Funny moments in your fish-keeping experience

[Just a Pygmy Corydora]

Share some of the funniest moments you had when keeping fish!
I just looked at my 5.5 gallon betta tank and my nerite snail is trying to escape. It is out of the water, and I have no idea why it is trying to escape. Should I pluck it back in the water?
Once, one of my pygmy corydoras were sleeping diagonally with its head in the water and its tail on the gravel.

[FrozenFins]

I had a simillar experiance with my nirtie snail yesterday too!

Dobby was ontop of Hugos feeding ring, maybe he thought I drop some food in for him? It was probably because dobby like the biofilm on it, but none the less still funny.

Honestly I would just keep an eye on your snail,  making sure he doesnt escape. You could also just plop him right back in. As of why, maybe Aurora said a bad word? jk

Edited May 18, 2021 by James Black

[Fish Folk]

Once, while on vacation, we caught a bunch of “wild guppies” swimming in a little creek behind our guesthouse. We brought them home. We’d never heard of Gambusia (Mosquito fish). Well, they got shoehorned into a 5.5 gal. Feeling bad for them... and wanting to provide a nicer environment... we tried moving them into a 20 gal with a few fancy goldfish. “Goldfish are huge and slow!” we thought. “What could go wrong?” Within 2 minutes, that wolf-pack of Gambusia had corralled those goldfish into every log, hole, cave, ornament — you name it. They were BRUTAL! Needless to say, they were removed, and never shared a tank with another fish again! 

[Just a Pygmy Corydora]

9 minutes ago, James Black said:

I had a simillar experiance with my nirtie snail yesterday too!

Dobby was ontop of Hugos feeding ring, maybe he thought I drop some food in for him? It was probably because dobby like the biofilm on it, but none the less still funny.

Honestly I would just keep an eye on your snail,  making sure he doesnt escape. You could also just plop him right back in. As of why, maybe Aurora said a bad word? jk

Is he FINE? Like won't my snail die or anything? If he is going to die I have no clue why he would go out of the water in the first place! LOL.

[TheDukeAnumber1]

One of my mystery snails tried to climb into a DIY CO2 bell diffuser. It was very amusing watching it fully climb up into the pure CO2, then see it in snail slow motion fashion slowly droop down, "pass out", and drop back into the water.

[Daniel]

Like @James Black and @Catfish_Lover_Jane I have had escapees. But the mystery was my escapees were plants.

I would wake up in the morning and find Vallisneria having jumped out of the aquarium.

Then one day the mystery was solved! Turns out my cats have a sense of humor.

[FrozenFins]

6 minutes ago, Catfish_Lover_Jane said:

Is he FINE? Like won't my snail die or anything? If he is going to die I have no clue why he would go out of the water in the first place! LOL.

Your snails fine! Snails are okay out of water as long as they stay "moist". Sometimes shippers wont ship snails in water but instead inside a plastic cup with a damp papertowel. 

[Griznatch]

That time when I took a sponge out of my HOB filter on the 75 gallon.. and something ran up my arm. After some pretty colorful exclamations and a few limited dance moves (I was on a stool), I realized it was one of my missing amano shrimp. I still look everything over before digging around in there 🙂

[FreshwaterFacet]

Once I was doing a water change with my Water Python in my black molly tank. All of a sudden I heard a "thunk" and saw something rushing down the tube and out to the other room towards the laundry room sink. I panicked thinking it was a fish so I darted towards the sink.. tripping over the 50 foot long python hose. I get to the pump at the sink to find it was only my very small marimo moss ball that I had propagated. It wasn't funny in the moment but we laugh about it now! 

[Max G]

I was looking around a fish store with my mum when she tapped me on the shoulder and was quite concerned as to all the fish in one tank were all dead. I looked at the tank and then had to explain to her that clown loaches are weird and sleep on their side! Deffinately put a smile on my face. 

Side note: does anybody know why loaches sleep like this? 

[Lemon]

6 hours ago, Max G said:

I was looking around a fish store with my mum when she tapped me on the shoulder and was quite concerned as to all the fish in one tank were all dead. I looked at the tank and then had to explain to her that clown loaches are weird and sleep on their side! Deffinately put a smile on my face. 

Side note: does anybody know why loaches sleep like this? 

staying upright is too hard 🤣 note I haven't kept clown loaches or even seen them except for in videos

[H.K.Luterman]

I know it's completely normal behavior but I always smile when I see my featherfin moseying around upside down.

