Surprise in the Ehiem

[Elblin]

Was cleaning out one of my Eheim 2262 canister filters. These are the large bucket-sized ones. I admit, it had been more than 3 months since I had last cleaned (confession to the filter Gods). Poured the water into a bucket, was rinsing out the medium, and look what I found:

I had put 6 goby fry from my pair in the tank 6 months or so ago, and two of them disappeared over time. I figured they got eaten or died or something. Looks like one got sucked up into the filter somehow and had been living in it. Interestingly it's eyes are really big, and as you can see it has lost almost all of its color. The color seems to be coming back, got it in a fry net for now. It's eating, but seems a little stunned at the lights and activity of the tropheus fry. When I scooped up a handful of medium and something wiggled, scared the heck out of me.

 

[flamechica]

Poor guy! I bet he was just as stunned as you were! That would've scared the crap out of me too! It will be interesting to see how long it takes before he regains his color.

 

[Caseyf]

That's pretty interesting.

 

[MorganEA]

That is crazy!!

 

[Betty]

I've had that happen a few times. After the first time, I started checking the water carefully before throwing it out.

This was a little demasoni in the bottom of a Rena XP canister.

 

[Madness]

I have one in my sump under my bio-balls that wont come out. I have no idea how it made it through the bio-balls and into the water below.

Good luck with your buried treasure, you will have to keep this one now, you know that right.