What is the weirdest thing that ever happened to you as a fish keeper?

[FriendlyLoach]

Hey everyone,

I would say my weirdest thing was when a baby fish just showed up. I had not recently added any plants that could have had fish eggs on in, and it looked nothing like any of the fish in the tank. As it grew up I started to hang out with my neon tetras like it wanted to be one of them. 🙂 Soon it was about an inch long and it was then I identified it as a female bluefin killifish. Then I had to cover my tank for a week and when I removed the cover I saw that my killifish had a ulcer that almost was half way through the fish. It passed away as quickly as it appeared. 😞 My only guess of how it got in my tank was it jumped off a plant I was putting in a tank above the main tank and landed in there. I am not sure though. Feel free to tell your crazy stories. Here is a picture of what a bluefin killifish looks like. 

[FlyingFishKeeper]

That's sad to hear, although the part about swimming with the neons was really cute! Probably when I still had a hollow piece of plastic decor, I hadn't noticed my betta for the past few hours, and was worried he'd jumped, so I moved the table next to the stand, and looked underneath furniture, until I decided to check behind the stand where I didn't find anything, but as I was moving the stand back into place my betta just swam out of the decor like I had woken him up lol (I probably had). I still have the decor on a shelf right now. 

[Ben_RF]

One Saturday afternoon, I decided to take a nap. At that time (and well pretty much always) I kept a hexagon tank next to my bed. I go to sleep only to wakeup to water splashing on my face. As I opened my eyes, low and behold a gourami was laying on my pillow. He apparently had decided to jump out of the tank. And yes, he made it out fine as I was able to put him back into the tank. Still don't know why he jumped, for the rest of his life he would never jump again.  

[Daniel]

Just now, Ben_RF said:

As I opened my eyes, low and behold a gourami was laying on my pillow. He apparently had decided to jump out of the tank. And yes, he made it out fine as I was able to put him back into the tank. Still don't know why he jumped, for the rest of his life he would never jump again.  

Sounds like a scene from 'The Godfather'. You wake up and to your horror find a gourami on your pillow. Kinda give a new meaning to 'sleeps with the fishes.'

[Streetwise]

When I moved my summer tubs inside last fall, I caught every white cloud and moved them to a new tank, along with most of the plants. I put the tubs on racks in the basement, without lights or filters, and only half-full of water.

I came back a few weeks later to add lights, plants, and sponge filters, and caught a very healthy white cloud to add to the indoor tank. I guess I had enough active biology to keep it alive!

[Dwayne Brown]

The weirdest thing that happened to me that I still cant find an explanation for happened a few months ago. I had a big algea problem so after reducing light and doing water changes. I purchased a uv light stick and placed in the hood of my aquarium. Next day all my fish had clamped fins and were lethargic one pf my apistos died the other one never recovered and died a while ago. My tetras had fin rot and ich some even lost their dorsal fins completely and had trouble swimming straight. I removed the light did water changes dosed aquarium salt and next week everything was fine. Last month I had an algea problem again so I bought a uv light filter that is inclosed in a plastic body and its worked out fine. Nothing adversely affecting the fish has happened. Have no idea what caused the incident just wanted to share cause that is by far the most abnormal thing thats ever happened to me in the fish hobby.

[FriendlyLoach]

22 minutes ago, Dwayne Brown said:

The weirdest thing that happened to me that I still cant find an explanation for happened a few months ago. I had a big algea problem so after reducing light and doing water changes. I purchased a uv light stick and placed in the hood of my aquarium. Next day all my fish had clamped fins and were lethargic one pf my apistos died the other one never recovered and died a while ago. My tetras had fin rot and ich some even lost their dorsal fins completely and had trouble swimming straight. I removed the light did water changes dosed aquarium salt and next week everything was fine. Last month I had an algea problem again so I bought a uv light filter that is inclosed in a plastic body and its worked out fine. Nothing adversely affecting the fish has happened. Have no idea what caused the incident just wanted to share cause that is by far the most abnormal thing thats ever happened to me in the fish hobby.

Humm, that is weird. Well I think that uv lights are supposed to be in enclosed filters because the light can hurt their eyes. When I used a uv light it was in a case that did not let light out. It also I heard is bad for our eyes. I am not sure though. 

