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cant believe it, my 5 or so inch electric cat shocked me!


i was moving around the rocks so as to make a more suitable refuge and i tried to shimmy him away by pushing water in his direction. i accidently toutched his tail and he gave a violent shake and shocked me.

I was amazed as to how powerfull the shock was. They say a fish this size will produce a shock equal to that of a 12v battery but nooo way!

the shock went into my hand all the way up my arm and to the top of my neck. it even caused my arm to jolt and to spasm. pretty kwl looking back at it now. but quite odd at the time.

anyway, i guess what im saying is, dnt underestimate the power of even sutch small secimens as this. they can and as proven will deliver a nasty shock!

Julian

I know it seems a bit over drastic but you really should be checked over by a doctor. Any electrical shock you get should, and if it was powerful enough to travel up to your neck then you definitely should. Our body transmits thousands, if not millions, of electrical signals every minute so any interference to these is potentially dangerous.

I've been zapped a few times by them cats; unfortunately quite a few times more by the ol' 220V and once had 380V knocking me down. painful to say the least!
it can and does make your arms spasm, your legs wobble, your head hurt and your heart skip

NOT to be recommended, but IF you go to a doctor, unfortunately the guy can't do anything for you, except for telling you that you'd better lay off weird hobbies and don't do stupid sh*t ; you can't mess with nerves.......

They work, or they fail (if you get unlucky) and that's about it; medical science can't fix broken nerves yet.

I hear what your saying, Sidguppy. Think I still had my first aid training head on.

I had a 240v shock once but didn't go to the doc's.

cheers for the concern guys,

380v !!! wow.
how did u react about that! thats intense, i bet you were terrified after that.

by the way, how close to the fish do you need to be to feel the shock. im sure this also depends on the size and power of the fish.

and sidguppy, how big was this fish that shocked you?

thanks again
Julian

that fish was about 7-8" or so, and I was carrying it under my coat and shirt, next to my skin (!) to keep it warm sitting at the tail-end of a motorbike (!) in winter.
the bag was wet on the outside as well, the fish was seriously pissed, let's say it was a ride wich proved a bit too interesting for me

the 380 was not to be repeated; we lived in a really crappy student-rental house; and the powersupply was failing. since my fish lived with me and the owner didn't give a damn about anything except collecting the rent, I took it on myself to fix things.....it seriously hurts, can tell you that!

it didn't scare me, only years afterwards I realized I had stared the Grim Reaper right in the eye-socket and flipped the bird.

but back then I didn't give a w00t about anything, save my fish, the next babe, booze and so on. when you're 25 you think death happens to other people or you won't be bothered by it; at least I wasn't, just didn't care.

I DO care now! definitely won't try a stunt like that anymore

WOW, awesome story.
so i guess it wont be long till mine starts producing shocks so powerfully.

hopefully not so soon,
so you were 25 at the time, im 15 at the moment, either way, got ten years to enjoy before having to sneak fish into my student hause lol.

by the way sidguppy, are you atually dutch? or just living there?

thanks again for the response
Julian

The fish didn't give the 380, that was the house, to avoid confusion

I just live there, my superiors seem to forget about my promotion to another planet, I got stuck here after my last transfer from Mars.

sidguppy wrote:that fish was about 7-8" or so, and I was carrying it under my coat and shirt, next to my skin (!) to keep it warm sitting at the tail-end of a motorbike (!) in winter.

You almost won yourself a darwin award there

[quote="sidguppy"]that fish was about 7-8" or so, and I was carrying it under my coat and shirt, next to my skin (!) to keep it warm sitting at the tail-end of a motorbike (!) in winter./quote]

So here it is at last! Now I know why everybody stared at us. We must have looked like a Coca-Cola Christmas truck on two wheels -).
The motorcycle is still alive (and well); don't know about the fish. Memorable of that fish was that it was perfectly able to resist a Clarias batrachus in the most ultimate way: it killed the C.b., which looked like it had been on a barbeque.

No, Marc


everybody stared at us like "who's the guy with the pop-eyed passenger on the motorbike?"
that second dude looks like Animal from the Muppets; hair standing on end, fixed grin, drooling, bobbing up and down the buddyseat....

I can remember btw that Clarias was a lot bigger!
about 30cm or so?

hahaha! That must have been a sight!

btw, anyone of you guys been zapped by a S.A. electric eel? Do they pack more punch than a electric cat(at the same size)?

Remember seeing a documentary on TV about two guys studying electric eels. They threw a net over some floating plants and one guy was in the water, wearing thick rubber wading-pants and rubber gloves and still performed an impressive electric boogie!

No, can't say I have. My electric eel was about the same size, but much more gentle. It went great with larger catfishes (Sorubim, Hemisorubim etc.) in one tank.
The electric cat however didn't only look like a hooligan; it also behaved like one. Not a fish that I would recommend to anyone.

If you think it was bad from a 5" E-cat then wait till its bigger, mines getting on for 14" now and a couple of weeks ago while re attaching the heater it had knocked off the side it shocked me hard enough to knock me on my backside and make me bite my tounge hard enough to draw blood.

That said E-cats are fantastic fish, mine has more personality than any other fish ive ever owned, id recomend them to anyone who has a spare large tank to dedicate to a species tank.

That's right. If you have a tank to spare, it's a different story.
I was referring to a community catfish tank, without being explicit about that.
However, the idea of being knocked down by a 14" E-cat still doesn't attract me much

what happens if you keep two or more together? Will they zapp eachother? Are they less sensitive to electricution than other fish (seems logical)? And if both are about the same size... balance of terror?

A few (or more) years ago, I came across a baby electric cat in a department store pet department. It was about 1.5-2", and when I asked about it, the female employee looked at the listing written on the tank, and told me it was a plecostomous. Admittedly, there was no electric cat listed, which was why I was asking to begin with, but I figured it was a bargain at that price, so I took it home. Placed in a 55 gallon african (the c-word) community tank, by the next morning it had killed one fish, a second was almost dead, and a third was never quite right after. So much for my theory that being small, it would learn to get along with others I moved it to a 20 long by itself, and got curious one day about how much shock a small fish like that would actually produce. The result was mild, a fresh 9-volt battery on the tongue feels more painful than the shock from the little guy. It grew, and at about 3", I gave it to a friend who had a 125 housing three full grown oscars and a pacu the size of a dinner plate. The first oscar saw the little fish, and thought "food" It got close, then suddenly turned away, twice. The second oscar only needed to learn the lesson once, and the third didn't act interested at all. The pacu, which also ate feeder goldfish just like the oscars, seemed terrified from the start. A couple days later, it was funny to watch. All those big fish, afraid of such a small fish, and constantly keeping as far away from it as the tank would allow. If the cat went from the left side to the right, the others went the opposite way, like they were attached by an invisible bar. Makes me wonder what, if anything, preys on them in their own environment.

They can be attacked, if they are unaware. I had an Electric that was about 3-4 inches, which was in a 120 gal with 2 Perruno Cats that were about 7-8 inches. I thought it would be OK, due to the nature of the EC. Well, I came home late one night and turned on the room light (the tank light was off) just in time to see a Perruno swallow the apparantly sleeping EC whole! Would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself!