Beware Kentucky Piranha

[Land Locked]

Beautiful diving Sunday at Joe's, ever read the sign at the gate,"Warning the fish may eat you." I don't know if I will ever be able to dive there again, I'm emotionally traumatized and thinking of selling my gear. ;-) ;-)
On our second dive of the day we came by the LDS platform and I was confronted by a Kentucky Blue Piranha, not a prime male but a pumpkin seed juvenile. Glistening in the water he confronted me mask to eye for a full thirty seconds, he backed off and I thought I had won the stare down. He moved off to my left out of view and then all hell broke loose, the little demon tried to remove my ear lobe!! Five bites in less than a second! My dive buddy almost lost it and didn't have time to bring the camera to bear. Who's to blame about my swollen and bleeding ear lobe? Joe has been complaining about the increased cost of fish food lately, his fault? He was seen feeding the fish 20 minutes after our dive. My fault for the stare down, not wearing a hood? Do I need to build a blue piranha cage for future dives? Was he just p'd off about all the commotion between dive shops and inconsiderate divers of late? Help out and let's prevent future attacks on innocent divers at Joe's. Give Joe a couple extra bucks for fish food, then we won't have to listen to his complaints of higher fish food prices and the Kentucky Piranha will be less likely to attack!! Meanwhile I'll heal....

 

[Diver Lori]

I got attacked by a sergeant major in Cayman Brac last year on the Keith Tibbets. Those little devils can strike several times in a fraction of time. He struck several times along my hood at my forehead. I think some of my bangs were sticking out of my hood as I could feel him tugging on them.

My buddy had teeth marks on his temple from an attack by a trigger fish at the Newport AQ. He had attacked several other divers to the point that the staff named him "Tyson, the trigger fish".

 

[jbd]

Beautiful diving Sunday at Joe's, ever read the sign at the gate,"Warning the fish may eat you." I don't know if I will ever be able to dive there again, I'm emotionally traumatized and thinking of selling my gear. ;-) ;-)
On our second dive of the day we came by the LDS platform and I was confronted by a Kentucky Blue Piranha, not a prime male but a pumpkin seed juvenile. Glistening in the water he confronted me mask to eye for a full thirty seconds, he backed off and I thought I had won the stare down. He moved off to my left out of view and then all hell broke loose, the little demon tried to remove my ear lobe!! Five bites in less than a second! My dive buddy almost lost it and didn't have time to bring the camera to bear. Who's to blame about my swollen and bleeding ear lobe? Joe has been complaining about the increased cost of fish food lately, his fault? He was seen feeding the fish 20 minutes after our dive. My fault for the stare down, not wearing a hood? Do I need to build a blue piranha cage for future dives? Was he just p'd off about all the commotion between dive shops and inconsiderate divers of late? Help out and let's prevent future attacks on innocent divers at Joe's. Give Joe a couple extra bucks for fish food, then we won't have to listen to his complaints of higher fish food prices and the Kentucky Piranha will be less likely to attack!! Meanwhile I'll heal....

:rolf: That is why I wear the PPPD whenever I dive. Wait until one tries to rip your lip off If that happens again I'm going to switch to a FFM or get one of those helmets as seen in the avatar of rmediver2002.

I ws there Saturday with ckharlan66 and noticed some of the little devils getting a bit aggressive. If you want to see a real feeding frenzy take some lunchmeat down with you next time.

 

[Land Locked]

:rolf: That is why I wear the PPPD whenever I dive. Wait until one tries to rip your lip off If that happens again I'm going to switch to a FFM or get one of those helmets as seen in the avatar of rmediver2002.

I ws there Saturday with ckharlan66 and noticed some of the little devils getting a bit aggressive. If you want to see a real feeding frenzy take some lunchmeat down with you next time.

Full helmet, now that's an idea! A few weeks ago I took down some tubifex worms and they seemed un-interested, I think there is too many bait fish in the water. I know Joe is fully against squirt cheese but I never thought about lunch meat, maybe YOU provoked this attack!!! My earlobe looked like lunch meat, .... Come on I'm having a hard time convincing my wife this was a piranha attack and not some female diver with braces!!

