Crazy Reef Stories

garcia64 · Jan 17, 2019

As the title goes, share your crazy reef stories!

When I was setting up my old tank a few years ago, I had set up all the sand and dry rock without actually putting water into it. A few days pass, and I finally get around to adding water. As the tanks started to fill up I realized there was a turd floating in the tank..... I was like WHAT?!?! Turns out my cat at the time jumped into my tank and decided to use it as a litter box. I decided to let the tank cycle for a few months before adding ANY livestock. That tank ended up growing everything I put into it.

Moral of the story, cat ammonia can grow some crazy bacteria!

nautical_nathaniel · Jan 17, 2019

Well I don't have anything to top that but my Flame angel is definitely not the norm for wild caught fish. When I got it, I asked the LFS to feed it to see if it had a good feeding reaponse and it started eating like I wanted so I asked the worker to bag him up for me to take home. In the process he bagged up some of the food (live brine and frozen mysis). Despite being bagged up, the fish started eating in the bag and acted like nothing was going on

I get it home and it is still eating in the bag as I temperature acclimate it. As soon as I let it loose it starts begging for more food. I halfway thought this was someone's former pet that they gave to the LFS but I was assured that it had come straight from the supplier. It is still the chillest fish in my tank and will actually get in my hand while it is in the tank

ianryd · Jan 17, 2019

I was swapping tanks and had put all my fish and corals in a QT with crushed coral. After transferring all the livestock to the new tank, and draining the QT I looked at my buddy who was helping me and asked if he moved the Scooter Blenny (We call him Flying Mantis). My buddy said that he had not, in fact, moved Flying Mantis. Well, I hadn't moved him either, and there was no sign of him in the tank. I looked all around the QT to make sure he hadnt jumped out or something. Still no sign. So I just figured he stowed away on a live rock or hard coral and would show up eventually. Well 3 days went by and I still hadnt seen him. I figured he was dead somewhere. On the 3rd day I decided to get the last of the water out of the bottom of the QT. I stuck my siphon hose in the water, and the crushed coral substrate started moving. IT WAS FLYING MANTIS! In all the commotion, he had burried himself, and survived in an inch of water with no heat or oxygen! I quickly got him out of the QT and began the acclimation process. The next morning he was swimming around like nothing happened! Now I call Him Jesus because he rose from the dead after 3 days!;Woot

garcia64 · Jan 18, 2019

ianryd said:
I was swapping tanks and had put all my fish and corals in a QT with crushed coral. After transferring all the livestock to the new tank, and draining the QT I looked at my buddy who was helping me and asked if he moved the Scooter Blenny (We call him Flying Mantis). My buddy said that he had not, in fact, moved Flying Mantis. Well, I hadn't moved him either, and there was no sign of him in the tank. I looked all around the QT to make sure he hadnt jumped out or something. Still no sign. So I just figured he stowed away on a live rock or hard coral and would show up eventually. Well 3 days went by and I still hadnt seen him. I figured he was dead somewhere. On the 3rd day I decided to get the last of the water out of the bottom of the QT. I stuck my siphon hose in the water, and the crushed coral substrate started moving. IT WAS FLYING MANTIS! In all the commotion, he had burried himself, and survived in an inch of water with no heat or oxygen! I quickly got him out of the QT and began the acclimation process. The next morning he was swimming around like nothing happened! Now I call Him Jesus because he rose from the dead after 3 days!;Woot

Haha I love the name too. Fits him perfectly!

MSB123 · Jan 18, 2019

Mine is short:
I have a lot of clownfish. I had been gone all day and when I got home, I walked into the room and I had 5 clownfish on the carpet in front of my tank. I have a camera and so I tried to figure out how long they had been out. It was close to 20 minutes!
They all survived, and as it turns out, my clownfish jump when my pumps do a ramp cycle!

My other story is also with a clownfish.
I was shipping it out that day and I was doing a WC and I had her in a net hanging from my canopy. I drained the water, forgot about here, and she was left out of the water for ~30 minutes. I freaked out when I realized and quickly got her back into the tank. She is fine to this day!

KrisReef · Jan 18, 2019

I was working in a lfs and one of the other clerks was telling a customer about an aggressive ~12” eel that had just come into the store from the wholesaler. He directed a small group of interested fish geeks over to the tank with the eel in it. With a goldfish in a net in one hand he proceeded to open the lid with his other hand. Before he could put the goldfish in the tank this eel swam up from the rockwork and out of the tank and latched onto this guys finger. He yanked his hand away in horror and the eel went flying onto the floor. We carefully returned the devil fish to its tank and the clerk went for first aid to stop the bleeding from the deep puncture wounds in his finger.

Sailingeric · Jan 18, 2019

I have a firefish I have had for about a year, it was in DT for a couple months and went missing one day. I figured it had jump out and became a kitty snack. About 6 months later I was cutting out some chaeto I have in my sump in a plastic weave basket (poor man's refugium) and I heard this plop sound when I stood up. I look back under and there he was on top of the chaeto. I moved him back to the DT and it took about a month before he came out regularly. Some how he got sucked into the sump, over my divider, over the top the basket and had been living with no real room in the chaeto basket for all that time. I feel bad that I did not get him some therapy after that.

My other one is I got a yellow striped cardinal fish from another reefer who was breaking down his tank. By the time I got home it was floating upside down. I quickly put in a small bucket with some tank water and got an air stone and did fish CPR on it. After a few minutes it started to come around. After a couple of hours it was back to normal. It is still kicking about 8 months later. We call her Stella since she got her grove back.