Clown's amazing journey....

[AndySmithers]

I woke up this morning and could not find my largest percula anywhere in the tank.
Since I had to go to work I left my wife to search when the lights came on.
When I came home I still couldn't find her anywhere.
I was just about to start moving rocks to find the 'body' when a relay clicked in my head - the overflow (hang on type) was making more noise than usual.
I checked and stuck down by the filter sponge in the overflow was the clown!

She had somehow jumped into the overflow in the tank (about 1" above water level), been sucked around the syphon u-tube and got stuck in the outside box.


Well, I carefull lifted off the overflow box (luckily I had plumbed it with flexible tubing) and emptied the poor fish into a bucket and then straight back into the tank.
She's a bit stressed obviously and also one of her side fins is swollen and she's not using it, but otherwise she seems OK.

What's the view is she likely to survive OK or will a damaged fin like that cause her real problems? Any experience?

BTW - I figured out that she probably slid along the spray bar in her sleep - this gets close to the overflow box - I've moved the two further apart now...

[BillyZ]

she'll likely be ok as long as other fish in the tank leave her be to recover. If you notice other fish poking and picking at her you would be best served seperating her into a QT tank until she recovers.

as far as how she ended up in the overflow, she may have also jumped. fish do that from time to time. I don't know any hard facts as to why but I have heard many different reasons from fish trying to escape poor water quality to fish not having enough food (they're trying to get to "somplace else with more food") etc. like i said, no facts just hearsay. You might want to consider some sort of screening on your overflow to prevent fish and other snails from getting cought in the future.

[Calvin]

I'm sure she will be alright. I had a little chromis get sucked into a fluval intake when I was doing some maintainance on the tank. She was stuck inside the canister for some 5-6 hours. Once she got out it was a day or so before she was back to normal.