 

[buminbeer2]

I know the feeling, Joe's is a dangerous place. I was doing a dive and I guess got a little close to a feeding frenzy. All my girlfriend heard was a shout from underwater and me screaming like an fool about being attacked. She did not believe me until she saw the blood coming from my lip, oh the horror. I saw a bluegill and he saw my lip. He was faster. I heard a chewing sound straight from the Jaws movies. It moved it's tail side to side ripping flesh with each move. I still don't know if bluegill have teeth, but I didn't have part of my lip after that. Strange how I can laugh at it now, but it was not funny at the time. I now either wave my arms in front of me on any approching bluegill to deter attack or just don't enter the water when it seems quite. Too quite. I have since healed and moved on with my life, understanding how each new day brings hope. I'll never forget that awful August day.

 

[cincybengalsfan1]

I know the feeling, Joe's is a dangerous place. I was doing a dive and I guess got a little close to a feeding frenzy. All my girlfriend heard was a shout from underwater and me screaming like an fool about being attacked. She did not believe me until she saw the blood coming from my lip, oh the horror. I saw a bluegill and he saw my lip. He was faster. I heard a chewing sound straight from the Jaws movies. It moved it's tail side to side ripping flesh with each move. I still don't know if bluegill have teeth, but I didn't have part of my lip after that. Strange how I can laugh at it now, but it was not funny at the time. I now either wave my arms in front of me on any approching bluegill to deter attack or just don't enter the water when it seems quite. Too quite. I have since healed and moved on with my life, understanding how each new day brings hope. I'll never forget that awful August day.

The bluegill is a cichlid. Aggresive by nature.

Joe has complained about feeding those fish for 6 yrs. now. It's just a part of Joe and his catfish.

Here is a website to help out.

http://www.oursimplejoys.com/freshwateraquaria/article1011.html

 

[Land Locked]

The bluegill is a cichlid. Aggresive by nature.

Joe has complained about feeding those fish for 6 yrs. now. It's just a part of Joe and his catfish.

Here is a website to help out.

http://www.oursimplejoys.com/freshwateraquaria/article1011.html

Interesting site Cincy, works well for my fish tank.



* Frozen and Freeze-dried Fish Food – It is obviously much more convenient and safer to use this type of food than live food. Frozen or freeze-dried tubifex worms.



As I said they did not care for the tubifex, my Clown Loaches love this stuff.



*Live Food – Most fish like to eat live food that’s been harvested from ponds or homegrown in cultures. In fact, your fish will enjoy pursuing these natural, wriggling, elusive prey.



I do consider myself alive, except for some mornings after, I wonder if my earlobes wriggle when I dive, but elusive?



Food Scraps - Human food scraps



Hmmm, maybe it applies?



When Joe was feeding the fish that day it reminded me of the Blue fish off North Carolina churning through the bait fish. The water was just exploding with activity.

I'm no videoographer but I'm thinking, (dangerous when I do that,) what about a movie sequel, Open Water II? Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water!

Need a better ending than just dumping the bc and giving up, maybe a suspenseful Jaws type battle.

 

[jengineer]

I got attacked by a sergeant major in Cayman Brac last year on the Keith Tibbets.

They are pesky buggers to say the least. One Night I was cleaning the tank that the Aquarium of the Pacific (Long Beach, South California). I was on a 4 foot diameter coral head (plastic mind you we scrub the gunk off the fake coral one or twice a week).

I hated going the coral near their nest as it is right near the water jets that cause a nice current but push you off station. To clean near them you have to swim into the current scub with one hand and shoo the buuger away with the other. Sure glad the place was closed to visitors cause sometimes I swear I came close to making contact.

Back to the coral head. So I am scrubbbing away & I hear this comotion. Seems as the local napolean wrasse, about the same weight as me, is taking the tour around the tank and this pee-wee major is is defending his territory. Well as the wrasse was leaving this major nips at the back end. uh-oh. This critter swings around and goes after him, nails him against the viewing window and bingo major desert!!! I was whooping and hollering - blowing major bubbles. I reported this to the aquarist and found out that in the past 3 days the seargent major population was disappearing. Since all the fish are fed on a time schedule they went back to rethink the portion of food for the wrasse. My volunteerism hitch ended shortly after so I don't know if it was really food related or just being stuck with mean neighbors!

 

[Land Locked]

Territorial I would say, just be glad you were not on the hit list!! The only other time I was personally attacked was on a night dive in Ginnie Springs 5 years ago. We came across a fish sleeping inverted in a plant. My dive buddy p'd it off with his dive light, this fish hit us both square between the eyes in the flash of a second and appeared.
Can't say I blamed him, I'd be pretty Po'd if someone woke me up with a light in the face!