Narrowly avoided a disaster

I have had a watchman goby in my qt tank for about ten days now and he has been at therapeutic levels of copper safe for 5 days. Last night I noticed my ammonia alert badge was not it usual yellow color but slightly green, nothing on the chart but changing color so I decided to perform a 40% water change, got the water mixed and heated, added copper to properly level and performed water change, all was well the goby was a little freaked out but that is understandable. So I turned the light off and shut the door to my fish room. Later that night I checked on the fish like I always do before going to bed, the goby was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed I forgot to cover the small hole for the airline and heater cord. I looked everywhere in the room and finally found him on the other side of the room under the chair. I was heartbroken thinking of what I was going to tell my 6yr old daughter who named her Sandy. Then I saw her gills move. She was completely dry to the touch so I thought there was no way she would survive. I gently moved her back and forth through the water and about 10 mins later she swam out of my hand like nothing happened. I just checked on her after arriving home from work and she is doing great.

 

I will definitely check to make sure I have all the holes covered anytime I remove the lid from now on.

 

It still amazes me that a fish can come back from things like this.

 

It has been a little over 36hrs now and Sandy is doing great, eating like a pig and generally happy to be alive. She is actually a lot less skidish around me now.

 

Sandy is still doing great, she eats like a pig, every time I come in the fish room she swims up to see if I am going to feed her.

 

Sandy is loving her new home in the DT. I have a love hate relationship with her, love her personality and the fact the she keeps my sandbed so clean. Hate that she insists on covering one part of my rockwork completely with sand. She is hilarious at feeding time, I feed the tank then use a turkey Baster to target feed her to make sure she gets some food. After the 2nd day in the tank she now bites the end of the Bastet as soon as it gets in the tank and chows down all the food inside it.

 

Yeah right now she is probably one of my favorite fish. She is always working from sun up to sun down that is for sure.