# One Lucky Fish



## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Monday, February 16th, 7:20 pm.
After a long day at work, my roommate had asked me to pick up dog food. I made a brief trip to petco to browse and see if they carried our brand of dog food. They did not. So I turned around and headed for Walmart. After searching all over the Walmart, whose layout I was unfamiliar with, I managed to find the dog food section. By this time I was literally limping, due to a bad ankle being exacerbated by a 10 hour day of standing and moving in all of our outside plants to keep from losing them to frost which would hit later that evening.

It was late and I was finally walking out of Walmart after buying the dog food. The cold front had dropped the temperature to 35 degrees F and it was raining so I was almost running to get back to my car in the dark. I was hugging the 50lb bag of dog food and thus was not looking where I was going. Seconds later, I was tripping over something that clattered away with the sound of plastic, since I had kicked it when I tripped.

Much to my horror, a little plastic betta cup was rolling away, sloshing water everywhere. Shouldering the dog food, I rushed to go pick it up, somewhat hoping that there wasn't a fish in there. To my dismay, I was wrong. From what I could see in the cup, there was a male veiltail with a large divot missing from his tail and his dorsal and ventrals eaten up by rot. The water was half gone from me kicking the poor thing and he barely had room to swim. He was pale and I quickly took him with me to avoid him freezing overnight. I worried over him for the next several hours, slowly letting him acclimate to 82 degree water. Feeling bad about the tiny amount of water in the cup, I slowly added water to the cup as well letting him adjust before adding more.

11:00 pm.
I finally let him out, but had to go to bed soon after and didn't look at his colors.

Tuesday, February 17th, 6:25 a.m.
I turned on the lights to my tanks and went to work shortly after checking to make sure my little rescue was still alive, but still didn't pay much attention to the colors as he was still very pale, having just been woken up and being extremely timid.

8:50 p.m
Exhausted from a 12 hour shift, I collapsed into bed after limping inside and shutting off all my lights. Rescue boy goes almost completely unnoticed from being absolutely worn out and hurting.

Wednesday, February 18th, 6:30 am.
Running slightly late, I hastily peek in to the tank as I rush to turn on lights. The rescue, which had been named Faust, is peeking back. He had finally colored up and much to my surprise, the brown and grey fish I had picked up in a Walmart parking lot had turned into a blue and yellow bicolor with dalmatian spots on his fins. I was dumbfounded but had to run to work, so couldn't pause too much on the findings.

7:00 pm
I returned home limping and in pain but eager to go see Faust. I dropped some food in and giggled at his antics. He didn't let a single crumb escape him. Feeding my other guys, I laid back down to watch him before resigning to sleep several hours later.

Today
Faust and the other boys received a wholesome meal of a food variety mix I make occasionally. Flightless fruit flies are dropped in with a tiny bit of Ocean nutrition Formula One. Faust is a spazz and incredibly inquisitive. So far he shows no external signs of illness or damage to internal systems. I am incredibly excited to see him recover.


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## LadyNightraven (Jun 30, 2013)

Wow, it sounds like you were in the right place at the right time! Faust is one lucky little fish!


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## Bikeridinguckgirl14 (Oct 22, 2013)

Hmmm, just the opposite of pheonix (old story, Hrutan has him now but someone else originally found him in a parking lot in Texas when his water was over 100) 
Ps want pics


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## hrutan (Jun 25, 2014)

Oh my goodness, that lucky fella! That is just like Phoenix. I'm so glad to hear he is doing well and recovering from his ordeal!

Lucky boy - and lucky Crossroads! Rescues make the best pets!


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

I remember Phoenix's story! I'm still so amazed that the little dude made it.

When I got Faust home, I'd say his water was in the 40s and seeing my car the next morning, I'm glad I got him inside. I'll try to get pictures up soon but my phone is currently dead, so that'll have to wait ^^;


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Faust has a cute little bubble nest made and readily accepted breakfast this morning. It'll be some time before his fins heal but he's showing some regrowth in his tail divot. His tank is dosed with stress coat and when I grt paid I hope to pick up some ial.


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Working two 7:45 am to 8:15 pm days has had me so exhausted that im haven't paid much attention to my boys besides feeding them in the morning. Faust is a eiggly little dork and chews up big pieces of food, spits the crumbs out and then collects the smaller crumbs and eats them. He's still doing great despite his ordeal Monday. He's a shy lil baby but I can't say I blame him since he probably got picked up by a child and set down outside. Then I come along kick his cup almost into the street, all the while the poor baby is cold and getting rained on. He's a personable little guy when he wants to be thougg.

I "accidentally" filled my empty 10 g tank with a new friend as well. Prospero also joined my little family this week. He's a white delta with a couple red spots on his fins.

Something got Nereus and I wasn't home long enough to treat it properly. I woke up the Saturday before I found Faust to find Nereus pale and minorly starting to pinecone. I separated him and dosed him with Epsom salt and Kanaplex. I returned home to him looking worse but I hoped he'd be okay anyway. Monday morning he was gone.


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Some videos and a picture as promised


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## PurpleJay (Jan 4, 2015)

Wow, he's beautiful!


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## JHatchett (Aug 24, 2014)

What a neat find!


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## Romad (Jun 28, 2009)

One lucky fish indeed! And sorry to hear about Nereus


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Romad said:


> One lucky fish indeed! And sorry to hear about Nereus


Thanks for the condolences Romad. Nereus was prone to stress by the littlest of things and he was a chronic tail biter. I think the constant easy stressing and constant open wounds from tail biting let something into his system despite my best efforts to treat him.He was a beautiful guy though, and I'll miss his attention hogging ways. I'm glad I found Faust though.


JHatchett said:


> What a neat find!





PurpleJay said:


> Wow, he's beautiful!


I was dumbstruck when I saw his coloring. Why anyone in the world would leave him behind is beyond me.


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

Faust has transformed from a shy little spazz to a total ham. He is doing remarkably well for what he went through, and has easily turned into one of my favorite boys.


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## Axeria (Feb 6, 2015)

Oh my! He sure is one lucky fish! And pretty too ^_^


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## fishtankwatcher (Feb 5, 2015)

Crossroads said:


> I was dumbstruck when I saw his coloring. Why anyone in the world would leave him behind is beyond me.


Maybe he fell off the vehicle? Like when people leave their drinks or phones etc on the vehicle?


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## Crossroads (Jun 28, 2014)

fishtankwatcher said:


> Maybe he fell off the vehicle? Like when people leave their drinks or phones etc on the vehicle?


Well he was on the sidewalk, rather than in the actual parking lot so I don't think thats what happened but maybe?


Axeria said:


> Oh my! He sure is one lucky fish! And pretty too ^_^


Faust says thank you :>


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