[aquanerd13]

The title says it all. My craziest is when my single amano shrimp had a bunch of babys. Then they were eaten by my platy. I haven't been in the hobby very long, so I don't have many stories to tell.

Bump: Sorry it was actually a cherry shrimp.

 

[ntdsc]

I got some water out of a bird fountain, and I thought they were butterfly or moth inch worms, that I decided to put in (5 of them), but they may be nematodes or even small tape worms. As I use that container for drinking water, I'm extra careful to pour back anything moving, but I decided to keep them as I don't have anything else living in there.

 

[aquanerd13]

umm. ok then. I hope you have good medical insurance lol.

Bump: BTW WELCOME TO THE PLANTED TANK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish you a happy hobby and lots of baby fish.

 

[ustabefast]

I once had a male Endler's livebearer who would attack all other males he encountered. He would chase one into a crevice or corner and attack him relentlessly.
He was a terror. Never seen an Endler act like that before or since.

I resorted to flushing this little bully down the toilet. I'm not proud of this, btw.
Anyhow, an hour or so later I returned to the toilet, and to my chagrin, he was still in the bowl, swiming around!

 

[aquanerd13]

wow. just wow. What did you do with him? Do I want to know?

Bump: I guess they are hardy fish lol.

 

[ustabefast]

At the time, I was a newby and had no other tanks.
So, I flushed again.
I still feel guilty, lol.

 

[aquanerd13]

I think he learned his lesson the very very hard way.

 

[RCB]

This may fall under the titles description. While shopping in Chinatown, I went into the vegetable market which is right next door to a fish market. Live fish of all types are sold there. To dispatch a customers live fish, the monger gives it a swift whack and puts it into a Pink plastic bag. As I was waiting in line to pay for my vegetables a customer at the front of the line was getting her groceries rung up. All of a sudden that Pink plastic bag began to jump up and down on the counter.

Apparently the fish monger didn't whack the fish hard enough. Ive never seen bodies move so fast, myself included. After a brief moment, we all got a laugh out of what just happened.

 

[aquanerd13]

That is downright hilarious!!!!

 

[Blue Ridge Reef]

I've had at least one aquarium running since I got my first one on my 6th birthday. Over those 44 years probably averaged around 6-10 tanks at any given time. Lots has happened, or "gone wrong" over that time span. I had a snowflake moray eel that I thought was eaten by a grouper and then found him on the floor dry and stiff days later and threw him back in the tank for the triggers to eat. After about 6 hours he reanimated. And kind of "shed his skin," that's one I will never forget. I had a neon tetra once that ate the eyes out of other fish. I refused to believe it was that fish until I saw the behavior myself. I fed him to a pike cichlid on the spot and never had a one eyed or blind fish again. I still believe I might have been the first to discover the "electric blue gene" in my breeding pair Jack Dempsey's but pretty as those fry were they were slow to free swim so I euthanized like an idiot. I grew a scolymia coral from a bud which is said to be impossible but I have photo evidence. I bought a catfish from the LFS in the early 80's that could shock the [email protected] out of you and did more than a few times. I once had a big predator tank and sold off the cichlids and while getting it ready for new fish a kuhli loach was just sitting on a rock pleased as pie. That had been a predator tank for YEARS. Similarly, I found giant breeding cherry shrimp in a tank I'd unplugged and left fallow for ages. It was unheated in my cold garage and I know it got to the 40's at least. When I went to drain it to start it over, I there swims a 1.5" cherry! I found baby white clouds in a bucket of exchange water that had sat stagnant for weeks, had a lid on it, and was never fed -nothing should have lived in there. I once found my (unidentified species of) octopus in one of my freshwater tanks. He not only left his marine tank and ventured into another but either never opened it or closed the lid behind him -it was the only way out. Did not survive the ordeal, sadly and I never kept cephalepods since. Will probably remember more reading these, great thread!

 

[aquanerd13]

You have quite the stories. Neon tetras and piranhas are in the same family after all. lol. Octopi can squeeze out of like 1" openings. I guess eels are made of steel or something. Kind of like weather loaches.

 

[Quint]

Various eels in the parents shop would go missing, as long as they were found in a decent period of time they usually lived once reintroduced. Reed eels and those all black ones that look like small electric eels (forgot what they are called) were both the best at surviving out of water. Had to peel them off the carpet a few times.

We had a queen trigger (store pet) that in order to clean the aquarium I had to take a sponge on a stick and hold her in the corner and quickly wipe the plexi front which had many bite marks in it. She was about 6-7" and very very fierce. Pretty much dumped any freshwater fish on its way out in there and she would devour them within seconds. A fun fish for sure.

Got smacked by a mantis shrimp once. Didnt know that it had come in on some live rock. We noticed fish were disappearing from that tank but had no idea why ..... until I just about had my finger broke lol.

There was always something going on in there but I dont remember most of them, been a long time.

Not fish but the store iguana who would chase you for pizza was pretty funny, the tokay gecko that roamed the store was not as funny (those things are mean SOBs).

 

[minorhero]

When I was about 7 or 8 years old I had a 10 gallon community tank. I know now it was overstocked but it worked for many years. In that tank was a common pleco. I got it when it was only an inch or two long. One morning when it was around 8 or 9 inches long I found it floating belly up. I got my net and pulled it out. Put it in the toilet when all of a sudden it starts swimming. I netted it back out of the toilet and put it back in the tank. After that every few weeks or months I would find it floating belly up and I would poke it a lot to see if it was dead or not.

