Did you guys ever lose a fish before and I don't mean
That it dies I be that you look in your aquarium and your fish isn't there anymore
Maybe it was a shrimp or a snail or some small fish that
Literally disappears from your aquarium only to appear outside the tank or maybe you find it
weeks or even days later perhaps
It was just hiding you simply couldn't find it some people even end up with their fish in their filtration believe it or not
But you ever hear of somebody losing a freshwater
Stingray well I did just last night
Let me explain you see every night before I go to bed. I check on all of my aquariums
Just like normal people do however I have this thing without me that I?
Also count the fish that are in the aquarium of course just the ones that are actually
Countable so for the wall room tank
I just do a visual making sure that I still have ten in there and making sure their appearances are fine
Filtration pumps all running before I go to bed and of course
I also stop by the two thousand gallon aquarium
And I count the Arowana one two three four I count the freshwater stingrays as well one two three four
Then I head over to Frank's aquarium, and I see the Bichir and Frank are doing fine
I then proceeded to count all of Frank's chins one two three four five six seven
But didn't I mention that I had four stingrays
I thought I had five I do you see I actually have
Five freshwater stingrays in this aquarium, I've got three
Black Diamond
Stingrays as well as two pearl
Stingrays and of course the four Asian, Arowana however last night. I only counted four rays
one of the black diamonds
Was missing of course these are stingrays they're gonna hide wherever they want to hide whenever they want to hide
It's not very typical for a healthy rate of wanna hide they typically only do that when they're upset or
They're scared or hiding or whatever the case might be usually rays are always out in the open with that said I thought well maybe
He's just hiding in the sand somewhere, but rays are not really all that great of a hider to be didn't with you
See they'll always have their eyes above the sand as well as their spiracles and other sphericals are right behind their eyes
And it's essentially another organ that allows them to still pass water
Through their gills which are located underneath of them while they're buried in the sand so of course
They could still breathe so I'm looking for a pair of eyes or some spiracles or anything that indicates
There's a race still in there now of course common sense states that
fish just isn't going to get up and leave of course unless it's something like a snakehead that can survive on land as well as
water in order to travel to different waterways if it needs to
Stingray simply don't do that so it has to be in the aquarium or at least close to it so of course
I thought you know he's got to be in there somewhere. I'm going to bed
But I'm not going to be able to sleep knowing that I haven't been able to count all five
Stingrays so I have to get a visual confirmation
That this Ray is still in this aquarium before I do anything else mind you it's about one o'clock in the morning at this point
And use my spice scrubber that I typically used to clean this - the actual sponge on it, and I'm just gonna go through
The sand at the bottom lightly
Just kind of move it through it see if I can get him to come out of the sand
I searched this entire aquarium. Nothing turned up so of course
You'll also see that underneath the roots of this aqua decor background. You can see that well
The ray can actually go under it so I sat here with a flashlight for about 35 minutes or so just
Peering under all of these roots hoping that he's gonna poke his nose out at some point
But alas he did not he was nowheres to be found and to be honest with you at this point
My heart sunk. He's nowhere in the aquarium
He must be outside of it so fearing for the worst I start doing my rounds
Around the aquarium thinking I'm going to find this guy
Just dried up on the floor
I mean it's probably impossible for him to do so but you know the impossible can happen I guess
The worst case or the only place that in the book was behind the aquarium
But he wasn't there somebody tell me where my stingray is please the background is hollow
so I'm back here with the flashlight looking I
Can't see anything no movement nothing of the sort, but I'm thinking well
It's hollow all around it like there's a lot of places that do touch
But there's also going to be places that there's going to be
Grooves underneath of it probably over there some I simply can't see everything so
Look like GoPro on a pole
tossed it down there with a flashlight and slowly turned it around almost like an underwater periscope or reverse periscope I
see nothing so
At this point I know he's not in the sand. He's not in the aquarium
He's not on the outside of the aquarium, and he's not behind the background I
Don't know where else I can look
until I think well maybe
He's just somewhere else that the camera can't see so I start to look over there
Like how would he get behind this it's so narrow
But I guess it kind of opens up at the bottom, so I'm trying to peer through
With this little flashlight through the cracks
And that's when I see
two little eyes
Peering back at me that I swear. We're saying something along the lines like
again
Look what I could do
this Ray was suction cup to the side of
The aquarium in the narrowest part of the background I was like oh no
First I look for vital signs is he breathing as this fish still alive
He was he was having a great old time
But how do I get back here? This is bolted in place and?