[Mansoboy]

I had some chili rasboras on a 7g, in a shelf 1 meter up of a 44g, both with lids. One day, just looking at the endler fry in the 44g, found kind of a red-shark shaped fry. It was like wow, what the hell is that.. It was a chilli rasbora! I use different siphon/tools for both tanks, so he/she may jumped one meter heigh and land down in the little lid hole for the HOB filter. Lucky/airborne guy! 

[Daniel]

None of my aquariums have lids and I used have a problem with plants jumping. I would wake up in the morning and find them on the couch.

Eventually the strange mystery was solved when I realized it wasn't so much of a jump as it was an abduction:

 

[Tanked]

After feeding it is normal for my Barbs to stand on their heads so to speak, and forage in the gravel like sheep in a field.  In another effort to grow plants in the Barb tank I installed a 6"x16" glass cylinder to protect the plants.  If kept clean, the cylinder is almost invisible. 

Returning home one night I saw the largest of the Barbs repeatedly diving nose first to the bottom,  twisting sharply, spiraling upwards and diving back down.  My first thought was that I was going to lose my favorite fish.  When I got closer I realized that the fish was inside the glass cylinder, unable to straighten out.  The weird part is this:  The Barb measures more than 7" long. The top of the 6" cylinder is 1/2" below the water line.  The lid is about 1" higher.  In order to eat the plants, the Barb must either barrel roll into the cylinder or ricochet off of the lid.  The same fish has done this twice.

[Celly Rasbora]

My ex and I found something unidentified that looked just like a clam. We couldn't believe it, so we took it to our fish guru, the Fish Doctor. He looked at it and confirmed what we suspected, a freshwater clam.

My husband said to him, "You'll never believe where we found it! It was lying in a puddle of water under the back seat of our VW Beetle!"

George didn't miss a beat, ripped it open, and proclaimed, "It's a pistachio!"

[FriendlyLoach]

I just had a new crazy thing that happened. I have collected some water hyacinths from a parks pond. I had them growing in buckets before I put them in my pond. I was moving out the hyacinths when I dumped out the water and found a crawdad flopping on the ground. I put it in one of my q-tanks. I was amazed to find it there but then figured it must have been on the roots of the water hyacinths and survived in barely a gallon of water for a month with no food. I am so surprised that just happened. I really want to keep him but don't have a long term home for him. 😞 

[anewbie]

One of my mystery snails crawled from 3 rooms away to the fridge and then sat there until i put it back in the tank.

 

I had a kili fish mysterously show up in a tank one day (probably from an egg on a new plant)

 

My angels strongly object to my cleaning their tank at times and have no problem expressing this displeasure with a nasty bite. The first time it happened well it caught me a bit off guard.

[CT_]

On 4/1/2021 at 2:59 PM, Dwayne Brown said:

The weirdest thing that happened to me that I still cant find an explanation for happened a few months ago. I had a big algea problem so after reducing light and doing water changes. I purchased a uv light stick and placed in the hood of my aquarium. Next day all my fish had clamped fins and were lethargic one pf my apistos died the other one never recovered and died a while ago. My tetras had fin rot and ich some even lost their dorsal fins completely and had trouble swimming straight. I removed the light did water changes dosed aquarium salt and next week everything was fine. Last month I had an algea problem again so I bought a uv light filter that is inclosed in a plastic body and its worked out fine. Nothing adversely affecting the fish has happened. Have no idea what caused the incident just wanted to share cause that is by far the most abnormal thing thats ever happened to me in the fish hobby.

 

On 4/1/2021 at 3:24 PM, FriendlyLoach said:

Humm, that is weird. Well I think that uv lights are supposed to be in enclosed filters because the light can hurt their eyes. When I used a uv light it was in a case that did not let light out. It also I heard is bad for our eyes. I am not sure though. 

Those uncovered UV bulbs are intended to go in your sump or in a canister.  they emit a lot of UVC that probably gave your fish really bad radiation burns (sunburns).  UVC does a lot of DNA damage in addition to damage to other parts of the cell. 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by CT_
typo.

[Fonske]

Not sure if it counts as really weird...one of my golden guppies gave birth to conjoined twins today. I watched the female struggle, she had such a tough time pushing out something big.  Eventually, two babies came out at once, both with perfectly normal head and tail, but joined at their bellies. They twisted and turned and tried desperately to free themselves of each other, with no success. I thought I'll try to raise them anyways and see what happens...but the guppy mom thought they are an easy snack and ate them on the spot. Oh well... at least there were normal babies as well and they were alive and kicking :)