Jumped or was pushed? A sad mystery...

Si4geckos
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Suse wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 19:02 pm :( Sorry for your loss. I was going to suggest it might have happened when taking out an item from the tank eg wood/log - I had a near miss with 3 cories when I last did this a few months ago - I checked carefully before removing and placed it in a bucket, but found them all on the rug afterwards (patterned so I couldn't see them immediately) - thankfully all survived. I will never risk taking out the wood again. But, you said you don't remember taking anything out recently, so I'm stumped.
I've done this 3 times with the zebras in caves! Check the cave, nothing in it, but they suddenly one swims out. The zebras were just over an inch long. The 397 was about 4inches though and hung out must caves. Plus I always put everything I take out in a bucket of water now, just in case I did miss anything. Baffling.
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plankton wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:55 am Sorry for your loss. :(
It is a very unusual circumstance though, especially with a lid on.
Maybe he got out during a water change and you didn't notice?
My partner suggested that, but the water level would be anywhere from 2 inches to a foot or so below the top of the tank. I only open the lid half an inch to get the hose in and don't open any other lids until it's about 8inches from the top. It'd have to be hell of a leap.
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Thanks for everyone's thoughts. It shall remain a mystery for what exactly happened. Maybe he jumped. Maybe I did remove some wood at some point and he was hiding on it and I forgot I momentarily took it out. A mystery, but regardless, very disappointing. He was a beauty! Thanks for the nice messages.
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I would suspect the moggie! They are crafty critters ( but I love them!) They have never forgotten that the Egyptians once adored them as gods. But wouldn't puss have eaten it?
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That’s really sad, sorry for your loss. 😞
I once nearly lost a big snail who climbed out and one of my dogs picked him up - no idea how he survived that. Certainly a cat could have moved your fish if he jumped out.
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Si4geckos
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Jon_D wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 20:56 pm I would suspect the moggie! They are crafty critters ( but I love them!) They have never forgotten that the Egyptians once adored them as gods. But wouldn't puss have eaten it?
The cats have never managed to get on top of the big tank. Swimming in the shrimp tank, yes, in the big tank, not yet.

I firmly believe a cat batted him out from where ever he ended up, but it's how he got there in the first place that's the mystery.

The plec was rigid. Fins flared, hairs had beck e spikes. Very hard to get something so big and spikey down its throat. Plec was about 11-12cm.
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I had never thought of plecos as jumpers nor worried about it. But then an internet aquaintance had a lot of drama with one of her tanks -- her wee kid slipped out of sight for a second after they'd been to the shops, stuck his hands in the aquarium to play with the fish, and he had industrial hand sanitizer on his skin (thanks, Covid). Within hours, fish started swimming in spirals and showing signs of internal bleeding. There were assorted corys, hoplo cats, barbs, and a bristlenose pleco. She caught everyone, shifted them into a tote with an airstone, and then had to completely sterilize the tank and restart it from scratch. Super experienced fish keeper, so she did all that and set up the tank from scratch with media borrowed from one of her other tanks. Moved the survivors back in once it was ready. Then a day or so later, she noticed that the pleco seemed to be missing, but at first she assumed that he was hiding, as plecos do (especially when stressed). After a couple days and no sign of him, she got worried. No pleco in the tank, so she started poking around the furniture and found the poor guy DOA under the cabinet. She assumed that he'd jumped. Who knows how or why, but the plec would have been pretty stressed after his ordeal, so she could only assume it was stress-related behaviour. Still pretty weird.

So yeah, they can and it happens.
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Caol Ila wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 1:24 am I had never thought of plecos as jumpers nor worried about it. But then an internet aquaintance had a lot of drama with one of her tanks -- her wee kid slipped out of sight for a second after they'd been to the shops, stuck his hands in the aquarium to play with the fish, and he had industrial hand sanitizer on his skin (thanks, Covid). Within hours, fish started swimming in spirals and showing signs of internal bleeding. There were assorted corys, hoplo cats, barbs, and a bristlenose pleco. She caught everyone, shifted them into a tote with an airstone, and then had to completely sterilize the tank and restart it from scratch. Super experienced fish keeper, so she did all that and set up the tank from scratch with media borrowed from one of her other tanks. Moved the survivors back in once it was ready. Then a day or so later, she noticed that the pleco seemed to be missing, but at first she assumed that he was hiding, as plecos do (especially when stressed). After a couple days and no sign of him, she got worried. No pleco in the tank, so she started poking around the furniture and found the poor guy DOA under the cabinet. She assumed that he'd jumped. Who knows how or why, but the plec would have been pretty stressed after his ordeal, so she could only assume it was stress-related behaviour. Still pretty weird.

So yeah, they can and it happens.
Hand sanitiser is basically just alcohol which evaporates in seconds from you skin after you apply it, I doubt that would be any problem in a tank unless the kid squirted it directly in. Its probably safer than hand soap.
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Vale!
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FishyMcFishFace wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 1:45 am Hand sanitiser is basically just alcohol which evaporates in seconds from you skin ...
Not all hand sanitisers are alcohol-based ; and even those which are may well have other, fish-unfriendly, ingredients in the 30% (according to WHO recommendations, I think) which isn't ethanol.

Google reports multiple instances of leaping plecs for reasons far less extreme than chemical poisoning.
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Vale! wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:49 am
FishyMcFishFace wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 1:45 am Hand sanitiser is basically just alcohol which evaporates in seconds from you skin ...
Not all hand sanitisers are alcohol-based ; and even those which are may well have other, fish-unfriendly, ingredients in the 30% (according to WHO recommendations, I think) which isn't ethanol.

Google reports multiple instances of leaping plecs for reasons far less extreme than chemical poisoning.
Im sure their have been, I was suggesting more due to the COVID thing that most are alcohol based and if they aren't they are pretty useless in the current environment. I was overgeneralising for sure.
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