Panic in the fish room...

Since I had moved the goldfish outside and they will be coming back into the 55 g at work I had an extra, cycled tank.  I planted it, got a heater and decided to take the plunge with some live bearers since I loved the colors available.  
Last night I went to my lfs and decided on Platies since they were in the colors I wanted and I like their size and, let's face it, they are easy and inexpensive.  Besides, they will take the extras back if and when they breed.
The tank is 29 gallons and is cycled so we decided to start out with 14.  I have been in there so much lately that I let the young fish guy select for me.  
Got home, floated them while I fed the dogs and chickens, then it was time to release them.  I have a wonderful tupperwear gallon measuring bowl/mixing bowl so I took that and my trusty net and opened the bag to begin drip acclimation.  I do not know what happened, but suddenly the open bag, the net, the pitcher and ALL the fish hit the floor.  I immediately put the remaining four fish still in the bag into the tank and added some water to the pitcher and started grabbing fish.  The ones that landed on the scatter rug were easy... I just picked them up.  I ended up having to find a piece of heavy paper to slide under the ones on the floor, but finally got all the ones I could see into the tank.  I picked the net off the floor and discovered two of them had actually landed IN the net, lucky fish, as well as one that was left in the bottom corner of the bag in my haste to gather the ones on the floor.
Surprisingly, everyone looked okay, so I started counting.  Twice I came up with unlucky 13, so I searched around on the floor and found one more which had slipped under the stand (a big wooden dresser).  More counting, and now I kept coming up with fifteen???  I discovered one little baby, only about 1/2 inch, so figured he got put in by mistake or by the guy being nice.
I turned the light off and reluctantly left them, expecting to find several (or more!) dead this morning.  
That tank light is on a timer so when the light came on at 6:30 this morning I jumped out of bed and gave them a bit of food.  While they were eating I counted again and kept coming up with fifteen still, whew!
I got home from work tonight and rushed in to count them all again... a little more food and they all rushed up to eat which made it MUCH easier to count them... still fifteen and still looking great!!!
I have no idea how in the world they all survived... it was at least a four foot drop to the floor and some of them were on that floor for what seemed like forever.  I am now glad I went with "easy" Platies and not tiny little guppies!!!

You know, I never drip acclimate. If the temperatures are equal, I pour the store bag through a net into a bucket, and put the fish right in. I throw away the store water - the last thing you want in your tank due to possible pathogens.
To me, minimizing water transfer is the most important consideration.
I don't like to float if there isn't a big difference in temperature, and to leave the fish in the bag because ammonia accumulates quickly. I'm a believer in getting them out fast.

Normally, I only float, and that is because I need to find my net and trusty pitcher. This was to be my first drip try!!
I used to put the fish AND water in until I thought about how nasty that was, now I use the net over the trusty pitcher and pour them into the net and then into the tank. I have never (knocking on wood!!!) had any new fish die in the first 24 hours, so I guess I have been doing it okay.
With so many in the bag he did add oxygen, but I am only ten minutes from the lfs, so even that isn't much stress, not as much stress as falling on the floor, I am sure!!!

Wow - I can just imagine the stress you went through! Just reading about your experience caused me to feel panic!! This must have been an awful thing to go through - good job, you were diligent and caring during this whole thing...keep us updated! phew!

Whoa stressful situation. I think we all have had close encounters like this ... good to hear it worked out

Whew!!! So glad this came out well for you!

My worst was a 20 year old 77 gallon that was thankfully in a cement floored room with a floor drain. I was admiring my fish one day when I saw a bead of water at the top of a front seam. As I walked toward it to investigate, it literally opened and water began to squirt out in a sideways sheet. The seam split about a foot - halfway down the tank.
I didn't know when the split would stop though, if at all.
Before I could grab siphons etc, it had lost 20 gallons. I saved all the fish though.

Sometimes I am wondering what's so peaceful about our hobby..

Now that we have arrived at 'horror' fish stories:

I have a 180 litre bowfront tank in Mexico and the stand is made by a local carpenter from solid wood.

