Do I believe in miracles......

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TwoTankAmin
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Do I believe in miracles......

Post by TwoTankAmin »

So, a gent was coming by today to pick up 13 L173 from me. They were one lot of 7 and the 5 lot w/ the extra bonus fish sold in this site. The fish were house in one of my tanks on the terrace (no running water). Last week I moved out the 7 from an adjacent tank and cleared another tank of the 6 fish recently listed here. Basically, I had them swap tanks. Then I netted the other 6 fish from the fish space and I added them to the 7. So I had 13 L173 in a 20L. Before he arrived today I had cleaned out the tank of every thing but the two Poret cubefilters.
When he arrived, I began catching fish. I was putting them into multiple hang-on specimen boxes. I only removed 12 as far as we could tell. One apparently vanished. So I grabbed a replacement, bigger than the vanished fish from another tank, and added it.

I had two nets. One was a brine shrimp net and the other a 4.5 x 6 inch fine mesh net. I do not recall catching any with the smaller net. Once all the fish were in three containers we took them into my bathroom where I had running water and a sink etc.

They were headed back to Boston and trying to beat traffic and got back on the road at about 1:30. I had a bunch of things to do all around the house but at about 4:20 I was back in my bathroom setting up to do water changes etc. I had 3 damp nets in an empty specimen box. When I picked them up to my amazement there was an L173 inside one of the brine shrimp nets. I know for sure I had used it during the bagging process. In catching the fish one net load had some sand in it as well. I did not want to pour sand into the bag, so I netted the fish out one at a time and then put the net into the bag water and either the fish swam out or I moved the net and it turned inside out. I used two 10 inch bags.

So the poor fish was left out of the water for just 3+ hours. But it moved, it was alive. I quickly put it into a specimen box and got so warm tank water into the box. The fish appeared fine. About 10 minutes after I released it and it swam for cover. So I guess I better believe in miracles.

I also sent the buyer an email about this so when he gets home and only finds 12 fish he won't think I had cheated him. He owes me 4 fish that were being traded my way but which he would deliver in several weeks when he would be coming to NY again and would drop them off. So if I owe him a 173 he will be able to pick it up then on his way back home.

I had no clue a little pleco could survive that long out of water. Was it a miracle or is this not all that unusual?
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”" Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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bekateen
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Re: Do I believe in miracles......

Post by bekateen »

I've had plecos survive out of water for over an hour. They were stubbornly hiding deep in caves that I had emptied out of tanks. Over an hour later, I see the fish are still in the caves so I returned the caves to the tank. Nobody died.

I'm really glad you found your fish and that it survived. Let's hope it doesn't take a turn for the worse after a day.

Cheers, Eric
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Jools
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Re: Do I believe in miracles......

Post by Jools »

Yes, they are amazing, I've seen them do this too. One of the reason they are a "good" food fish is that you can catch a bunch of them and as long as they are not directly dried out, they'll stay fresh for longer than most fishes.

Glad it worked out for "lucky" the pleco.



Cheers,


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Acanthicus
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Re: Do I believe in miracles......

Post by Acanthicus »

Hi,

I had two similar stories happen to me many years ago.

1: Back in school some friends of mine and myself took care of the obligatory school aquarium. Recalling it now it must have been between 300-350l, but with an absolutely stupid height of 120 cm it was difficult for us (6th grade) to work the bottom of the tank. However, one year we decided to give it a new look and therefore emptied the whole tank ahead of the autumn vacations (2 weeks) to come back to an empty tank and to start remodeling it. We removed everything, including the water, but 5-6 cm of sand, because we couldn't reach it and needed sand for the new decoration anyway. So we took off to our well earned holidays. Two weeks later we were prepared to put some new effort into it, started by filling the tank with fresh water and out of a sudden a common male Ancistrus sp. swam around where now fish should have been. It survived for two entire weeks in the sand. I guess we left enough water inside to keep the whole fish wet, so it was "under water", but must have been trapped in the sand without any room for movement. It did fine and stayed in the tank when we gave the control of the school aquarium over to some others three years later.

2: When I started working with photo tanks in 2002, or what I called "photo tank" back then, my second fish to photograph was one of my L 204 (undescribed back then). I got the photos I wanted, and for a reason I can not remember anymore, left the tank including the fish out of a sudden to leave it unattended for the next 8 days. No filter, no heater, no nothing, only water and a few pieces of slate for the "natural atmosphere"....
I found the fish to be alive and doing well more than a week after this, the water was down to 17 °C and still, the fish did fine until I sold it in 2008.
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Re: Do I believe in miracles......

Post by Captainandy »

What an amazing experience I had with Chris, the other day. If when I die, and come back as an L173 or 236 I hope I find my way into one of his tanks.

So many fish on eggs and so many fry scooting around.

He is so friendly and knowledgeable I could have spent the whole day chatting with him. Unfortunately, my wife kept knocking on the door, every 15 minutes (wanting to avoid Sunday afternoon traffic on our ride back to Boston) and just began talking to me today
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TwoTankAmin
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Re: Do I believe in miracles......

Post by TwoTankAmin »

Apparently luck is running through my 173. I discovered one this morning in a 5 gal; bucket on the terrace. it is in the shade, unheated and at night temps here are in the mid 60sF (18.3C range). I found a live 173 today that was in that bucket for at least a day and possibly 2 nights and a day.

Its a nice thing that the good luck of my fish has balanced put the bad luck of my mistakes.....

I can skip water changes (when I had my heart attack they went to every 3 weeks). I can have tanks go into the low 100sF (about 38C) or more, I can have them drop into the low 70s (about 23C) from a heater failure, and they barely blink.
No one has ever become poor by giving.” Anonymous
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”" Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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