 

And I always laugh when I see my big senegal bichir doing this...

He usually does it when he's been playing in the bubbles and is just having a grand ol' time. My little bichir has started doing it as well, so I have a couple of wiggly boys now.

Edit: Oh, and have I mentioned I taught my blood parrot to go through a hoop? Because I taught my blood parrot to go through a hoop, lol.

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by H.K.Luterman

[Lemon]

I love your fish, they are so quirky and funny

[Brandy]

He has 4 pellets in his mouth and can't close it. 🐷

[lefty o]

probably watching me try to feed my shoulder high 120 right now after i had shoulder surgery the other day.

[Solidus1833]

Listening to my dojo loaches make 'machine gun' sounds at the water surface in the evening will always get me.  And, dont get me started on the clown loaches. ARE U DEAD!?! oh.. no ur just sleeping... Watching them play water polo with bladder snails is also extremely entertaining. 

[Ryan F]

Got all done cleaning up after a water change. Corydora goes up for "air." Splashes water on the ground. It's just a few drops. But still!

I've also been splashed in the face by the little buggers.

 

[CorydorasEthan]

14 hours ago, Ryan F said:

Got all done cleaning up after a water change. Corydora goes up for "air." Splashes water on the ground. It's just a few drops. But still!

I've also been splashed in the face by the little buggers.

 

Mine do this all the time too, especially the albinos!

Another thing I find entertaining is the Corydoras playing in the air bubble curtain at the back of the tank. They just swim up there and swim against the current. Apparantly they really enjoy it, because they spend at least 30 minutes a day doing it:

 

[Just a Pygmy Corydora]

Yes, I searched it up and google said: 

Corydoras catfish have a labyrinth organ that allows them to breath atmospheric oxygen. ... Although corydoras are bottom dwellers you will frequently see them come to the surface for a gulp of air.

[Hobbit]

I think my funniest moment would have to be the day someone on this forum posted about a portal in their tank. I was laughing at everyone’s stories... and then i turn around and find a neon tetra in my shrimp bowl! 😮 😮 

 

I could NOT believe the timing. Of course after a little sleuthing I figured out it had jumped from the quarantine tub. It was just a very lucky fish to have landed in that particular 6” circle. Two of his mates weren’t so fortunate.

Actually, that reminds me of another one: when I was working in an ecology lab, we had set up an experiment to test how long a fish had to be in a bucket of water before we could filter the water and find fish DNA. The idea was to establish a protocol for testing river/lake/pond water for DNA of invasive species. (Which we later did quite successfully!)

We had maybe 20 buckets with one fish in each, and I was just standing there checking out the fish, when one of them took a flying leap out of its bucket and landed in a different one! Uhhh... well, that will mess up the experiment! 😆 I ran downstairs to tell the grad student in charge and he promptly covered the rest of the buckets in screens.

[NanoNano]

New user,  so in late to this thread.  

Picked up four juvenile Sulawesi King Snails about two months ago and admittedly did not do great research on them.  Turns out that their wild habitat is tidal areas and they spend 50% of their time on trees above the waterline.  Also turns out that they are also world class escape artists even working as a team to "heave ho" lift the tank lid together.  My family has taken to calling me "snail warden" as I've been relegated to doing "bed checks" on them every couple of hours.  When I woke up yesterday,  there was only three of the four in my tank.  I frantically checked all around the tank, emptied the stand, got on my hands and knees to look under nearby furniture....no luck...exasperated, I rolled by eyes up to the ceiling and low and behold there was #4 about 7 feet up on a wall.

[Chlo]

Probably most of the funny moments I have had are when I do something disastrous that is funny when I look back 😄 Those things include: siphoning half my tank's water all over the floor without noticing, filling water into my tanks but accidentally missing and pouring water into an outlet instead (!!!), trying to pour out a heavy bucket of water into the shower, but instead managing to flood the bathroom...Yeah you get the idea😅

My mystery snail also tries to escape, and I've also seen (and heard!) him munching on my frogbit which is unfortunate but kind of funny to watch at the same time

[JettsPapa]

For me it was when I bought some freeze dried brine shrimp.  I thought to myself "I'll put one cube in the tank and see how long it takes them to eat that one, then decide on how many more to add."

Big mistake.  That little cube started absorbing water, and expanding, and throwing off brine shrimp, and I thought it was never going to stop.  I didn't know what to do, but I finally I managed to dip out a bunch of it and throw it away.  After that I never fed a whole one again.