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How long can wet fish live outside a tank and survive when returned to tank?

This happened to me today, before I reply with how long they were I would be interested in your thoughts
The two that were out were a 4ins Clown Loach inside a rock and a 4ins BN in a wet bottom empty tank.

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Keith

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Depends. I'd suspect if their gills were wet and they didn't dry out much in the body, probably an hour or so?

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Depends on the species and size of the fish. Obviously lungfish can survive for quite some time out of water, encased in their secreted cocoon. The thing that limits the time most fish can spend out of water is how long it takes for the gills to dry out and collapse, suffocating the fish.

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i once heard of an oscar being out of water for a couple hours and it survived by landing on a damp towel...

also my father and i caught a bass once, and brough it home three hours latre put it in a bucket and it was flopping and thrashing again, but it was a damp and cold day...

so it totally depends ont he fish's ability to protects its lungs as well as little external factors...

had a tiger barb ump out once and was completely dried on the tank stand with in two hours (baby Tiger barb)

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

I had spiny eel out of the water for 8 hours and he was a jerky when I found him. So I would say no more then 4 hours

Hi Keith,
The main thing is not how long they can last (I doubt any
of us had actually done any kind of scientific study on
this subject) but more importantly, what to do with the
fish when they are found alive.

THE most important thing to do is to get your hands wet
BEFORE attempting to pick the fish up. The dry skin against
the fish will remove scales or cause abrasions on the fish.
That, of course, leads to contamination, and infection.

Once you safely have the fish back in a HOSPITAL tank, I
would treat the fish with stress coat, or something
similar, along with a general antibiotic. I'd feed it
with a variety of good, quality, fish foods perhaps dusted
or soaked in vitamins. Keep the fish in the tank for at
least two weeks to be sure that it is fully recovered, from
it's hike, and that it has no Ich or any infection. Then
I'd put it back in it's home tank.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

About five years back I had an Orange-Finned Loach jump out of my tank sometime during the night after I had gone to bed. When I found him in the morning, he was almost completely dried to a crisp, so I'm guessing he had been out of the water for at least four to six hours. When I picked him up to "dispose" of him, I noticed that the spines under his eyes extended slightly. I put him back into the tank, and his gills started moving just a bit. I moved him around in the water for about fifteen minutes to keep the water flowing over his gills, and slowly but surely he "rehydrated". He ended up losing most of his fins and had some weird-looking skin for a couple months, but he eventually made a full recovery.

---

I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Depends on the fish. I have once heard that certain catfishes, such as common plecs, are shipped just being wrapped in wet newspaper or towel. Pterygoplichthys (common and sailfin plecs) and Corydoras species are able to breathe oxygen quite effectively through their gut giving them an extra ability to breathe even if their gills are matted. Probably other plecs also have the ability to absorb oxygen through their gut, but Pterygoplichthys are especially advanced in that direction. Labyrinth fish and snakeheads, of course, are able breathe through their labyrinth organ. Lungfish can absorb oxygen through their swim bladder, and I believe bichirs and ropefish also have a limited ability to do the same. Electric eels are able to breathe through their buccal cavity (basically the interior surface of their mouth). Phreatobius species of catfish can absorb oxygen directly through their skin, and one species is known to live out of water in wet leaf litter, and supposedly jumps out if submerged in water. Mudskippers could probably live indefinitely out of water, provided they are wet. They have a number of adaptations and behaviors for keeping wet, such as mucus on their gills to prevent the gills matting, the ability to take a mouthful of water on bring it on land, "blinking" to hydrate their eyes, rolling over in shallow water to wet their entire body, and a burrow that will hold water even in low tide.

Then you have the other extreme: some fish will die or get really close even while they're wet. While seining, I've thrown back a lot of silversides that didn't look like they were going to recover, though the stress of being caught in a seine may throw in a completely different factor than if the fish simply jumped out of the water.

Moving the fish through the water to move water over their gills can help a fish recover before they get the strength to breathe again with their own jaw muscles. In essence, this is fish CPR; in CPR, the force of the diaphragm in breathing is given by the person giving CPR.

--------------------------------------------
The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Well mine was nothing like some of those those stories.

The CL was in a hole in a wet rock for just over one hour and the big BN was about 1&1/4 hrs it was laying on the bottom of the spare tank I had. While I was redoing the tank I was spraying all the plants with tank water and there would have been about 1-2 mm of water there.

RE the eels in the wild they have been know to travel great distances at night to get to another area and that would be over dry grasses but in saying that they might only move during rain or when the air is misty.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

I once had a blind cave tetra that spent about 10 - 15 minutes out of the tank - he got caught up in some filter wool. Just of the off chance put him back in the tank and at first he just sunk slowly to the bottom of the tank, in about 5 or so minutes he was swimming around as if nothing was wrong.

I once bought some live plants from my LFS and when I got them home I noticed a pakistani loach at the bottom of the bag, he was perfectly fine, probably only out the water for 30 - 40 mins but I would imagine the temperature in those bags gets quite high!

Some of you know about my little blue betta female (who is now having the fungal infection from h*ll). She spent over an hour in my dusty desk drawer. I'd never have believed it possible.

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