No picture but best story I have in the last year of my tank

M

michad

So we get a Royal Gramma, wife picks it out from the local fish store. She likes the coloring.

He's a hole dweller. We never see him much, when we do he's swimming at a weird angle. Good community fish. Pretty to look at, funny sleeping positions, almost eel like in his perchings.

Fast forward to the break down of my 240. We migrated everything to ceriff's spare 75 tank, my former sump. Day one in the 75 I wake up to my sand sifting goby stiff and dead on the floor. Not bad, lost one fish in the move. A couple of days later Saltwater fish sends out their email and the first fish on the special is a Royal Gramma...I realize I havent seen ours since the move. 240's off to Killeen, all the live rock is in 44gallon brutes. Gramma's gone right. Nope. 13 days after the break down I open one of the brutes and there he is! I only opened the brute when I realize the powerhead's not running and hasnt been for almost a week.

I figured it would take hours to transfer the rock and get him out, took 3 minutes. We acclimated him for 1.5 hours and he's now with the rest of his buddies in the 75.

Now he could be dead tomorrow, shock may get him yet, here's hoping not.

My lesson is be happy with the new tank, no more break downs and if there is one, he's the first to migrate.

Cheap fish, but he's our pet and I can't believe he survived for almost two weeks without filtration, food, light or any of the normal stuff I do to take care of these guys.
 
i would say that with the rock he had food and filtration. You have to think that just one fish with that much LR thats better filtration than most of our tanks. For food i am sure there were lots of critters to eat and as far as i know most fish can live quite a while without food. Back in the day of cichlids the females would hold thier eggs for almost a month without food.
 
I know I'm young in the hobby by alot of the experienced members here, but it still blows my mind that 13 days in a tub, no heater, no light, and almost a week with no flow that he's alive and well.

He appears to be doing well in the 75.
 
the heater and lack of oxygenating are the only things that would worry me but if it was inside the temp couldnt have got to low.
 
Fish can live in pretty amazing conditions.

Back in my freshwater days, I had a black ghost knife that swam up into one of the holes in a hollow decorative rock. The hole was in the foot of the rock, so once I put the rock down into the gravel, the fish was stuck. I thought he must have jumped and the cats had gotten him. Six weeks later, I moved the rock and he swam out. He lived about 2 and a half more years after that.
 
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