Fishy disasters

[Firebelle_uk]

I was talking to my aunt earlier and recalling how I used to watch my cousins fish while trying to sleep when I went to stay with her. He had several tanks in his room as both he and his uncle were quite enthusiatic fishkeepers at one time. They did however seem to have more problems than most which included

Being flooded and watching helplessly as the water reached the level of the tops of thier tanks.

A heater breaking and my aunt trying to rescue the fish by putting them in a bucket on the stove on a very low heat while her son dashed off to the pet store. Suprisingly not too many died and it probably had more to do with shock and stress than this unconventional heating method as she did have a thermometer in the bucket whcih she watched closely.

and my favourite

As thier enthusiasm for fish began to give way to the next hobby... storing demi-johns of fermenting wine on the bottom shelf of a tank stand with a tank above. One of the corks popped and cracked the glass, and as they were trying to salvage everything the bottom gave way and the entire contents poured over the wines...

all this happened many moons ago back in the early 70's, but still gets discussed every time we get together.

Firebelle

 

[trace1]

my dad used to keep fish when we were little as well, the 1 thing that sticks in my head is them having baby mollys in a breeder tank & finally thinking they were big enough for the tank let them go & the angel fish he had ate every single 1 of them mum still calls it a b*****d

 

[kat and james]

way before i was into the hobby a friend of mine used to keep discus in his room, i never actually saw them, but from what i understand it was quite a substantial and expensive collection, especially as we lived in dubai, and the fish had to be imported!
well he came home from school one day to find his room flooded and contents of the tank gasping for air on his bedroom floor.. needless to say not many survived.. i dont' know if he ever started the hobby up again!

 

[IMCL85]

when I was 12 I got my first b day gift of a 40g tank which is still in use now. I have kept many different type of fish in this tank before but all of them die in probably 2-3 monthes due to careless keeping. The one that still in my head was the gold fish soup I made like 5-6 years ago. all of them r being cooks to dead while the heater was broken . And belive me u dont want to see whats inside the tank.

 

[laurasmithuk]

before keeping tropical fish i used to keep cold water fancy tailed goldfish.... i was about 15 yrs old and used to syphon the water out of tank using an old piece of hose pipe. i shall never forget syphoning the water but getting the end of the house pipe stuck to the black moors eye ripping it clean off the eye was in the bucket and the fish had a massive hole in its head.... my dada had to kill the fish in the end but i felt sooooo bad. lets just say i syphon no more and if i do then i watch what im doing.

 

[SuckerLove86]

before keeping tropical fish i used to keep cold water fancy tailed goldfish.... i was about 15 yrs old and used to syphon the water out of tank using an old piece of hose pipe. i shall never forget syphoning the water but getting the end of the house pipe stuck to the black moors eye ripping it clean off the eye was in the bucket and the fish had a massive hole in its head.... my dada had to kill the fish in the end but i felt sooooo bad. lets just say i syphon no more and if i do then i watch what im doing.

[snapback]899087[/snapback]​

That's absolutely terrifying.

 

[RandomWiktor]

Wow laura; that would have scarred me for life O_O

I had a similar experience. When I was very young - I'm thinking 7ish? - I caught a baby pickerel in a lake and put it in some crappy little bucket at home. It jumped out over the night and became thoroughly stuck to the floor. When I tried to pull him off to dispose of the body... well, let's just say a pectoral fin, gil flap, and eye didn't come with him. It was revolting. I felt so horribly about the way the poor fella died, too; suffocation and dehydration - ugly stuff.

 

[Synirr]

Wow laura; that would have scarred me for life O_O

[snapback]899174[/snapback]​

Same here o_o

I think my worst "disaster" was when I was switching my 10 gallon community from gravel to sand... all the fish were in mixing bowls and other kitchen containers on my floor. Well, my dad's dog tried to come in my room while I was carrying a very heavy bucket of water... she bumped my leg and made me stumble right onto one of the bowls, causing it to tip over and water and fish to spill all over my carpet. The fish were all fine, but my carpet was soaking wet all day

 

[Durbkat]

When I was about 8 I had two goldfish in a 1 gallon bowl and when one died when I was out of town the other one ate it then it got sick from whatever the dead fish had so I flushed the fish and half of him came back up with other bones.

 

[JPMarshMellow]

my family makes wine too! every year.. me and my dad just the other day went out and was picking grapes....well...about 4 years ago I had one of those spingebob tanks.. I had the little spongebob figure in it.. well.. it fell over and the net he was holding (not even real) cought 3 fish! It was the most amazing thing ever.... sad though......and another time my dad fluched one of my neon tetra's (also about 3 years ago) when it was still alive.. classic.. I know...

 

[KeddyPie]

I remember once when I was young (9 or 10) I was keeping 2 guppies and 1 albino cory in a 5.5 gallon tank. The tank decided to break, so I decided temporarily to saw off the top of a milk jug, put the tank water and fish in that jug, set the top on top with the VERY top uncapped, and set it on my floor, and went off to school. I was gonna attempt to convince my parents to go buy me a new tank when I got home, sincce I was in a hurry to be off.

Of course, my dad had (and still HAS) a nasty habit of randomly deciding to DEMOLISH my room, throwing out everything on the floor pretty carelessly when he was tired of the mess..... I came home from school, and my room was spotless.... Frantic, I asked my dad what he did with the jug with my fish - He claimed he was not sure, he probably thought it was empty and either dumped it outside or flushed it D: It was a long time before I decided to try fish again.