The tank has been up and running since December 2008 for those that haven’t seen the pictures of the making of “The Tank” check out this link:

http://www.texasrarebooks.com/tank

So the biggest fish in The Tank is called “The Big Guy”…pretty self explanatory! LOL! He is a Bala Shark and He’s about 14 inches long and weighs close to 5 lbs.

Here’s my latest fish story: and this happened about a week after The Big Guy and all the inhabitants of the Tank survived tank temperatures in excess of 96 degrees (for less than 8 hours) because the AC was out in the house! ….that’s another fish story I’ll post later!

Bala Sharks are known to dig through the gravel (basically sucking rocks into their mouth) looking for food. It’s just what they do. I never in my wildest dreams thought this would happen… see, I put medium sized gravel in the Tank, thinking there’s no way that the Bala’s could get such huge rocks into their mouths…well I was wrong. Last week The Big Guy sucked into his mouth a rock the size of a nickel. And it got stuck in his throat! My first thought was “ok, I’ll give it a few days to see if he would work it out”. Well, two days went by, and the rock was still stuck in his mouth. He wasn’t able to close his mouth. So, I set up my 30 gallon tank that I keep in reserve as a hospital tank. It took me at least 2 hours to catch him. So by the time I threw him into the hospital tank, he was exhausted enough for me to stick a pair of tweezers down his throat in an attempt to get the rock out! Well, the rock slid in even further down his throat, and I wasn’t able to touch it anymore with the tweezers. I figured, ok, he’ll just live the rest of his life with a rock in his belly! Hell, sharks in the ocean live with much worse in their belly’s all the time. The Big Guy was able to close his mouth and he looked like he wasn’t stressing out, so I waited 24 hours and threw him back in the Big Tank.

24 more hours go by, and The Big Guy apparently choked the rock back up to the point where it was caught back in his mouth. I could actually see the tip of the rock poking through his lips! So out came the net (I had to make out of a pool leaf catcher and pvc pipe), and I went to work trying to catch him again.

This time however, I was going to knock him out with fish anaesthesia and pull the rock out. Now fish anaesthesia was new to me, It’s a mixture of Finquel (which is an amphibian and large fish anaesthesia) and baking soda in a gallon of water. So I mixed it up and prayed… because this was either gonna help him or kill him. There wasn’t much in between! So after I caught him, I dunked him in the Finquel bath, and counted to 10…

The Big Guy started to float on his side, but his gills were still moving, so I knew the drugs were working! The Big Guy was down for the count! I had placed a pillow case over a towel on the counter, with a large desk lamp (so I could see better), a large magnifying glass, a timer, and several pairs of different size tweezers.

So I took the now very docile Big Guy, and laid him on the pillow case and started the timer (the experts say to not keep them under for more than 5 minutes). It took less than 30 seconds to wiggle the rock out of his throat! Thank you Jesus! So in the hospital tank he went so I could get fresh water moving through his gills. I had to hold a very groggy Big Guy in the hospital tank for about 5 minutes before he started to get his bearings back and could keep himself upright. But by God, I got that damned rock out!

As the Big Guy, was recovering in the hospital tank, I decided that the gravel that was in the Tank had to go. So I ended up scooping out all the medium sized gravel (all 175 pounds of it) and replaced it with the small regular gravel you can get in about every aquarium store! By the time I was done replacing the gravel, the Big Guy was ready to go back into the Tank.

I’m proud to report, that That Big Guy, the other 4 Bala’s and all the rest of the inhabitants of the Tank are all well and happy! wheeeeeeew! :)