A sad story

[The-Wolf]

Today as we opened up at work we had a very sad customer tell us this story.

He has a Juwel Rio 300 and is running two external filters in addition to the std Juwel filter internally.
He had spent many months and £££ building up his stock level, and had a fantastic plant set up.

He has two children ages 6 and 7, you can see where this is heading.
As a surprise for him the children decided, in the early hours of the morning, to clean his fish tank for him.
They emptied some water out and then using the tank water, as they had seen their dad do, took out the filter sponges and placed them in the bucket of water (so far so good); then they added Fairy liqued(washing up liqued) to it and washed them

They then rised the sponges in tap water and placed them back in the tank.
they then proceded to scrub the glass with a dish cloth, using the bucket of soapy water.

Minites later the dad came in and seeing what they were doing started to shout at them. Then he noticed some dead fish and tried to start saving them, but alas it was too late, most of the fish had already died.

The kids were very upset, as they didn't realise what they were doing was wrong and that they had killed all the little fishes, the father was understanably upset with his children but realising how upset they were, he forgave them. saying, it was an accident and not to worry.

I guess the reason for this post is to make sure that all of you with young children can try and prevent this sort of thing happening to you.
I feel for the customer, but I feel for the children more, as it is a very hard (emotionaly) lesson to learn.

he brought from us some aquarium disenfectant, to start again and I advised him there can never be too much rinsing of the tank, just to be certain all the soap is gone.

 

[trimacdevilconvict]

nightmare i have younger chlidren and i envlove them when i am cleaning my tanks i have taught them from a young age that only daddy knows how to clean the tank right but they have the special job of putting the tap conditioner in the water they think that they are the special ones who keep my tank clean

to qute my son when i took him to a lfs i havent been to befor "yuk dad your tanks dont have fish lying or floating in then " share the knowledge i say kid wiil be kids

 

[debiasir]

gods thats a tradegy. But kids will be kids and get their little hands on everything. Wonder if you can fabricate some sort of bracket so the lid can be padlocked to the tank or something along those lines.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

I've considered locks since my son put apricot oil in my 15g some weeks ago. Happily none of the fish died as a result and he's learned from it.
But with the set up of the new 32g downstairs I'm worried he might try to help too. I have explained that he has to let Mummy do it but he forgets easily. He is special needs bless. But it does worry me nevertheless.
Poor fella tho. I think I'd have gone nuts too. And probably broken down in tears. What a harsh lesson they had to go through.
Hugs,
P.

 

[black angel]

thats really sad for the whole family. kids just dont know what they are doing is wrong sometimes. a friend of mine had her male betta taken out the tank and his fins cut off with scissors by her 4 year old poor fish didnt live long after that.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

when i was 7, i put koolaid in my tank thinking my fish would drink it

 

[dwarfgourami]

All you can do is explain and explain- and make sure they know that they can only do things with the fish tank when an adult is present.
I spent a lot of time talking about things like soap and how bad it is, and some of it must have sunk in, because my 4-year-old son (stop me if you've heard this one before!) nearly went berserk when I went to buy the ammonia for the fishless cycling- cleaning things, Mummy's going to poison the fish!

 

[CFC]

This is why the door to our front room has a lock on it, when our son was younger the door was locked everytime we went to bed, partly for the fishes safety incase he decided to help and as much so for his safety too incase he stuck a hand in a tank with a dangerous fish in, nothing i had then could have killed him but could still have inflicted serious wounds with bites. Now he is 8 he understands that some of the fish are dangerous and some could even kill him so he stays clear of the tanks even though the door is left open at night but if we ever have another child we will go back to locking the front room up every night.

 

[Teelie]

Whenever I have kids, or kids over (I have two nephews now and my girlfriend has two nieces), I'm going to make sure they know not to go into the room I'll be keeping my fish without an adult (preferably me) and to never, ever try to clean, feed or play with the fish.

Of course sometimes things happen and children want to help or surprise their elders by doing something and it goes horribly wrong but you can always try.

