AnimalKrazed
Aquarium Advice Activist
So I have only been a member of this forum for about two-ish weeks at the time of this post and I have been browsing to see if there was a thread for funny stories that we forumites have had involving our fish. I was kind of surprised that I couldn't find anything that resembled what I had in mind so I thought I would start the thread for it here.
What I have in mind for this thread is that anyone can post funny or weird stories involving the fish they have kept here. These stories can range from any funny thing a fish did, a the story of how you learned a lesson, something weird that happened in-the-tank/with-your-fish. I know that there are bound to be plenty of these kinds of stories just floating out there. I know that I have more than a few from the years of fishkeeping that I did before the hiatus and I already have a couple from the weeks I have had Buck, my betta.
Example Story:
I am pretty sure that most people of the more enthusiastic hobbyists here on the forums know what it is like to take a community tank that you have had for a few years and turn it into a tank for a more aggressive species. For me, when I did this, I replaced my peaceful 55 gallon community tank of Angels, Dwarf Gouramis, African Dwarf Frogs, Plecostomus, and other such species with African Cichlids.
Now, this story isn't about what my experience with African Cichlids was like or anything like that. To be honest, my experience with African Cichlids was pretty good up to the point in which my family left on vacation for about a week without a housesitter. We came back to a cannibalized tank with only two living fish in it, one the murderer and one who was too fast for it to catch. I blame the LFS guy for that because, as I have since learned, not all African Cichlids can coexist in a tank with one another...the guy had sold me a Demonsi for a mixed African Cichlid tank. frakking stupidity on both my part and the LFS guy in hindsight (but considering I was 12 or 13 at the time and the (twenty something) guy claimed to have his own cichlid tank at home...I am unsure of who to blame more). Anyways, like I said before, this story isn't about that. It is about what I found cleaning up from that.
While I was cleaning the tank, after taking the survivors to the LFS place, I was unearthing everything that was resting in the gravel. I removed plastic plants, a sunken pirate ship, hollow rocks, everything. Well, when I was removing the hollow rocks with plants something fell out from inside and swam for the nearest covering. I'm not ashamed to admit that I freaked out and started hollering. My mom came up and asked what I was fussing about and I told her something had come out from inside one of the plastic plant rocks. Anyways, we took out the rest of the decorations and loe and behold the thing that had apparently been in the tank was an African Dwarf Frog that had somehow managed to evade our grasp when we were readying the tank for the cichlids...and managed 8 months in there with the cichlids themselves. We were baffled and decided to keep him. That little guy survived until I gave up on fishkeeping for high-school which was a while after.
Second Example:
This is a more humourous story example. It is really just about what my Betta has been doing this week. He has been figuring out how to get himself stuck in the tank in the most frustrating ways for me. The first time I could understand, since I was just trying out a 1-3 gallon filter I got for him. Didn't work out, he managed to get himself stuck behind the body of the filter somehow. I immediately removed it, since I was observing how it went to make sure nothing bad happened. He has since also managed to somehow pin himself underneath a plant and tunnel rock, as well as between the thermometer and the wall. Right now, I have removed the tunnel thing to figure out how to prevent that from happening again. Right now, since the tunnel incident happened 5 minutes ago, the spot where I had the tunnel thing placed before putting back in the gravel is showing glass so I am currently seeing Buck just doing a headstand flaring at himself... My fish is so much like my child self it isn't funny. I used to get stuck in my hide and go seek spots all the time and now Buck is doing the same.
Anyways, hope to read a bunch of funny stories soon.
What I have in mind for this thread is that anyone can post funny or weird stories involving the fish they have kept here. These stories can range from any funny thing a fish did, a the story of how you learned a lesson, something weird that happened in-the-tank/with-your-fish. I know that there are bound to be plenty of these kinds of stories just floating out there. I know that I have more than a few from the years of fishkeeping that I did before the hiatus and I already have a couple from the weeks I have had Buck, my betta.
Example Story:
I am pretty sure that most people of the more enthusiastic hobbyists here on the forums know what it is like to take a community tank that you have had for a few years and turn it into a tank for a more aggressive species. For me, when I did this, I replaced my peaceful 55 gallon community tank of Angels, Dwarf Gouramis, African Dwarf Frogs, Plecostomus, and other such species with African Cichlids.
Now, this story isn't about what my experience with African Cichlids was like or anything like that. To be honest, my experience with African Cichlids was pretty good up to the point in which my family left on vacation for about a week without a housesitter. We came back to a cannibalized tank with only two living fish in it, one the murderer and one who was too fast for it to catch. I blame the LFS guy for that because, as I have since learned, not all African Cichlids can coexist in a tank with one another...the guy had sold me a Demonsi for a mixed African Cichlid tank. frakking stupidity on both my part and the LFS guy in hindsight (but considering I was 12 or 13 at the time and the (twenty something) guy claimed to have his own cichlid tank at home...I am unsure of who to blame more). Anyways, like I said before, this story isn't about that. It is about what I found cleaning up from that.
While I was cleaning the tank, after taking the survivors to the LFS place, I was unearthing everything that was resting in the gravel. I removed plastic plants, a sunken pirate ship, hollow rocks, everything. Well, when I was removing the hollow rocks with plants something fell out from inside and swam for the nearest covering. I'm not ashamed to admit that I freaked out and started hollering. My mom came up and asked what I was fussing about and I told her something had come out from inside one of the plastic plant rocks. Anyways, we took out the rest of the decorations and loe and behold the thing that had apparently been in the tank was an African Dwarf Frog that had somehow managed to evade our grasp when we were readying the tank for the cichlids...and managed 8 months in there with the cichlids themselves. We were baffled and decided to keep him. That little guy survived until I gave up on fishkeeping for high-school which was a while after.
Second Example:
This is a more humourous story example. It is really just about what my Betta has been doing this week. He has been figuring out how to get himself stuck in the tank in the most frustrating ways for me. The first time I could understand, since I was just trying out a 1-3 gallon filter I got for him. Didn't work out, he managed to get himself stuck behind the body of the filter somehow. I immediately removed it, since I was observing how it went to make sure nothing bad happened. He has since also managed to somehow pin himself underneath a plant and tunnel rock, as well as between the thermometer and the wall. Right now, I have removed the tunnel thing to figure out how to prevent that from happening again. Right now, since the tunnel incident happened 5 minutes ago, the spot where I had the tunnel thing placed before putting back in the gravel is showing glass so I am currently seeing Buck just doing a headstand flaring at himself... My fish is so much like my child self it isn't funny. I used to get stuck in my hide and go seek spots all the time and now Buck is doing the same.
Anyways, hope to read a bunch of funny stories soon.