Agony

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
H

hera

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 3, 2008
19
0
0
canada
I wish I was writing this to tell you all good news. Sadly though, I am not. Sometime on Monday while we were both at work the big guy jumped out of the tank. We didnt find him till about 9pm. He was long gone. We are taking this very hard...we cried for hours, and Tuesday was very difficult. It's slowly getting less painful, but it will take a lot of time before we can say we are over him. If ever. We miss him very much.

As soon as we learned that the catfish were the problem (thanks to you great people) we set up a temporary aquarium, and tried so hard to get those damned catfish out of the tank (even though we didn't know what we were going to do with them at that time). Its tough with a 135 gallon full of ornaments and plantlife. Our fish keeping friend was unfortunately away in Vegas last weekend, and we made a plan for him to come help Monday night and take them away. We will never know exactly what happened, whether the big guy thought he saw food and jumped for it (??) was running from the catfish, running from his itchy skin, or perhaps even running from the Dempseys who are in full on breeding mode. The LAST thing we ever expected was for him to jump out. He never jumped in 20 years... :cry: who knows if he would have still done it had the catfish already been removed.


our friend took the catfish to a store and got a credit for them, and apparently already had a credit with this store, so he added another 10 dollars or so to that and ordered us another Gar. It's bittersweet, as it wont be the same...we lost more than a fish, we lost a family member. But the remaining Gar sure seems lonely, and we think she will be glad to have a companion again. (if fish can be "glad".)

I took some pics the night before this tragedy. Pulling them off the camera just now has started my tears again, but I wanted to post this pic so you all could see what a magnificent beast he was. My boyfriend said he was really heavy. He was well fed, and led a great life.

R.I.P. Big Guy.....


ripbigguy.jpg
 
the majority of the tank is covered by the lights...you can see in this picture. Down at the right end you can see a piece of plexiglass, this was actually at the left end for quite some time and the right end was open. also at the time of the incident there was a very large "wood cave" which took up the whole right end of the tank. (my R.I.P. pic shows the edge of this cave, we removed it to get at the catfish and I suppose also for a change.) So at the time there wasnt nearly as much space there, this may have been a factor in his jumping out? anyways at that time the lights were much further to the right and the plexiglass was off (but it would have been on the left side if it was on so that is a "moot point"). other than that, the tank has never been covered. hence the suprise at this incident.

IMG_2690sm.jpg
 
very sorry to hear about your loss. losing a favorite fish, especially a longtime-pet like the one you had is always tough.

on a preventative note, with gars, always keep the aquarium completely covered...this means every virtual inch. gars can find a way to slip through even small openings, and so pieces of plastic, glass tops, or even duct tape should be used to tape off any openings. they are also pretty strong, so they can push open weak areas of tank covers (so it helps to tape things down). my gar tanks have glass tops and are taped down, and the big tank has large rock weights on the tops to keep them from pushing them open. for the safety of your other gars, i would cover up every inch of opening at the top of the tank. good luck, and again, sorry for the loss--
--solomon
 
Thanks for the advice. I suppose it was a matter of time before this happened? sure, they do a lot of splashing at the surface but we have never seen them actually come up out of the water for more than a split second. So would you say then, that if everything had been totally normal, this still may have happened? I will see to it that we make sure the tank is completely covered from now on... I hope that, at the very least, our tragedy will be a lesson to others and maybe other fish can be saved from this terrible fate.
 
All fish jump, bottom dwellers to top. They may not do it all the time, or very often, but they all have the ability to do it, even through the smallest of gaps. I erge all to have secure lids on their tanks.
 
i loss my pacus {they were huge} after 8 years ..i can amagine how it would be after 20 years..my sincere sympathy to you ..he was magnificient .:(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom