something flopped in that bucket
Being that it's late October and Halloween is here
I thought I would share with you guys one of the scariest stories that has happened to me within the aquarium
Hobby it was about six seven maybe a little bit more years ago that
I rescued an alligator gar, and I've actually told this story before
Basically an alligator gar was dropped off at a pet store
[that] was located a few hours away it ended up in my hands for a couple of reasons
[within] my area at the time I was one of the people with a large freshwater aquarium, and they were not that common then
They simply were not sold locally you either had to build or custom order them in Etc
Which was extremely expensive for me. I was building them and at that time
I had a 240 gallon plywood aquarium, and everybody knew it
So it made sense for [people] to say hey, why doesn't joey just rescue it at the time
I thought it was a good idea as well
I thought it was the right [thing] to do so after a couple of days of finding someone to bring it to me
We actually ended up arranging a time and date
I had to leave work to go and do this, but I did receive the alligator gar one night
my first mistake was not having a
large enough quarantine tank to monitor this fish in I actually had to take the fish and
Pretty much just add it to my main display tank
That was my first mistake, but not the biggest hey, what do you think think you should go outside to finish this story?
[who's] a bit chilly out here, but they'll make a lot more sense
Why I'm out here in a moment. So once the fish was in my tank. It wasn't long before
It started eating and it acclimated nicely. It seemed like everything was gonna be okay until
[one] night
No, I should also add that this tank was actually in my bedroom meaning that this tank this 240 gallon
Tank was only feet away from my bed
Which at the time wasn't a big deal the inhabitants at the time were a couple of silver Arowana?
['s] and a couple of mo toro freshwater stingrays that was it so one night
We are was obviously sleeping and then I heard some real bad thrashing
from this
from the aquarium coming from the aquarium obviously and I looked around and
Actually, I didn't look around
I turned the lights on to the bedroom and I realized that my the alligator gar was attacking my
[Arowana] and these were just silver Arowana
But they were wild caught and they were a little bit more expensive than you would typically pay for a silver Arowana
[the] alligator Gar had one of the [Arowana] in its mouth like a dog bone. It was literally swimming through the water like a
Like a dog with a big bone in its mouth
it did get to spit the
the silver Arowana out but the damage was pretty bad and
The fish didn't end up surviving from that
It wasn't long after that that I also found one of I found the second 8/8 I found the second silver Arowana
lying Dead outside the tank because the
Lids were slightly opened and the [gar] probably scared it out of the tank so at that point. I was down to
Silver Arowana [Z--] well, I believe that's the order in which it happened
This was again seven years ago at least so you know it's not something that I try to remember
but it is what it is, so
Again [at] this point, I'm looking for somebody to take this fish. You know it's killing my fish it's it's causing me a problem
It's gonna be eight 10 feet long however long's [is] gonna grow. It's I'm not gonna be able to care for this fish
Long-term it's Gonna Cost me thousands of Dollars
you know tens of thousands of dollars to build an aquarium thousands and thousands of gallons to house this fish and then the
ongoing costs of hundreds of dollars per month all
For what this isn't my hobby this isn't the hobby that I wanted I didn't want to have this fish so again
I'm looking for somebody to take it somebody to do something with [it], and I was even
Actually, I'll tell you what happened next [so] one night
Again this happened at night time and there were moon lights in the tank
And there was a night light in the room, so this wasn't a completely dark room where the fish could just completely freak out
I'm sleeping [again], and my wife is in the room
And this is really bad because when these things happen and your significant other is around to experience it
It makes it really hard to be able to be allowed to continue in this hobby
But we're sleeping there and we hear a loud
Smash and this time it was a smash not splashing water or anything or commotion?
this was a smash we both wake up and
There's glass everywhere and the alligator gar is dead on the floor it smashed through the lids of the tank
These were really heavy-duty lids when you look at your aquarium lids
They might be glass and if they are chances are they're only maybe two millimeters thick not a lot [of] money goes into those lids
Perhaps you have acrylic lids and those are definitely much more durable, but these were six millimeter thick what a 30 gallon
tank is made out of 33 gallon aquarium are typically all made of that and most 55 gallons for that matter and
the alligator Gar smashed directly through it and
From what [I] could tell it was dead [on] the ground
It was late at night. I decided I'm [gonna] clean up the glass from the tank luckily
It didn't kill the rays or hurt the rays in any way and I
Took the guy which was still
Apparently dead and threw it in an empty bucket it had no water in that [bucket] was little just an empty Bucket I
Figured I'll deal with this guy tomorrow. I can't flush them. I gotta find some way to dispose of them
It's 3 4 o'clock in the morning. I gotta be to work tomorrow. I put him in a bucket put him outside
Actually, it was just a bucket much like this one just your plain average bucket. Nothing special to it next morning. I wake up
And I forget all about the arowana or I'm sorry the guy being outside, but I do remember what happened
[I'm] on my way to work, and I get outside [I] closed the door
This is basically what it sounded like get inside of my house
close the door and
I hear this
Okay, that's me kicking a bucket, but what you hear what I heard was something flopped in that bucket
Mind you we're outside in late October and a night time is dropping [down] towards the zeros
Meaning that the freezing point in Celsius. I'm not in Fahrenheit
Which means that nothing should really be surviving out here in the night time let alone [a] tropical fish
But one thing you don't know about gars or that you might not know about gars. Is that they can survive out of [water] for
sometimes extended period of time they're an extremely durable fish, they're not a
prehistoric fish and have survived millions of years for no reason [I]
Looked in the bucket, and it's still alive [its] breathing it's it's looks like it's doing just fine it
Just doesn't want to be in a bucket. It wants to be in some water. [I] rush it in the house
I fill up a big rubbermaid tote container was about 50 gallons and [chucked] the gar in it mind you this is a
two-foot-long gar this is a large fish and
Then it acts like nothing's happening
It was shortly after that that I found a home [for] I believe two days later. I found a home for a
Gentleman locally got it and then shipped it at west somewhere where a person
I don't really know the rest of the story and this experience for me made me realize that
Tanks are really not built to withstand
impacts of a large fish
Nowadays though, I don't do anything the way [I] used to for example [for] my lids
I'm only using these polycarbonate lids
There's no fish that's going to be able to break through those I guess with everything that happens within your hobby
you can use it as a learning lesson, so that has been my horror story for
October and as well as halloween [I] guess I kind of wanted to go with the theme of
Halloween although that is not that has actually not been my biggest disaster. I've had worse and
Perhaps one day, I'll tell you about them, but for now
I'd really like to about your guys's disasters or mishaps or anything that has [happened] to you?
So let me know in the [comment] section below
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed today's video, and I will see you guys next week [for] a new topic of the week