Fish

[jeffs_girl_2004]

I was just wondered what to do? Last night I was cleaning the fish tank so I put all the fish in a bowl and then when i was moving them back into the tank one got out and onto the floor, does anyone think that I have anything to worry about? It was not out for much longer than a couple seconds.

 

[fuzzyh]

Don't worry too much. Most fish are fairly resiliant to being dropped and/or being out of water for short periods of time.

I'm a fellow fish enthusiast, so I must ask the questions. What kind of fish do you have? What size of tanks? And how many?

Thanks and good luck. Ohh yeah and PM if you have any other questions about fish. I'm fairly knowledgeable, plus I have a few websites that cover most things I don't know.

 

[jeffs_girl_2004]

I have a 5 gallon tank. I have 1 neon, 1 tetra, 1 hatchet fish, a little misc fish and a Plecostomus. Thanks, it was the plecostomus that fell out and so far so good. So I think that it will be all ok.

 

[whatseekye]

if your pleco is a common pleco, they can reach a foot in length and usually need at least a 75 gallon tank. I am hoping that the fish store you got the fish from was good enough to give you one of the small variety, at the very least (although a small one can get to 6 to 8 inches, and needs something larger than 5 gallons). pleco's are notoriously tough fish, due to the armour-like skin. he's probablly fine. By the way, you shouldn't have to remove your fish when cleaning the tank, unless you had to do maintenance on something like an undergravel filter. If you need any basic fish keeping information, I highly recommend joining the yahoo group Uniquaria:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UniQuaria/

 

[andiesmama]

I agree with the comments about the pleco...we have a huge tank (well, maybe not huge, but alot bigger than 5 gallons...maybe like 25?) Anyways, we bought a pleco, one of the smaller ones, he probably got up to like 7 inches & seemed big for our tank!! But he did a great job of cleaning it!! Of course, then we moved & had to give all our fish away!! Hopefully soon we can get it re-stocked, but it's expensive to do it all at once!!

 

[rented mule]

Usually fish won't grow that large in a smaller, more confined space, but I'm not sure about plecos.

 

[jeffs_girl_2004]

We had one when I was younger and he was fine in a smaller tank. I talked to a guy at a pet store that sold them and he said that they will only grow to a certain size based on the tank size. I took the fish out cause I had to do some major work on the filter system and the gravel needed to be cleaned up.

 

[whatseekye]

I was told by people who keep them that the pleco is one of the few fish who can't be stunted by the tank so they will grow too big for whatever small tank they are in. (stunting is bad for the health and will cut short the life in any fish though) But I don't know that from experience. Only time will tell. Pleco's grow fast in the first year, shooting up to 6 to 8 inches in just a few months.

 

[fuzzyh]

With that kind of tank, I'd replace the pleco, if it's a common pleco, with either some corys, a snail, ghost shrimp or a siamese algae eater. All of those stay small and most of them provide good control for algae or at least clean up food on the bottom of the tank well. There are plecos that do stay small, but off hand I'd have to look them up. And yes fish that don't get to full growth don't live as long as other fish. Plecos never seem to stop growing. Most common plecos will grow well over a foot if they live long enough. I've seen 24" plecos before.

Anyways, I'm glad to see that there's so many other fish people here. I wish that I could have my 55 gallon tank right now, but it doesn't work out where I live now.