Jumping Discus!

[ockyra215]

Ok simply folks here is a discus jumping story with a rather happy ending for once! I have four fifty five gallon tanks on a stand I built using Hans's plans from his build I had tank leak a while back and switched it out with a 45 high i had laying around till I could reseal the other fifty five.So here is the basic layout of what in the tanks top left has my juvie grow out tank.Top right has an assortment of adult/sub-adults lower left has my angels starting to pair up and lower right has 6 subadults.So I did all my water changes last night and by accident I left the top open on the lower right hand tank and this morning I feed everyone and was looking everyone over and did my usual head count and found in the lower right tank one of my ocean greens were missing? I looked on the floor moved the sponge filter looked behind the tank and now I am getting nervous thinking hes dead and I have no other pets (cat or dog)so I was like where the F... did this fish go, So I look at my angel tank and there he is looking confused but swimming happily with my angels? I think its funny the jump he made was about ten inches from tank to tank and the 45 high is taller than a 55 by about 3 to 4 inches.
So for once I thought it be good to share a happy jumper story! ;)

[dean9922]

that's to funny....i left my lid open "once" and had a jumper also, but I did not have a happy outcome like you....

[mlov1022]

Dave, Talk about being lucky. I guess it wasn't his time yet.

[ockyra215]

If you saw the precise jump he had to do I am surprised he did it also. SO far so good! I had two other jumpers in the past I lost a white butterfly and I lost a reflection D both adults due to not properly having tops on the tanks and now I do and then this lol.

[Keith Perkins]

I lost a male red marlboro last new year's out of a hole for a HOB that was no longer being used. Ever tank is 100% closed up after that costly incident. Glad to hear for once there was a happy and somewhat amusing ending.

[Skip]

maybe he wasn't to fly like an eagle

[Apistomaster]

I use tight fitting glass covers on all my tanks to keep fish from jumping out, better heat retention due to slight evaporation losses and to keep things out of the tanks.
It is cheap insurance with many side benefits.
In over 45 years of Discus breeding and keeping I have never lost one due to jumping out.
I use plastic bags or similar to plug any essential holes in the cover because I often have some smaller fish like Tetras and Pencilfish sharing my Discus display tanks.

[mcishaque]

Now that I have a few years of discus keeping under my belt, I believe all of the jumpers I had were trying to tell me something: jumping fish = something wrong with the water.

Glad he's ok. Keep a watchful eye on them, and look for signs of stress in case there is something wrong with the water.

[Harriett]

Certainly have had jumpers as have we all, but I also had one rediculously good outcome that I still find hard to believe. I had a bunch of subadults in a 75g that had a light fixture sitting over a glass cover except for a 1.5" space along the back for filter equipment. The usual grow out set up. Something startled them and from the next room I heard the noise we don't want to hear, of discus splashing and crashing around. I ran in and did the head count and came up one short. I ran around looking for a flopping fish and nothing. I recounted. One short. Looked all around again....a couple of times. It appeared that this fish had vanished. Finally, as I was standing at one of the short sides of the tank, I happened to glance down the length of the back of the tank. There was my lost discus, perfectly still and BALANCED on his side on the rim of the tank. With one teeny push I tipped him and he fell back into the tank, no worse for the wear. As said, rediculous.
Best regards,
Harriett

[strawberryblonde]

I love jumper stories that turn out well. My first jumper was a cory who took the leap to freedom from a teensy spot in the lid of my tank. Sadly, my dog made a fast snack of him before he even hit the floor.

My second jumper was a brand new sterbai, in my new tank, about 3 weeks ago. There is a tiny gap where my egg crate top doesn't quite line up with my pvc pipe for my spraybar. The hole is no more than 1"x1". So, I started feeding my fish their breakfast that morning and to my horror, I saw the sterbai leap out of the tiny hole and fly lengthwise across the back of the tank.

I got on my hands and knees and starting searching for him under the tank stand, behind the tank, etc. I just plain couldn't find him, and eventually I had to give up and cross him off my list. Two days later I was cleaning the pre-filters in my overflow box and wouldn't you know it, there he was! He'd managed to leap and land right smack in the overflow. Poor thing was squished against the pre-filter till I pulled it out and then he promptly dove right down the hose and into the sump. I scooped him out, stuffed him back in the tank and he's been fine ever since.

[Darrell Ward]

I once had a group of 12 blue sapphires about 4" growing in a 125 with a built in overflow box and sump. One day I noticed one missing, so I searched high and low, but couldn't find it. 2 days passed, and I had given up ever finding "the mystery fish", when I heard a strange splashing noise coming from the overflow box. After getting a step stool and a flashlight, I discovered the missing discus inside the overflow box. He barely fit inside. It took a good 10 minutes to fish him out of there. That was several years ago, and to this day, I'm still unsure exactly how he managed to get between the tank lid, and the overflow to get inside the box with only a 1/4" gap.

[TURQ64]

One of my big red turk's did a fly over from my top row of tanks last month out of a breeder tank..That row is nine feet off the floor....I heard him hit the cement from the living room 40 feet away!..(he's fine, hookin' up with a big brilliant right now!)..Gary