Carpet Surfing

[Hugh Mann]

Today I had my very first experience with a fish going carpet, or in my case, cement surfing.

My bluestreak wrasse, I named it Blue, decided to go on an adventure while I was off to the hardware store. Found the tiniest opening in my otherwise solid lid.
This wrasse survived velvet, 7 weeks of copper treatment and living in a system with only 2, and then 1 other fish. And today, probably annoyed because I moved my tank to the basement, chose to end it all.

Who else has had a fish take that final leap?
Is there anything we can do to prevent it, beyond closing up as much of the top as possible?
How long can a fish typically survive on the floor for?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Sorry this happened. What kind of tank do you have? You could always put a screen top on it.

 

[Crabs McJones]

I had a couple fish go surfing on me. A DIY screen top or a custom made screen top would he best to help prevent it.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Dang sorry about this! I’ve had it happen multiple times sadly. The worst are the fish you have had for so long!!

 

[Hugh Mann]

I actually have a lid. Two panes of glass with handles epoxyed on. Pieces of acrylic to fill the gaps around the hob filters.
Guess it just found the perfect wrasse sized hole.

I am down to a Marine Betta, Maroon Clown and greyfaced moray, the latter two are both in QT.

 

[Bapeluso]

Not exactly the same, but I used to have a 75 system I had transferred from octopus research for a college course into a fowlr tank. The tank was completely sealed airtight every night. There was an overflow with a sump which the top of the overflow met with the lid of the tank. In this system, I had a chain link eel that was about 2 ft with a diameter of almost an inch. Swear to God, every morning I would wake up, search high and low for him, and hed always be in the sump. Donno how, I had the overflow also screened off with the plastic mesh material kids use for introductory knitting and whatnot. Hed manage his way through that, down the drain pipe (which was capped at the bottom with slits cut into it with a saw) and into the sump... every day routine until he then tried to make his way back up........