I bought the tank with the single fish and brought him home, where I changed the water, added new decorations and live plants, and bought 7 more gold barbs. He may have been happier, but he was still in a 10 gallon tank and I was a complete newbie. Through all of that, he still lived two more years.
 
Africans. I started with 6 fish and they multiplied to about 50. The babies had no problems surviving and were never eaten.

I had a weather loach that survived outside of the tank for 2-3days. That was pretty hardy.
 
My grandpa had a 15year old Jack Dempsey named Killer. It was on deaths doorstep. He put it in a peaceful little pond behind a farmer's house to die.

Three months later the farmer invited him over for dinner.

The farmer was excited to show grandpa his new beautiful "SUNFISH" that he found in the pond.

It was Killer. He took killer out of the pond, thought it was a sunfish and kept him in a 55gallon tank for several more years!!!!!!
Grandpa never told him.;):D:oops: [Moderator Edit]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've still got my four pygmy cories that I bought with a few guppies when I started the hobby about 5 months ago.
They've survived a huge ammonia spike, an adverse reaction to some meds and outlived about 10 guppies. Whatever was the demise of those guppies (water issues, internal parasites, bacterial infections) they've survived unscathed. I even found one of the cories with half a tail gone. But it just grew back not a problem.
They're now living with some platys. I call them the Fab Four, cos they are awesome and they're still alive!
 
I had a female wild-type guppy go missing from a five gallon tank when I was cleaning it once (I was a kid and just ladled water from it right into a nearby sink). I noticed one was missing but couldn't find her. HOURS later, I found her in the trash container next to the sink. She had landed on a piece of toilet paper plastic wrapping and a few drops of water were with her. Even though she looked dead and quite dry, I threw her back in the tank. She revived! That fish lived for several more years and seem not in the least damaged.
 
my hardiest fish is a hongkong pleco or hillstream loach,got it since i start in the hobby over a year ago and had survived 3 tanks upgrades...


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Back
Top Bottom