Post
by JWhipple » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:29 am
Mikey,
Did you happen to get this tree stump at Walmart? I picked up a large one for my 55 gallon after the smaller one had an instance where my pleco came in through a larger hole on top, then tried to come out the smaller hole on the bottom (smaller hole is where the root was sawed off).
The small one was great - my corys loved hiding in it, but after that, it quickly got moved to my 20, where my corys in there are the largest fish in there.
The pleco was none too pleased when I had to handle him to get him out!
Yes, fish do get caught in the most unusual places though. One of my girlfriend's Botia modesta went missing - for almost a week! We found him in the filter! I had to disassemble the filter, then pour him back into the tank. No more than 3 hours later, he was back in there. We fashioned a "block" using a small pill bottle, that allowed for water to run on each side, but leave only about a centimeter of space on each side that they could potentially get in through. Sure enough - now TWO of them got in. She then decided to buy a small pair of knee-high panty-hose, and cover the outgoing water flow so it wasn't such a concentrated stream coming in. Well, one of the modesta decided he was going to try and take the same route, but now he flopped himself out of the tank and onto the floor. He was found all dried up a few days later. BUT - after removing the hose, nobody else ever went up in there! So, I guess fish can be trained, but this one who died apparently was the alpha, and the others followed where he went. Thankfully none of them were able to follow his path, and none ever tried again!
-- Light is faster than sound... Perhaps that explains why some people appear to be intelligent - until we hear them speak!
Her color was still good and I have no idea how long she had been there. I grabbed the toy, flipped it upside down and rubbed my yoyo's belly to calm her. Then the scary part. 
I reached for her head ( yes I knew of the spikes). As my fingers got close those spikes came out. I knew that she could not free herself and would die if I did'nt help push her out. Talking to her while I contintued to reach for her head at the distance of about 1 in. from her face she relaxed the spikes and allowed me to grab, carefully twist and push her back. The only damage was some scraped skin which healed nicely without any meds. 
Chashing other smaller yoyos out of this log toy she got caught twice more (never the same holes). The last time I had to break this piece of junk to free her. Upon close inspection of the construction of this fake log I noticed that the inside of the holes were inverted, with very sharp ridges. This thing was never really designed for fish safety. Every other toy decoration I have bought has been sanded down and cut open where fish could get stuck. Careful with what you buy, inspect it closely as the makeres don't care about your fish, just your money.
Especially after you went through the trouble to actually build some protection for him(her)! I would think that trying to back up whle stuck (if far in enough) would do serious damage to thier pectorial fins. Without that control surface(s), a swimming fish is as good as dead. 
