[teckley]

Hey everybody, I hope everyone is having a great Friday! I have an 80 gallon open top tank and about two weeks ago my snowflake clown jumped into my overflow and killed itself in the filter sock. I figured this was a freak accident since all my levels are in check and there is no aggression in the tank. So after this I decided to buy a platinum clownfish, I tried to get a smaller one than my snowflake. There was a small bit of chasing between the 2 clowns the first 24 hours and surprisingly my YT just kept to himself. About a week and a half after I got my platinum, he jumped in the same spot my snowflake did but landed outside of the tank and died I think they were hosting the overflow, but is this just a freak accident or is there something I am overlooking. BTW my salinity went down slowly from about 1.025 to 1.022 due to wet skimming but it was a slow change and I am slowly bringing it up. Is this just a bad accident?

 

[skimjim]

fish jump when they are startled. startling could be from a PH instantly turning on, lights instantly turning on. however, sometimes they are chased into a jump by another fish being territorial.

i suggest you review any equip that may be turning instantly on and make adjustment.

 

[teckley]

My radions come on gradually, and my pumps are on a pulse mode. I don't think it was equipment and I can't come up with any other reasons unless it was random aggression.

 

[rininger85]

best bet is to cover the tank... I've lost two or three fish to jumping, so despite the ugliness it's been eggcrated to keep them in the tank. it does reduce the light in the tank just slightly, but if you are running radions it shouldn't have an effect on them they'll still be plenty powerful =)

also for the overflow depending on the design might need to raise the weir up a little or something... my tank had two overflows on the back which both contained a drain and a return, I'm only using the one drain and return on the other side in the weir that I don't have draining because it has a slow leak in it on that side. Because I don't have the PVC return in the weir where my drain is there is a little cutout where the PVC would normally sit that I had little fish keep getting in to the overflow through so added some eggcrate then some plastic mesh on the eggcrate to keep them out of the overflow, then there are teeth cut in the weir so the water level does not go above it, haven't had a problem with a fish in the overflow since then.

 

[teckley]

I have been thinking about a top for a while. Do you know of any other tops besides eggcrate, glass, or mesh that wouldn't take away from the clean look of a rimless tank? I have been think having my LFS cut out a piece of acrylic for a top and cut out a section in the middle and put mesh there for aeration if you can picture that.

 

[rininger85]

eek, rimless does present a problem... the acrylic would probably be the best looking solution ...

 

[teckley]

For now I think I will risk it with open top, but will definitely consider the acrylic in the future. Thanks for the help!