Ever find long lost fish in weird places?

[Naekuh]

My dad is big into freshwater and had some massive fish in his tanks, in particular a Pleco the size of my 10 year old forearm that he would pet on its belly whenever he walked by. One day it disappeared, 8 years later he was reupholstering the couch and under the end that faced the tank, about 4 feet away, it was completely mummified, stuck in a small fold of fabric between the sofa and the floor.

how did he not smell that?
Id think a fish that big drying out would of made the room smell.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Oh wow

I feel like I have to tell the story again! many years ago I had a big display tank and I got a little baby orange shoulder tang. Yellow completely juvenile coloration, and one day it just disappeared. I forgot all about him for quite a while. Maybe a year later I poke my eye in the overflow, the tank was pretty tall so I didn't look in there very often and sure enough there was a fully mature old shoulder tang living in the overflow.


So I got him out put him back in the main tank,

the very next day the darn thing jumped out and found him on the floor.

 

[Paul B]

I found a couple on top of my lights. They didn't look good.

 

[Cthulukelele]

After my tank crash when our power was out I saw no fish for 6 months. Didn't even feed the tank. One day I walk by and there's a completely normal not even emaciated yellow watchman goby perched on the sand just watching me like nothing had happened.

 

[buruskeee]

RobsReef just found his Mystery Wrasse thriving in his sump/fuge after a couple years of it gone missing when he broke down his 600G system to reboot lol

 

[Cthulukelele]

Since most of these stories don't have happy endings heres a happy ending that ywg is still alive and probably somewhere between 7 and 8. Here's a photo from last week. Finding that fish is probably what reinvigorated me to keep the tank going a few years ago

 

[vlangel]

Since most of these stories don't have happy endings heres a happy ending that ywg is still alive and probably somewhere between 7 and 8. Here's a photo from last week. Finding that fish is probably what reinvigorated me to keep the tank going a few years ago

Awww, that is a happy ending story. I love it!

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

1) When I was first in this hobby it was the 90's and I had both salt and fresh, which I do again today. When I got divorced I had to break my tanks down (2). The fresh was a 90G that I gave the LFS most of my fish. I couldn't get all the Kuhli Loaches out and my divorce forced a quick call. So, into storage it went, which was a detached garage built in the 50's in Rochester New York. The tank had about 1.5 inches of substrate and about 3/4 of merky water on top of it. For some reason I put the glass lids on it and tossed a canvas painters tarp over it for fear of freezing/cracking. 1.5 years later, I go to sell the tank. I start scooping the substrate out and there are Kuhlis all over the place. Nuts.
2) I have a RedSea Max500 I am going to break down for a transfer this summer. These tanks have that back weir system (that is really an aptasia farm). I've left that back lid off from time to time. In the last 6 months there are 3 fish that are no longer in the display. Because I retro'd the sump to tank a roller and a fuge it's nearly impossible to access anything more than 8 inches in. I am really curious to see if I find anything when I break this tank down.

 

[littlefoxx]

Since most of these stories don't have happy endings heres a happy ending that ywg is still alive and probably somewhere between 7 and 8. Here's a photo from last week. Finding that fish is probably what reinvigorated me to keep the tank going a few years ago

Mine was MIA for a year! Saw him a few months back just hanging out. Knew my shrimp was okay since he kept popping but the goby just popped up out of no where!

 

[Reefering1]

In my freshwater days I kept a red devil and Jack Dempsey. Fiddler crabs consistently went missing. When moving, years later, I was finding dead fidler crabs across the house. I had no idea they can travel that far out of the water.
Fast forward to my reef tank.. I collected and added a sand dollar from the beach, to the tank. It quickly disappeared. It was 3 inches across and I hadn't seen it in months, figured it was dead. A year later and there it was, front and center on the sand- alive and healthy. Vanished in hours for another year, then there he is. I'm hoping/ expecting to see it again in the next month or 2

 

[H@rry]

I have 3 tanks plumbed to a common sump and return pump. The outlet from the return pump goes into a manifold back to each tank. Several times I have found a fish in the "wrong" tank. They had jumped into the overflow, got sucked up into the return pump, went through the pump, and spit back out to another tank. They looked pretty beat up but survived. A Chromis and a couple of Gobies. That could have happened more often than I know because there is a 33% chance that they could go back to the same tank they left from.

If somebody had told me this and I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd think it was a lie!