The X-Files: Earthly Happenings or Alien Encounters?

by Reet Thomas, Jr.
First published in The Darter, Missouri Aquarium Society
Aquarticles

Have you ever had something so strange happen in your fishroom, a happening so weird that you can't explain it? You've talked to all your friends (fish experts), pet shop owners, fishologists and anybody else who would listen. No one has an answer. Well maybe you have a story that belongs in the X-files, a 55 gallon aquarium filled to the brim with folders stuffed with stories so strange that they can't be explained. If you decide to read on be warned that your hobby might just be blown out the water, so to speak.

* Charley Zesch had a 20 gallon high aquarium, divided in half by a tight-fitting glass. So tight that a baby guppy would have a hard time squeezing thru. One side had a male bristlenose, the other side a female. One day Charley came into his fishroom and found the male guarding eggs. The female was still on her side of the divider. Did the female discover how to climb over the partition, spawn and then return to her side? Did some mysterious force intercede, and assist the female? We will never know, but it did happen two more times and the eggs did hatch.

* Charles Harrison enters a killifish in our annual show. It wins first place. About thirty minutes later when  the judges return to pick a fish for BEST OF SHOW, the fish is dead. Nobody had the chance to kill the fish, besides nobody present would even consider doing something like that. All we know is a perfectly good fish was dead. Can you explain it?

* Noel Roberts buys several mystery snails and puts them in a freshly cleaned tank with a tight fitting top. Later that week Noel discovers some fry swimming in the tank, they appear to be African babies. Noel has no Africans!!!! Where did they come from?  I can think of one way but I'll let you ponder this weird happening.

* I had a very nice female molly, she gave me two nice spawns. Much to my surprise she turned into a male, a prize winning male and was not sterile.

* Ralph Wilhelm ordered some mail order plants, they took about three days to arrive. They were packed in damp newspaper, inside a plastic bag. A couple of hours later Ralph noticed several young swords swimming in the tank, Ralph had no swords!!! Did the fish come in the plants? Probably, but how did they live so long out of water?

* Jim Miller buys six Africans, a couple of the females have mouths full of eggs. Two weeks later Jim strips the eggs, but much to his surprise they aren't what he expected. The females were albino zebras, the babies turned out to be auratus.

* Pat Tosie has a passion for dwarf cichlids. Cost is no object if he can acquire some of these beauties. One day Pat is driving on Highway 30,  returning to his office after selling a log cabin. He spots a paper bag sitting on the roadway, and as he passes it he can tell that there is something in the bag. He quickly makes a U-turn and picks up the bag. So as not to cause an accident he puts the bag on the seat and drives on. But curiosity gets the best of him and he looks in the bag and almost runs off the road. Inside the bag is a bag of fish, not just any fish but a trio of rare Apistos.

There you have it, a few of the weird stories from the X-tank, maybe sometime in the future I'll get the guts to dip (sorry about that) into the tank again and see what I can net (sorry again).