Eventually it was really dead. Floating belly up, wouldn't move even if I poked it or tried to pick it up. So I netted it, poked it some more... stone dead. Put it in the toilet and the darn thing comes alive again and this time swims down the hole. I can't get my net down there so I proceed to have a pleco in the toilet for the next 3 or 4 days.

I even feed it while in there trying to get it to come to the surface so I can net it.

It all comes to an end when my father used the toilet and flushed it. He never knew it was there since I never told my family. To this day they still don't know that for the better part of a week the toilet was a fish holding tank.

 

[aquanerd13]

I guess I will stay away from eels lol. And geckos that look like they have smallpox. And a pizza-eating Iguana. In Costa Rice(I have been there twice) at a big fancy ocean-view hotel called Parador, they have wild animals everywhere and the Iguanas sit on the back part of the hotel in the restaurant seating area. If you have to go to the bathroom, when you get back your food will be gone. Especially the fruit and omelets. And then the sloths that hang out in the tree over the swimming pool... Good memories. Mantis shrimp are mean little jerks. One reason I don't want to do a reef tank. Yet.

 

[OCDiscus]

I accidentally left calcium + magnesium in my backpack on my way to catch a plane. It was in the middle pocket I almost never use or look into. Anyways, it goes through the X-ray machine and gets pulled aside. They call over a few friends and ask me if it's my bag and tell me that they need to check it out. So they pull out these two large bags full of white powder :icon_eek:!! I told them it's for my fish tank and they replied "that's what they all say" LOL. I was laughing about it with them after they were done testing - but they were definitely ready to arrest me. I check that pocket before every flight now.

 

[aquanerd13]

I accidentally left calcium + magnesium in my backpack on my way to catch a plane. It was in the middle pocket I almost never use or look into. Anyways, it goes through the X-ray machine and gets pulled aside. They call over a few friends and ask me if it's my bag and tell me that they need to check it out. So they pull out these two large bags full of white powder :icon_eek:!! I told them it's for my fish tank and they replied "that's what they all say" LOL. I was laughing about it with them after they were done testing - but they were definitely ready to arrest me. I check that pocket before every flight now.

Oof. Scary! I will make sure not to do that lol.

 

[Jamo33]

Back when I was around 14 I had a large finally, 75 gal. Stocked said tank with many many fish, didn't know anything about keeping fish or cycling yet, in particular 6 clown loaches and a red tailed black shark, tetras etc etc.
So after a while my clown loaches started to drop one by one. I couldnt understand what was happening as they looked healthy and all other fish were doing okay.
Well it turns out that the biggest of my clowns and the shark had formed a bond. Both would sit under a log together and when another fish approached they would bash the living #$%# out of it. Seriously brutal stuff. Think, James bond strapped to the chair and that guy swinging the rope, that bad. This duo tallied up to at least 15 fish until I decided to separate them. Shark sadly died at age 5 and the clown continued till 10 which leads me into my second story.
Not done with his bullying I found it hard to locate this fish, he moved a couple times between varying sized tanks. Finally ended up in a 20gallon (too small a tank again), which he started wreaking havoc in.
Well one day I get home from work and I soon after hear a noise from downstairs. Went to check out the noise, baseball bat in hand and could not figure out what was happening. Flapping it sounded like.
Looked around, located the area and found a bunch of files with water on them. After looking into an envelope I saw mister clown loach lying there looking slightly pickled. Threw him back in the tank and all was good again.
Covered tank and thought that was it...wrong. 3 more times I got to him in time, the fourth attempt had old clowny finished. Leathered and stiff his final resting place had him sitting upright underneath the cabinet.
To make a short story long huh. Sorry everyone

 

[aquanerd13]

Back when I was around 14 I had a large finally, 75 gal. Stocked said tank with many many fish, didn't know anything about keeping fish or cycling yet, in particular 6 clown loaches and a red tailed black shark, tetras etc etc.
So after a while my clown loaches started to drop one by one. I couldnt understand what was happening as they looked healthy and all other fish were doing okay.
Well it turns out that the biggest of my clowns and the shark had formed a bond. Both would sit under a log together and when another fish approached they would bash the living #$%# out of it. Seriously brutal stuff. Think, James bond strapped to the chair and that guy swinging the rope, that bad. This duo tallied up to at least 15 fish until I decided to separate them. Shark sadly died at age 5 and the clown continued till 10 which leads me into my second story.
Not done with his bullying I found it hard to locate this fish, he moved a couple times between varying sized tanks. Finally ended up in a 20gallon (too small a tank again), which he started wreaking havoc in.
Well one day I get home from work and I soon after hear a noise from downstairs. Went to check out the noise, baseball bat in hand and could not figure out what was happening. Flapping it sounded like.
Looked around, located the area and found a bunch of files with water on them. After looking into an envelope I saw mister clown loach lying there looking slightly pickled. Threw him back in the tank and all was good again.
Covered tank and thought that was it...wrong. 3 more times I got to him in time, the fourth attempt had old clowny finished. Leathered and stiff his final resting place had him sitting upright underneath the cabinet.
To make a short story long huh. Sorry everyone

Dang. Even somewhat peaceful can be mean. It depends on the personality. A leathery clown loach. To bad. I guess he got what he deserved though.