Warning about using the Easy Planters with small fish

[Mahi27]

Just a PSA in the hopes that someone learns from my unfortunate afternoon. I had seven sparkling gouramis in quarantine. Today I went to transition them to their main tank and could only find 3. I lifted the Easy Planter I had put in there and found four of them dead, stuck in the hollow underside of the planter. So it appears smaller fish can and will hide in there, get stuck and die.

I really want to cry. I got them as practically fry, and super underfed, from my LFS. I fed them frozen brine shrimp every 5 hours for like a week to put some weight on them before even doing meds. I eventually bought the Ziss hatchery off the co-op website and was so excited to feed them live baby brine shrimp. Instead I had to bury them in the yard.

Buyer beware 😕

[Brian]

Hmmmm.  So sorry.   Are you sure?  I can not picture in my mind how they got stuck.   
so sorry...

[Brandy]

I am so sorry for your loss. In the interestt of the PSA, was the tank bare bottom or do you have gravel?

I have seen some crazy, so I am sure they could have got in there...somewhere on here is a story of an otocinclus that stuffed his head into the grate in the top of a sponge filter and hooked his gill cover or spines behind said grate--I got him out. Just today a chilli rasbora got jammed into a filter intake despite the sponge cover I had put on specifically to prevent that. Word is still not in  whether it will survive the ordeal. Murphy's law...

[Hobbit]

So sad for you. I would cry too. ❤️ Hopefully your experience helps someone else’s fish avoid the same fate.

[Mahi27]

Thank you everybody for the replies. I just want to make it clear that I'm NOT putting the co-op on blast or anything like that -- just wanted to put it out there that this happened. 

@Brian, I agree, it's quite odd/hard to fathom how this happened. @Brandy, you asked about substrate, and I do think that has a lot to do with how this happened. I was running the qt tank bare bottom. I had a fake plant in the Easy Planter, rather than aquasoil or a plastic pot, so there was some degree of access to the bottom hole meant for root growth. I also noticed that it was the four largest gouramis that suffered this fate. The three runts are the ones who made it out of quarantine. So I am thinking they were able to get under the planter, but not back out, due to their size.

Again, I agree, rather bizarre. I did speak to @Candi via email and she was kind enough to express her sympathy while also advising that the planters are intended to be used with soil/gravel or a plastic pot, which would leave virtually no room for a fish to get in there. 

I guess this is part of the process. I've been in the hobby only about a year, so I am still learning every day. Sometimes happy lessons, sometimes hard ones.

[Dawn T]

17 minutes ago, Mahi27 said:

I guess this is part of the process. I've been in the hobby only about a year, so I am still learning every day. Sometimes happy lessons, sometimes hard ones.

I agree. The hard ones sure suck, though, don't they? ☹️

[Bru]

I haven't kept sparkling gouramis but the gouramis I have kept were always curious little creatures. Ocassionally, when my fish get scared, they lodge themselves in the worst places possible. I guess we wouldn't learn as much if things always went as planned. Sorry to hear about your losses.

[Dawn T]

I had a blue gourami get stuck in an aquarium decoration some years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't find him in time to save him.  They can be way too inquisitive for their own good sometimes.