Last night I was doing a water in my 350 gallon, I heard my oldest dog yelping, thinking it was a seizure (he's epileptic), I dropped everything and ran upstairs, turned out he just ran into something (also part blind) and smacked his head. I was probably gone for about 2 minutes. After I got back I went to continue syphoning and realized the flow had stopped working for some odd reason, I thought I had stopped the water flow (I use a python syphon hose or whatever it's called), so after turning the flow knob thing a few times I realized it wasn't that.. Then I realized there was a bunch of sand clogged in there, upon further inspection I saw that it was my 16" rope fish, I didn't even think he was skinny enough to fit in there.. Poor guy was probably in there for a good 10 minutes. Anyway, I took the hose apart and managed to get him out, he's doing ok for the most part, he's got the biggest hickey from his nose to just past his pectoral fins, I've got him in a small 10 gallon recovering. All turned out pretty well considering the fact that he was 1/16 of an inch away from being decapitated by the the flow control. I feel like an idiot, but at least he's alive.
Moral of the story; If you own long and skinny fish and you need to leave the room during a water change, take the hose out of the tank because they will wiggle their way in.
Moral of the story; If you own long and skinny fish and you need to leave the room during a water change, take the hose out of the tank because they will wiggle their way in.
