Last week I had a lengthy power outage due to snow & blizzards. I managed to save both my tanks by a mercy dash to borrow a generator and some pretty massive water changes. The best part of two days was spent nursing fish back to health, adding powerheads to increase oxygen, and carrying endless buckets of water round the house.
By yesterday morning, everything seemed back to normal with the exception of a 14 inch black shark catfish which, normally reclusive, was swimming around his tank - not agitated, just more active than usual. I know that species is sensitive to changes in the water parameters, so I figured he was probably a bit unsettled by the big life-saving water changes. So I went out to work.
Came home to find the black shark dead and dried out on the living room floor. The weird thing was that the lid on the tank (pretty heavy) was sitting precisely in place. He had somehow managed to jump out, knocking the lid up in the air, and then the lid must have fallen back into place as neatly as if the edges had been lined up with a slide rule.
The black shark came with a second hand 5 foot tank full of Malawi cichlids about a year ago, and wasn't really what I would have wanted. In fact, I'd been trying to work out what to do with him if he got much bigger. I guess he solved that problem himself.
By yesterday morning, everything seemed back to normal with the exception of a 14 inch black shark catfish which, normally reclusive, was swimming around his tank - not agitated, just more active than usual. I know that species is sensitive to changes in the water parameters, so I figured he was probably a bit unsettled by the big life-saving water changes. So I went out to work.
Came home to find the black shark dead and dried out on the living room floor. The weird thing was that the lid on the tank (pretty heavy) was sitting precisely in place. He had somehow managed to jump out, knocking the lid up in the air, and then the lid must have fallen back into place as neatly as if the edges had been lined up with a slide rule.
The black shark came with a second hand 5 foot tank full of Malawi cichlids about a year ago, and wasn't really what I would have wanted. In fact, I'd been trying to work out what to do with him if he got much bigger. I guess he solved that problem himself.