One time I came back from a trip and the tank had only about 10 cm of water left. The tank had ripped open exactly where the bow was. Turned out that the weight of the tank had caused some of the wood to bow and therefore it was no longer level. All the weight came on the bow and it cracked open.

Amazingly enough my fish were still surviving in that minimum amount of water! At that time I even had otos in there.

After that the carpenter came in and put an extra reinforcement so the tank was level again. Until today I still have it.

Uh oh.
I will defenitely keep an eye on my homemade tank stand! :O
It's currently holding a 46G!

Just make sure it is level and you should be fine. The problem was also that since it is a bowfront and it was lower in the front, all the weight came on the bow...

With a rectangular tank you don't have that problem so much.

Well, I have a bowfront!
I know it was level when I set it up. I'll check it out tonight after being set for 6 months now.

That is a good idea. My stand was level when I got it but the weight (water plus decoration) was what delevelled it so to say.

Wow, I would have panicked for sure. Glad things turned out ok.

so happy everyone is fine!
what a scary thing to have happen!
our 7 yr old son accidently bumped into the pedestal stand that I had one of the betta tanks sitting on...the entire thing toppled over water and all and fish!
I moved fast grabbed a cup from somewhere (strlll don't know how it got there but thankful it suddenly appeared filled it with water and scooped poor Terence up in my hand and threw him in...the tank is now sitting somewhere else!!!!!!
so happy to hear your fish are well! very frightening!

After all your experiences I am happy to only have dropped a bag of fish!!! I am still surprised but all fifteen are looking great and seem perfect.

Just shortly after Christmas I came home around 10:30 pm to find the 40g tank in my sons room was displacing water onto the floor. I couldn't find a leak anywhere so I presumed a crack in the bottom. While trying to decide what to do the leak stopped on it's own after losing 1/10th of the tank water. A few months went by an I filled the the tank above the line where it had stopped before. Couple of days later, water leak. This time it stopped a little further down. Two weeks ago, came home from dinner, water on the floor again. This time I put the fish in a plastic storage container and emptied the tank. No cracks anywhere, the silicone was just old. Removed silicone and resealed with the fish in the storage container for a few days. All is back to normal now. Still have about 1/3 of the fish sitting in the container waiting for warm weather so they can go outside. Everytime I empty a planted tank I am surprised by the number of fish that are actully in the tank.

nyleveiam, I can imagine your panic and mad scramble to gather up all the fish. Amazingly, fish are often tougher than we think. I've had a few carpet surfers over the years that when returned to the tank seemed to be no worse for wear. Glad everything turned out ok.

I found one smaller platy dead behind a plant this morning. It looked fine, and unlike those that seem to die from disease, it was still in full color and had no spots or marks on it at all.
All the rest seem fine, but that one did as well last night. I am still amazed that more weren't lost!

so sorry to hear this...

nyleveiam wrote:I found one smaller platy dead behind a plant this morning.  It looked fine, and unlike those that seem to die from disease, it was still in full color and had no spots or marks on it at all.  
All the rest seem fine, but that one did as well last night.  I am still amazed that more weren't lost!

Oh no - sorry to hear this. You are an observant and caring finned baby parent - continue to keep an eye on them, and keep us updated...

I went back and got some more platies...I LOVE the varied colors!  So far, I really am enjoying watching them.  I was worried the males would spend all their time chasing the girls but so far it's not a problem.  Of course, they are probably still quite young.
Speaking of young, this time I discovered a real baby hitch hiker in the bag.  It is about a half inch and orange with lots of black speckles and black tail and fins.  Really cute.
And, this time they all made it into the tank on the first try!!!
I have no idea what the various colors/markings are called but out of twenty fish I have about 19 different colors!! I really like the variety, but they certainly are little pigs when it comes to eating! I am feeding them about the same amount I was feeding the twelve goldfish previously in that tank.
I assume if they breed ( perhaps that should be WHEN they breed?), the colors will most likely revert back to the basic orange types much like some of the different colored flowers that end up all the same color after a few generations?