Jumpers - That potato chip behind your tank

My Dried Goby

Well April's Fish of the Month didn't fare so well. One of my Diamond Gobies took the big leap. I found him after a while next to my hang on the back skimmer.

Amazingly I used to have one years ago and knew from experience that they were jumpers so I took precautions and covered nearly my entire top with glass:



Yet it found the corner pocket and went for it. I couldn't believe it as my Tunze pump covers most of the open space. Crap. Oh well. Keeping these fish in such a small tank was really hard - I had to feed A LOT more to get them some food as they mowed the sand early on. Impulse buy burns again. I still like these fish a lot, but have a bigger size tank and apparently a serious lid!!!!!

 

Matt, I'm sorry for your loss. The same thing happened to me with my true percs. One jumped out through may a 1/2" gap and landed under my old flouro light. Pinned between that and the glass, game over. This was at lunch time last week maybe Tuesday or something. I proceeded to take off the glass and leave it open water. Went back to work, came home and found the 2nd perc behind the tank on the ground. sigh.

 

Sorry about your goby Matt but I can't help but laugh at the thread title I've had my share of potato chips in the past and it's never a fun thing.

 

They look so crunchy. Man, why did the doofus do that?

 

I've been told over IRC that fish do that to escape the clutches of bad husbandry. They just cant take it and know that suicide is a better way out.

haha

 

I to have had Gobies that have comitted suicide by jumping out and then baking under the PC's. I talked to a LFS and they suggested the egg crate type material that covers flourescent light fixtures to cover ALL of the nooks and cranies.

 

Sorry for your loss Matt ..... been there myself with a Redtail Shark when I had a fresh water tank. I couldn't believe the gap he managed to needle through.

On a lighter side (and not to sound crude or heartless) I must say your pic above would make a cool avatar, looks kind of Gothic.

Cheers

 

Sorry about the goby Matt.:-/
My 55g F/W clouded up yesterday, I found a 1/2" baby
Silver Barb had jumped between the glass lid and the
glass brace in the middle of the tank, about a 1/4".
It had wedged itself in halfway across the brace.
Half inch fish in 1/4" space.

 

Samething happened to me Matt, only it was a Snowflake Morray. I just bought the eel that day. Nighttime came and he jumped.
Suggestion: get rid of the all-glass top for two reasons:1) heat build up in your tank causing water temp to elevate due to less evaporational cooling.
2) allows less light to penetrate your tank.
I would use a screen of some sort or eggcrate as mentioned by FISH FAN. this way everything stays in the tank, light is able to penetrate with greater intensity and you allow for better temp control by letting evaporation cool the water and the heat has a bigger area to be dispersed!

 

well join the club mine jumped out 1 month ago took me a week to find him looked all over the tank and that was a mess and then kitty found him for me gotta love fish jerky!