Bounce
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About three weeks ago I had ordered a pair of Matted Filefish along with a few damsels for my 54 gallon corner tank in the media room that is getting "setup" again after being out of commission for a few months. I put all the fish through my usual acclimation procedure which consists of turning off the lights in the fish room (where my quarantine system is), putting each fish and their shipping water into a dark grey bucket, and slowly adding system water to their buckets over the course of a few hours. ...And of course throwing out all the shipping bags...
Keep in mind that it's dark in the room, the buckets are a dark grey color, and the filefish aren't exactly bright iridescent white.
Five hours after initiating the acclimation process I started netting the fish out of their buckets and putting them into their temporary quarantine tanks. The first five of six fish went in without a hitch. Then I got to the sixth bucket where the female filefish was. ...or at least where she was supposed to be. I started looking around on the floor of the fish room, thinking that she must have jumped out. She was no where to be found. I soon came to the realization that she must have gotten stuck in the bag and wasn't dumped into the bucket. I thought, "@#$% I killed her." Feeling like a careless idiot, I went out to the garage where I had already taken the trash from the shipping box and bags just so that I could find her corpse and at least know that I found her and that the dog hadn't eaten her or something. It was well over 100 degrees in the garage (I live in TX and my metal garage doors face West...) but I found the bag that still contained her body which was dry to the touch.
I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to take her body back upstairs into the fish room and plop her into the bucket she was supposed to have been in, but I did--knowing that she had been out in the hot garage without any water for five hours.
When her body hit the water it looked like I had chucked a dart or an arrow into the water because it moved straight forward without falling to one side. Then it went from moving straight forward to circling around in the bucket. "Uh... it's not like there's a current in the bucket..." My jaw must have hit the floor when I realized she was still alive. After FIVE hours?! I know my mom has found her koi 'walking' across her driveway after getting a little too excited in the pond and had them survive, but NEVER would I have expected any saltwater fish after going through the stress of shipping and then five hours without water in a hot garage to survive, yet this thing started swimming the instant she hit the water! I thought I still might lose her given what she'd been through, but three weeks later and she's doing just as great as her mate and pigging out on mysis and squid.
My brother named her "Destiny's Child" after some apparent survivor song.
The End.
Keep in mind that it's dark in the room, the buckets are a dark grey color, and the filefish aren't exactly bright iridescent white.
Five hours after initiating the acclimation process I started netting the fish out of their buckets and putting them into their temporary quarantine tanks. The first five of six fish went in without a hitch. Then I got to the sixth bucket where the female filefish was. ...or at least where she was supposed to be. I started looking around on the floor of the fish room, thinking that she must have jumped out. She was no where to be found. I soon came to the realization that she must have gotten stuck in the bag and wasn't dumped into the bucket. I thought, "@#$% I killed her." Feeling like a careless idiot, I went out to the garage where I had already taken the trash from the shipping box and bags just so that I could find her corpse and at least know that I found her and that the dog hadn't eaten her or something. It was well over 100 degrees in the garage (I live in TX and my metal garage doors face West...) but I found the bag that still contained her body which was dry to the touch.
I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to take her body back upstairs into the fish room and plop her into the bucket she was supposed to have been in, but I did--knowing that she had been out in the hot garage without any water for five hours.
When her body hit the water it looked like I had chucked a dart or an arrow into the water because it moved straight forward without falling to one side. Then it went from moving straight forward to circling around in the bucket. "Uh... it's not like there's a current in the bucket..." My jaw must have hit the floor when I realized she was still alive. After FIVE hours?! I know my mom has found her koi 'walking' across her driveway after getting a little too excited in the pond and had them survive, but NEVER would I have expected any saltwater fish after going through the stress of shipping and then five hours without water in a hot garage to survive, yet this thing started swimming the instant she hit the water! I thought I still might lose her given what she'd been through, but three weeks later and she's doing just as great as her mate and pigging out on mysis and squid.
My brother named her "Destiny's Child" after some apparent survivor song.
The End.
