Not a good day for my female betta

[Asbestos]

So i was cleaning out my larger aquarium and I had clipped the tube to siphon out the water into the tank and i was using the other end to wash out my filter, and I happed to glance up in time to see one of my female bettas decide to investigate the clear tube in the aquarium. needless to say she is a slender fish and the tubing was not very thick. she got about 6 inches into the tubing and got stuck, i did not have enough time to react. I spent about 2 minutes trying to blow on the other end of the hose to try to dislodge her and was successful. Other than having a very red face for a few minutes she seems fine like nothing had happened. I think I was more traumatized than she was. Any one else have a similar story? and should I invest in a thicker tube to clean out my aquarium?

 

[dkpate]

YIKES! One of my loaches tried to swim up the tube once, but he decided at the last minute to change his mind. You could get some sort of mesh to go over the end, that would still pick up waste, but not a fish. I make sure someone is there to watch the end of the tube at all times, because one of my male bettas thinks it's competition and chases the hose around, and what happened to you is one of my biggest fears.

 

[Lowryder]

I would do this all the time with snails. I would suck them right up and they would land in the bucket. Now that I invested in a python I am alot more careful.

 

[Jason7894561230]

my fish run away lol

 

[BigJim]

My vacuum has a grate in the tube to keep out fish. My python has a cap that keeps fish in the tank. Can't say I've vacuumed out a fish, but I've almost poured a khuli and some RCS down the drain because they were in my filter. I have to check every time I clean out my filter now because my black khulis decided my AC70 is a nice place to be.

 

[7Enigma]

Sucked up an oto before, sucked up a couple guppy and platy, and the tail of my cory. My main tank is heavily stocked and planted and during my gravel vac's they just love to make mad dashes for the tubing. Only once was I worried (long-finned guppy) but got lucky and no damage was done.

My biggest scare was a couple months ago. I was doing a water change on my dwarf puffer tank and she made a lightning-fast motion right into the intake tube. She got about 6" in and stopped. I immediately pinched off the end and tried to wiggle her gently back but no dice. I finally very quickly up-ended the tubing in my hand and fortunately she got shot back into the tank. The reason why I was so worried was they can puff up and if that happened I have no clue how I could have gotten her out (sometimes they don't know how to de-puff not to mention the physical damage if I had to cut her out of the tubing).

 

[Evilameba]

what i do is scare them with the tubing everytime i vacumn.... they learn to stay away except fot the mollies but they are stupid and thats a given...

 

[corrado33]

My fish do a mixture of both. They like to investigate, but mostly run away from it. I'm just careful and I keep my vacuum close to the substrate so it's almost impossible for them to actually get into the tube. My betta thinks it's a toy, and he's almost always right next to the dang thing. Luckily he's too big to even think about getting in the tube itself.

 

[Ilikefishes]

My last PWC one of my new neons decided to be the first dare devil to go into the python vac. I quickly turned the switch and he swam back out. Little moronic fish.