Strange but true - how my gourami became stuck in a
hole, and how I overcame this bizarre problem: Strange but True
Tales of Mad fish
There are plenty of stupid fish around - with the main aim to
commit suicide it seems. If you don't believe me, some other
people have had also had nutty fish experiences....
Dave and the "flag fish".....
"My tank is 130 litres and amongst other fish I have two small bronze corydoras in it. My son gave me a "Pirate treasure chest" complete with air opening lid and a moulded plastic flag which was mounted to one side of the chest. After installing it, I noticed what looked like a pleco chip "floating" around in the gap between the chest and the "flag". I couldn't get it out, so I removed the ornament for closer inspection and found it was in fact the head of one of the Corydoras I could see!
It had managed to swim into a tiny hole and in its attempt to get out, had turned upside down and was well and truly stuck!!! The layout of its fins meant he could not or would not swim backwards and despite being hassled by the Tiger Barbs, he persisted in trying to go forwards. I flew into a panic as I did not want to loose one of these little fellas and the only way I could rescue my little buddy was to break the flag off. I put him in a small isolation tank with the stress coat and some medicine and waited to see what would take place.
Next morning I went to check on him (or her :-) ) and he was gone!!! He had jumped back into the main tank and was happily munching away with his mate even though he seemed to be missing half of his barbels(?), part of his dorsal fin (nibbled by Tiger Barbs whilst "stuck" under the flag) and some scales!!!!!!
A week later he seems to be fully functional and no worse for wear. So all's well as they say."
Nancy G and anno0ther crazy Gourami......
"Oddly enough, I can relate to your story of the stuck Gourami. I just recently acquired a 55 gal tank and am new at this fish business. Imagine my surprise when my sucker fish got stuck in an ornament. I didn't see him for a whole day and started searching for him. I had purchased an ornament that looked like it was from the Mayan ruins. It looked like rock with faces carved on 3 sides and a large access hole in the back. I thought at the time it would be a perfect place for the smaller fish to hide. Wrong! I finally spotted my sucker fish up in this thing. He was pretty large when I bought him, so he's easy to spot. I watched him for several hours and he never came out. I tried coaxing him out, but no way. Finally, I picked up the whole ornament and yep, he came with it! I pulled on his tail, but he was stuck fast and I couldn't see up in there to figure out what was going on. So my son & I performed emergency extraction surgery. I put some of the aquarium water in a large zip lock bag and then placed the whole thing in it, fish & all. We then went out to the garage, where my son used a dremmell to cut away a piece of the fake rock. I would take the rock out of the water, my son would cut for a few seconds and then I would stick it back in the water for a few minutes. We finally were able to break the rock in half and free the fish. The inside of the rock had a thin plastic bridge holding it together. The sucker had gotten his top fin stuck over this bridge so he couldn't back out. It's a good thing I didn't pull real hard, because it would have ripped his top fin off. He had a few minor scrapes, but evidently nothing serious. Well, that was 6 months ago, and he is going strong. In fact, he's doubled In size! Needless to say, I cleaned fish house after that, and now only have safe decor in the tank. Enjoyed your story!"
