One of the saddest things are fish jumping to their death...

[Don Lidtke]

I have lost two fish even with a cover. I have no idea how they are about to complete their suicide.

 

[Aldrinlights]

I had a goby jump once and now I use the white egg crate for the tops of all my tanks and you can cut it to an exact fit around your gear then nobody gets stuck on the net. It doesn't hurt the lighting much either.

 

[Birdbrains?]

I have not had any jumpers. I just keep two polymnus (and a nem). They are very used to the water level dropping radically whenever I do water changes and I try to allow them time to investigate the water surface, they also stopped being skittish after they realised that I was gonna put my hands in the tank two times each week nomatter what they did.

 

[lesterfish]

I have a crazy lucky jumping fish story to add to this thread. The probabilities of everything that happened are so low! I should have picked lottery numbers! here it goes
Added a Naoko wrasse to my tank (added at night), next morning I saw that my cleaner wrasse was picking on him. This seemed to stop a few days later. I was working from home and went to look at the aquarium in the morning, I could see both wrasses were being model citizens. Went back to my desk, happy knowing that things were good now between the fish
At around lunch time, I decided to go down (my aquarium is in the basement) and look at the fish, remember my tank has glass covers but has a small gap where the plastic hinge has been cut to allow for more light). So as i come down the stairs, i see the wrasses fighting... the naoko's wrasse then does a jump, goes through that small gap in the cover, jumps around and lands abut 10 feet away from the tank, just before my feet! I picked it up and put it in the sump to recover. Usually when I work from home I will never go to the basement till the evening, so the probability of this happening was crazy, That gap in the hinge on the cover was less than 1/4 inch wide and 3 inch long. Me going to the basement at that time was a first, the the fish jumping and landing at my feet? no idea what probability that was.. its a story that I have wanted to share, so we decided to name the naoko's wrasse "lucky!"

The Naoko's wrasse

The cleaner wrasse

The gap in the cover

The spot where the wrasse landed

Another view showing what i saw when I stepped off the stairs. I was standing there when this all happened and the wrasse landed at my feet!

Got another one for the Twilight Zone. A couple of evenings ago very late I got up for a glass of water. Stopped by the tank and there in the middle of my tank screen was my dead fire gobie. No holes in the screen and it was securely mounted. I believe there's been a murrder!

 

[MW319]

My first jumper was a clown fish so I researched getting a lid and settled on a Pisces EXO from ClearView lids. It was expensive and I think there was a 3 month waiting list when I placed my order. While waiting for the lid to come in, I had 2 more clowns jump along with a diamond goby. Below is a pick of the lid.

 

[Spydersweb]

I was feeding my fish, and absentmindedly left the lid open for just a minute to grab something. When I got back and put the lid on, I didn't think to check for all of my fish like I normally do. Later in the day, I happen to notice my longnose hawkfish wasn't in the tank. My heart sank cause he was always around. I look around the tank, and sure enough he was dried out on the rug.

 

[tonyvan]

I have a hole in the wall tank with the rest of it in the garage so appearances don’t matter. Ihave net curtains hanging all round from the ceiling and pinned to the top of the tank.
I did this after I lost a large courting pyjama wrasse.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

I've only lost two ever, but that was two, too many. A six line (saved him once but he was committed to the process) and a clown who made sure he did it at night. Contemplating a nice cover at this point.

 

[Peter_in_the_city]

I lost a jawfish that had a rough time in shipping the second night I had it. I just felt so bad for the poor thing to deal with shipping stress and die on the floor that I promised myself I'd always have a lid.

 

[Rjramos]

After losing a royal gramma and the male from a pair of neon gobies I caught myself, I decided on these clear view lids. Real happy with them!

 

[Shawn_S]

Crosshatch Trigger
Pintail Fairy

The X-hatch was in an open-top and due to harassment from a tankmate. We actually found him alive, ish, but died a few hours later in the fuge. Think the gills were too dried. That one stung quite a bit.....
The Pintail was in a 1/4" screen covered tank. He actually did it once before, but he hit the very side of the screen panel, which had enough momentum to force his way thru and landed on the next segment.

 

[Jgerm]

In 20+ years I can honestly say I have lost count. I remember some of my favorite fish and even an eel that jumped for freedom only to find floor or backside of canopy. Since tanks have gone rimless I didn’t like most of the covers till recently and I found myself getting a ClearView Pisces exo.

 

[tigre44]

One of the worst things in this hobby is fish jumping to their death. I believe it has happened to most of us and to me it's probably the worst thing besides a total tank crash and loss. Let's talk about it today.

1. About how many fish have you had jump to their death in your reefing career?

About 4 that I can remember

2. What measures do you take to make sure your fish don't jump out of the tank?
I have built a cover much I like the one in the picture

tank cover image via @Poseidon

 

[NigelRichardson]

I have a Eurobraced tank and was told that "Since most fish jump from the edge", the 3-4 inches of bracing around the whole tank is all the cover I'd need.

Anyone able to confirm / deny this theory? (No jumpers to date, but this topic does make me nervous)

 

[Westside Guy]

I purchased a Red Sea net cover the day I purchased my tank because of reading all of the posts on R2R discussing this issue. So far, so good, they haven't found a way out where I have some very narrow opening in the corners.

 

[iko2thdk]

The worse week was a blue spirited jaw fish and two others all in same day

I’ve lost fish even with a cover. Some how a prized clownfish leaped through a gap at the back of the tank and ended up on the netting. He got cooked by my lights. It was heartbreaking

 

[Buckster]

I made a canopy which has three AI's (2-26's & 1-32). I went to clean some algae from one of the overflows and something splashed. I pulled the cover off the canopy and found my scooter blenny. As I was retrieving him I noticed something else swimming and it was my melanurus wrasse. Never had this happen before and was amazed that two fish were in my internal overflows.

 

[ZoWhat]

Now that's a fish

Ottaa see the tank.....

 

[code4]

Blue spotted jaw fish jumped when I was feeding. Did not notice until that night. So unnecessary and sad. A clown, also when feeding. Tossed him back in. Still have him. All my tanks have glass tops. I hear a fish hit it at times. Hope they don't kill themselves!

 

[dmy535]

I have a rimless tank, but I definitely added a DIY screen top to ensure they stay in!