Well this isn't the story of the big one that got away, but it's still a heck of a fish story...

It starts this past Christmas, oh about 6 and half months ago. Summer and I went to Santa Barbara for a week or so, leaving our 10 pet goldfish with a few self feeding pellets and a wave goodby. On our return we were feeding the fish when Summer exclaims, "where's the big white one?!!" The big white one was the largest and most agressive goldfish in the tank. I mean he was probably pusing 3 inches long here people. We looked high, we looked low, we looked on the ground around the tank, he was absolutely nowhere to be found. Not one single scale, one piece of skeleton, one fin just to remember him by.

Time passes .... and

Yesterday, 6 and a half months later we started getting ready to clean the tank. We have these amazing little sucker fish that are really good algae eaters, so we pulled the tubes and layed them on the bottom for the sucker fish to eat the algae out. A few hours later we left to run some errands and when we came back Summer walks in the door and says, "Oh my God one of our fish turned white!!!" I'm like, "what the?!!?!?" And it hit me. The white fish we were looking at was our old white fish that had disappeared over Christmas 6 and a half months ago. He was completely emaciated. Like a brook trout at 11,000 feet, his head was huge and bony, and his body was distorted and wracked with hunger. But the darn fish was alive, and you know where he lived for all that time? He lived in a 3/4" space under the undergravel filter in total darkness. Living on a diet that could only have consisted of fish poop, that white goldfish spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 days, and yesterday the little sucker had the werewithal to point his nose towards freedom and swim out. Amazing!

We realized now that he had swam down the 1" tube about 15 inches, turned the corner and gotten stuck underneath. When we came back from Christmas we put the cap back on the tube and in between then and now he never once could poke his head up because of the air which gets pumped down into each tube. I guess you could say this was a "big one that got away story" after all.

So is he eating now ? Wonder if he can make a complete comeback ?

I once had a little freshwater eel of some kind.... don't remember the exact species now, but he was kind of plain and boring, and hid all the time. Needless to say, by the time I decided to take that tank down, I had not seen it in so long, I forgot all about it.
So several months later, I decide to set up another tank using the gravel and rocks that I had used months earlier in the tank with the eel. I fill the tank with water, and out comes this slithering eel that I had not seen in several months before I took down the other tank....... let alone the several months the gravel set in a 5 gallon bucket in the closet ! That dude survived for at least 3 months in nothing more than wet gravel !!! Amazing........

Oh, and one more for you. Speaking of Goldfish, I used to catch a bunch of wildstrain Goldfish (Cyprinnis Cyprinnis...... this is what double-tailed, bubble-eyed, multi-colored, domesticated Goldfish were originally bred from) out at Grizzly Island while fishing with night crawlers for Stripers. Most people mistakenly identify them as common Carp (Cyprinnis Carpio...... this is what Koi were originally bred from). But they are in fact a seperate species. Clear Lk. has a ton of them too. Anyway, many of these ran about 5 to 6 lbs. But once I caught one which weighed 10.2 lbs !!! I hooked it in the mouth, on a Rattletrap too ! (probably snagged there by chance though) How's that for a Goldfish, huh ? Catch and Release a trophy Goldfish :-)

Jumpin' Cichlosoma Symphysodon !!! :-) How do I remember this stuff, when I couldn't even tell you what I had for breakfast ? :-)

Peace,
Fish

I am very curious to see if the fish survives. It's like a science experiment for us now. We took him out for 1 day and put him in a separate bowl with plenty of air piping in. He ate several pellets and some flakes so we put him back in the main tank and he seems ok. He always was the most agressive fish in the tank, and even though he looks terrible he's cruising around eating and whatnot. I just sit and watch him and it blows my mind that he's still alive. It's funny because when I had my bass, I fed him goldfish the same size on a regular basis and thought nothing of it. Now I'm rooting for this little guy and hoping he lives :-)

..

I had a tank of bluegills and after I got bored, we released them into my pond. I left about 2 inches of green mucky water in the tank and about 3 months later, went to clean it out and lo and be hold, under the undergravel pops out a lone bluegill. He did just fine under there, was a little confused when he had a bunch of water to swim in again though......


Moondoggie

I have a question:

Bass World West and now Swimbait both have Bass as pets, how do you go about gettign a bass legally for a home tank?

I said, when I used to have a bass. I do not have a bass any more. BWW has a permit.

you cant!......its ILLEGAL!!! its illegal to keep any sport fish in an tank!

KEEP EM' BENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's illegal with out a permit...Can a non store owner get a permit?

One time I had a bluegill in my tank that ate a 4" red worm when i dangled it in front of him one day. totally sucked it down. He never spit it out. Two weeks later i noticed something on the bottom of the tank. It was the 4" worm that had passed all the way through his gut, and had turned into a mottled brown color (sort of a nice craw pattern actually). he crapped it out in perfect shape though, including the curl tail still intact.

Gills - you gotta love 'em.

M