I know the title isn't literally true, but damn near enough.
First, the old giant Mbu I had bit about 1/3 of the girth out of the middle of one, and that guy is still swimming around my tank with a gnarly dent in it, about a year later. It's now the biggest rope I've seen, and chases around the others.
Then, they survived Sandy with no power for like a week. (I had battery bubblers but no heat and the tank got down into the high 50s.)
And now, a different one got struck at the base of the neck last night by one of my tentacled snakes! Mind you that these are rear-fanged colubrids, and they have a venom designed for killing small fish. I think the ropefish happened to swim through a group of mollies hovering near the snake, and it struck at it not realizing that what it bit was like 2/3 its own length.
So it's latched on and I try to scare the snake into dropping this poor rope, but all the snake does is thrash about and slam the ropefish into some decor as it runs away from me. I figure there's not much I can do, the ropefish is doomed, and I go to a depressing dinner with the girlfriend.
Come back home about 2 hours later, and the ropefish is still clamped by the base of the skull in the snake's mouth, still apparently alive. At this point I'm concerned the snake might not be able to let go, and I definitely don't want it choking to death on the ropefish, who I still assume is doomed. So I grab the ropefish with some aquarium tongs and start to pull it out of the water. The snake comes with, but once its head gets above the water it either let go or slipped off.
The poor, battered, bitten, poisoned, plastic-tong-grabbed ropefish sort of half floated over to where the overflow was, and I assumed was there to die. When I went to pick it up again with the tongs to euthenize or throw out if already dead, it squirmed away and awkwardly swam up and took a breath of air. I figured what the hell, let it go back into the swamp.
Anyway this morning I looked around and saw no evidence of a dead or mangled ropefish, and I saw one that I think might be the same one, although his wounds from yesterday (which just looked like some white scrapes around the head) were not visible. So I'm not sure, but I think my ropefish actually survived this.
Pretty crazy, these little guys.
First, the old giant Mbu I had bit about 1/3 of the girth out of the middle of one, and that guy is still swimming around my tank with a gnarly dent in it, about a year later. It's now the biggest rope I've seen, and chases around the others.
Then, they survived Sandy with no power for like a week. (I had battery bubblers but no heat and the tank got down into the high 50s.)
And now, a different one got struck at the base of the neck last night by one of my tentacled snakes! Mind you that these are rear-fanged colubrids, and they have a venom designed for killing small fish. I think the ropefish happened to swim through a group of mollies hovering near the snake, and it struck at it not realizing that what it bit was like 2/3 its own length.
So it's latched on and I try to scare the snake into dropping this poor rope, but all the snake does is thrash about and slam the ropefish into some decor as it runs away from me. I figure there's not much I can do, the ropefish is doomed, and I go to a depressing dinner with the girlfriend.
Come back home about 2 hours later, and the ropefish is still clamped by the base of the skull in the snake's mouth, still apparently alive. At this point I'm concerned the snake might not be able to let go, and I definitely don't want it choking to death on the ropefish, who I still assume is doomed. So I grab the ropefish with some aquarium tongs and start to pull it out of the water. The snake comes with, but once its head gets above the water it either let go or slipped off.
The poor, battered, bitten, poisoned, plastic-tong-grabbed ropefish sort of half floated over to where the overflow was, and I assumed was there to die. When I went to pick it up again with the tongs to euthenize or throw out if already dead, it squirmed away and awkwardly swam up and took a breath of air. I figured what the hell, let it go back into the swamp.
Anyway this morning I looked around and saw no evidence of a dead or mangled ropefish, and I saw one that I think might be the same one, although his wounds from yesterday (which just looked like some white scrapes around the head) were not visible. So I'm not sure, but I think my ropefish actually survived this.
Pretty crazy, these little guys.
my group of 3 randomly got downsized after 2 of my ropefish got air bubbles stuck in their bodies, i think it was due to the shrimp pellets they would munch on that sunk to the bottom of my tanks. Who knows