And I shall call him Lazarus. Or Rob Zombie.

[Victoria]

Anyone ever had a fish go missing for like, months? And then come back all like "Oh, hi. How've you been?"

My snowflake eel lived happily in a 29g BioCube. We lovingly refer to the tank as the Death Tank, as it's home to a Condy anemone, a spotted hawkfish, a gorilla crab that hitchhiked in on some live rock, a huge electric blue hermit that stalks and kills smaller hermits, and a Daum's reef lobster. When one of the kiddos wanted an eel, it was a logical add to that tank.

So into the Death Tank her went, and was doing great for a few weeks. Then went missing. Looked everywhere in the tank. Pulled out rock, looked in all of the back chambers, dangled some food in the return chamber in case he somehow got into the mini-fuge I replaced all the bio balls with. Nothing. I sifted the sand a bit to see if he was dead under there, waited for a nitrate spike, etc.

A couple weeks ago, I did a major tank re-org, moved around all the rocks, swapped some rocks between my two tanks. Still, no sign of the eel.

Yesterday, he just showed up. Bigger and fatter than he had been. And all sorts of "eel about town"-ish. He inhaled several helpings of food, cruised the tank a bit, studiously ignored the hawkfish's attempts to be all billy bad-a$$ on him. You know, just regular eel stuff.

I'm completely blown away. I have no idea where he's been or what he's eaten. And between the kiddos and I, the tank gets stared at pretty regularly. He'll henceforth be known as Rob, because "zombie eel" is pretty much the only logical explanation at this point.

Is this a normal eel thing?

[Planeden]

Nothing that big exactly, but we bought 10 ottos (little FW algae eaters) and put them in our tank. I think our two leopard fish took most of them out in a day or two. But one did manage to kill a leopard by getting lodged in his throat and choking him. But I digress. A couple of years later I am moving the tank for a remodel. I move all the fish into a bucket, counting as I go like a preschool teacher, and then start draining the tank. I got all the water out and starting scooping the sand out when there is a little splash in the puddle and one of the little ottos appeared. I was so confused because I had forgotten we even bought them. I called him dr. Who because i thought he had just materialized in the tank.

Sadly for the doctor, them temp tank we were housing them in had a gravel substrate. He was nowhere to be found a few weeks later when we were moving them back to their normal home. Maybe he flew off to save some other hapless tank fom an evil hard of aliens.

[Gig 'em @ NDstructible]

I had a firefish once that I put in my tank and could have sworn he was on his way out the door due to his poor condition. Of course I never saw him after I put him in so I assumed he passed and was eaten by something, which is how most fish tend to disappear. A couple months later I was told how cool my white and red fish was and I was confused until I realized they were talking about a firefish. Low and behold there he was.

He was named Lazarus after that