Siliconed there's nothing I can do really well the only places I actually siliconed
we're all of the seams not along the top you guys remember along the top I
drilled the background into the acrylic brace so I
Removed all of them to peel back the background
Which caused no damage at all and I was actually able to get a better look at him
First things first of course, let's make sure you're not stuck so I took this long pole
And I kind of agitated around him seeing if he would move out of the way
Which he did you is freely swimming all around back here. I thought at this point
How am I going to get my smallest big net behind here to scoop him up and take him out
without repeating the background off
That's what I thought well. Let me Chuck on a thick glove
Try to scoot him up to the top grab him by his tail
And lower him back into the tank now grabbing him by the tail is really only dangerous to myself it
Neutralizes the fish and the Rays not going to get hurt by doing so I was only worried about the spine and getting stung by
but
It'll be worth. It. Just to save you then I chickened out and we went back to the net idea
If I could just get the net back here touch the ceiling and everything I could just get the net back in there
Get it over you I bet you you'll swim off of the
The wall and into the net and I can just pull it out vertically and put you back in
The aquarium of course just wishful thinking, but that's actually exactly what ended up happening
And then of course back into the aquarium he went and
All was fine now. I'm actually really glad this happened while I was here
And I caught it right away
Because while I had the GoPro in behind the background I shut the flashlight off to see if any light was peering
from behind
The background like light leaking in through the front that would indicate where perhaps
I missed some silicone or something along those lines
And I discovered exactly where the stingray got it right back in the middle you see there was a small area
Possibly only about I don't know seven or eight inches wide that didn't have its silicone
Attached to it, and it was only a very thin gap there, but razor being a curious
Creature and being the last boat branch meaning they actually don't have any bones in their body just hardened cartilage meanings
They're pretty darn flexible almost like an octopus per se not really, but you get the idea
He squeezed in through there and couldn't get back so what am I gonna do about that well?
I'm going to cram it full of larger rocks and sand and also plant it in there
But in the meantime because I don't have the plants right now. I gotta wait until whatever
I want becomes available in the size that I actually want I
Jammed a piece of wood right in that Center
That's actually a fake aqua de coeur log as well works out perfectly it's nice and heavy
And it's jammed in there tight so they're not gonna be able to get back in there or move around there
whatsoever so again a
Potentially terrible situation turned into a discovery of something that was something I needed to fix anyway I
Wanted to share this story with you guys for a couple of reasons one
I like to be an open book and show you everything that happens within my hobby
I don't like to cover things up to appear like I'm some sort of expert things happen to me as well
I'd also like to point out that you know this was a great opportunity to
You know tell you guys just a simple suspenseful story that I think we're all gonna laugh about eventually
Especially appearing behind that and a little or they're peeking back up at me
It's pretty funny with that said. I'm just happy that I discovered this problem while I was home because this weekend
I'm gonna be away at the big fish deal in Maryland
I'll leave a link in the description below if any of you guys want to come see me talk
I'll be speaking this Friday or tomorrow night Friday night now to think 8 o'clock
I'd love to see many of you there, and of course if you ever had that fish go missing
Let me know what happened. I love these little stories. They're hilarious a lot of the times
I hear about tiny little fish and shrimp getting caught in canisters sometimes for months at a time only to be discovered later
It's always always awesome or in the backs of hang on the back filters or in
overflows or in a sump or something along those lines fish always tend to get
Caught up in those types of things anyways. I hope you enjoyed today's video
I'd also like to thank you for watching, and if you join me in a couple days. I will have a new video for you