You think it won't happen

[JamesFish]

Like most people with a tank that has a sand bottom I syphon it on a regular basis.

I have one Dwarf mothball catfish in the tank and I hadn't seen it for a while. Not unexpected as they don't tend to show up.

Several buckets later and still not seen and considering I am moving the remaining plants onto rocks or bog wood am starting to worry. Last bucket and draining out slowly into the loo. Caught a couple of snails I wanted to keep and then to my horror I see a shape swimming in the loo. Queue swearing and a quick panic on how to retrieve it. 1 empty king British algae wafer tub and some bailing out and water level down but can't get it in the tub. Lowered water some more and still no luck. Now stuck thinking what can I use. Answer kitchen roll and a glove. Into the bucket for the little catfish and drained some tank water in. Half hour later was still fine so put into a bag and floated back into the tank. Haven't seen him again since.

A rapid clean up, lots of bleach, soap and other cleaning on the bathroom and me so the Mrs does not kill me.

Does this sort of thing happen to anyone else? Or am I just crazy to go to that effort for a little catfish. Am thinking of draining through a mesh in future to avoid a repeat. I am keen to get more these catfish in future.

[Shane]

I have probably rescued a dozen fish from the toilet over the years. Happens to all of us. I now have clear plastic buckets. They help a lot.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 22746.html

-Shane

[Dave Rinaldo]

Different situation. I position my photo tank by the kitchen sink with a Gal plastic ice cream bucket with specimen(s) I'm planning to shoot in the sink. Forgot to have strainer in. This is the garbage disposal side. Fish jumps out of bucket and ends up in garbage disposal. Luckily my wife's hand fit and she was able to retrieve it!!

[bekateen]

Egads.

I've lost a couple of albino BN fry down the drain when siphoning. Now I siphon into a bucket to avoid that and add a garden sprayer with screen insert to block fish from entering my garden hose siphon.

Regards, Eric

[Bas Pels]

In tanks with small fish, I either siphon into a bucket, or use a glass jar to siphon from. Very few fishes go into that jar, so this does help me preventing siphoning fishes into the loo

[MarcW]

I use a bulkhead screen on my syphon pipe, however its not great at getting debris from the bottom, I still use a regular hose for that and spend a few minutes inspecting the bucket before I tip it away!

[Jools]

I just converted the toilet (or bog, as we call it in Scotland) to a temperate biotope and get the family to pee in the garden.

Seriously though, reminder to self to post the video of "lucky" the horse faced loach. He was some jumper....

Jools