I Almost Killed A Fish

[Corleone]

Wow, I guess fish getting stuck in the siphon is more common than I'd though.

A trick I use now, make a little loop in the siphon and hold it with your other hand. If a fish starts getting sucked up, squeeze it to cut off the flow. You can unleash a little cloud of fish poop doing this, but it also gives the fish a chance to escape.

Just yesterday, this saved me from getting a snail lodged in my gravel vac. My small siphon doesn't work anymore because a good sized trumpet snail is stuck about halfway down the hose.

 

[shelaghfishface]

i have done this with a small clown loach , didnt see him then "plop" into the bucket,if i remember correctly he made a full recovery tho even if he was a bit dizzy for a while
dont beat your self up, i bet most of us have done it, i have lost count of the fry i have hoovered up, but i always checket the buckets just incase

 

[LauraFrog]

The power of fish fin regeration is absolutely astounding. there was a story a while ago on one of the Australian fish forums about this zebra danio. It got trapped behind a filter, the blood supply to the tail was cut off, and part of the caudal penduncle along with the tail fin fell off. The owner noticed the fish could still swim and decided to let nature take its course. The fin grew back... the lobes were uneven, and the stripes were not present, but it still grew back.

I have also seen, myself, amazing recoveries after betta fights. Read as: Big betta jumped the divider and beat the crap out of little betta. The little betta lost half of each ventral and the entire anal fin - yeah, the whole thing about 3mm from the body. It's growing back, and it's even recovering its original colour. Some of the rays are bent - but it's still there. I'm using melafix.