Fish that jump -- if they survive, do they die later?

[linda lee]

Yesterday afternoon I was pulling a few items out of my tank to frag for my daughter's nano. When we were done and the eggcrate was back in place, I walked around to the back of the tank and almost stepped on my flamehawk! I have no idea how long he had been there, but I quickly picked him up and put him back in the display. He fluttered to the bottom, landed in a perched position and stayed there.

This morning, he seems okay, but I'm wondering about the survival of fish that have jumped and are returned to the display? My tank is on a tall stand and this fish jumped from a height of about 6' and landed on a hardwood floor. Do fish sustain internal injuries from these kinds of impacts? I hope not because Hawkeye is one of my favorite fish. When I looked down at him on the floor, his eyes were moving all around, just like they do when he's eyeing me from the tank. It was almost like... "Heeeeeeeeelp!"

I'm glad my tank is not against the wall -- I'd never have discovered him and I'm glad I decided to walk around the tank one last time.

Whew!

 

[george]

Well, he hits the floor at about 12 mph or about 18 feet per second (assuming he clears the tank and falls around 5 feet).

I'm thinking that it's more a matter of how long he was out of the water.

 

[johnr2604]

LOL, I had a flame hawk with the same name.

 

[enderg60]

Ive picked up fish that were almost dry, not moving and covered in hair and fuz, put them in front of a power head to get water moving over the gills and watched them come back and be fine.

 

[linda lee]

johnr2604;216714 wrote: LOL, I had a flame hawk with the same name.

There's definitely something about the eyes... how could we name them anything else?

:up:

 

[FutureInterest]

I once had a wrasse jump out right into my hands... clearly that one made it. Another time I was cleaning the tank and one jumped out behind the tank and stand. It was a good 15 minutes till I noticed it... and it was alive when I got to it and put it in front of a powerhead... but barely. It died a few minutes later thrashing around violently... :sad: I agree that internal injuries aren't the problem but rather just time out of the water.

 

[tebriel]

I would think it would be like a human drowning, at some point there's brain/nervous system damage and we can't recover, but up until then, we have much better chances of surviving. Also, I think that it would be really stressful to fall 5 feet and then drown for a bit, so just keep an eye on him, I'm sure he'll be fine.

 

[linda lee]

I've watched fishing shows before where they catch and release. They'll often talk about the fish for what seems like several minutes while the fish is on display out of the water. I'm like "please hurry... please hurry... PLEASE HURRY AND GET HIM BACK IN THE WATER!!"

And the other night we watched a show where they were catching alligator gars and rereleasing them. Because of the size of the fish, after it hits the line, they have to wait until it actually <u>swallows</u> the hook before they play it into the boat. And then the guy says "because we care about these great fish we're going to release this guy...." Seems cruel to have yourself tugged to a boat by a hook lodged inside you and then you get to swim away with that hook? Ouchies.