 

[hellohefalump]

that was such a terrible story... *speechless* those poor... well... everyone. The dad because he lost all his fishies, and the kids because they didn't mean to kill the fish and now they must feel so awful to be responsible for something dying... murder? That's how I would think of it if I killed a fish. Those poor kids...

 

[Synirr]

Ugh, that's horrible!! I'd hate to have been.... anyone... in that situation!

My mother told me a story about one of her coworkers.... they had a very large oscar tank and thought of their fish as members of the family (as I do mine). One night their 5 year old got on a stepping stool and turned the heater in the tank all the way up. They came home from work to find that every single fish in the tank was dead

I'm never, ever having children.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Synirr, what about all the adults killing off fish? Through ignorance on starting out in the hobby (hand on heart have we never done that?) or from desire to make a profit (bad sales advice from lfs, painted fish, overbreeding). Just think of some of the threads we see on here, people wanting to do the most impossible things. And the problems some fishkeepers have with their irresponsible parents... Difference is, you can't make up your mind never to have a mum, however unsuited she is to be around living animals.
Though I hope I've learnt a lot, I still think I'm a greater danger to my fish than the kids are. I've certainly killed more off
Anyway, we've had posts in the past with parents and grown-up siblings cleaning tanks out, too. Personally, I think cleaning is the big bogy- I'll never do any again!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Im sure many of you here have very mature young children that are well aware ofthe responsabilitys of fish keeping, but i would still advise somthing like a hamster for a 5yr old kid than a fish simply because the child is more capable to look after such a pet and can be more intimate with it- i personally would not trust any of my 4-7yr cousins to accuratly measure out dechlorantor, test for water stats or measure out the right quantitys of food everytime without supervision for my fish. Even if you are there to supervise the kid or do the more complex/boring jobs of the hobby, i wouldn't trust my cousins to not do somthing stupid that will kill the fish when i am not there.
There's also dangers in the hobby itself- have you ever burnt your hand on the white hot tube of a tank light or spilt a large bucket or water while doing water changes or accidentally cracked a heater and electricuted the tank? i have ...

I have to say i personally have a slightly pestimistic veiw on young children and fish simply because toys are such an important part of their lives at such a stage and there seems to be little definition between fish and toys in many children, i can also see a child getting bored of a fish much quicker than say, a rabbit, hamster or dog/cat...
Fish can die so easily and for so many reasons, a child seeing a dead pet can be very upseeting for them, its mainly why i don't advise fish as pets for young children.

Such a tragic story though! I could imagine how traumatising that would be for the children to go through and how heartbreaking for the father and mother...

Its not just the kids that should be educated about fish loads, but the parents too; too many times i hear of parents buying their child a comet goldfish or similar fish and putting it in a 5gal tank for their child in the view that fish are easy small maintanence animals that are great for children.
Fish can make great pets for children but only if the parent educates the child on how to care for the fish properly and makes sure the kid follows through with what they have been told.
Fish do not make good pets for kids though if you veiw the hobby and the animal as somthing that its tank doesn't need much maintanence, it doesn't matter how much you feed the animal, and will make a good "toy" for the child etc.
What could be worse for your child than to find their pet fish upside down and dead and rotting in their tank?

I was in a taxi the other day and the driver was talking to me about how he bought 20neon and black tetras and 8guppys for his little girls new tank...I cringed at the thought and tried to explain things to him but he preffered the advice of the lfs that small fish don't count in adding up stocking for a tank and that you needed lots of hardy guppys to cycle a tank....Ah well ....

 

[dwarfgourami]

I agree, responsibility and parental supervision are the clue. And thankfully grandma isn't living with us- or not a fish would be safe....

 

[tttnjfttt]

The sad thing is, I have to worry about my dad and what he might do with my fish tank if I turn my back. He is constantly saying how i need alteast 2x's the fish in there, to stop buying so many of one type of fish (schooling fish), and how about some "brightly colored" ones. I'm worried that I'm gonna come home one day and find 20 new fish cramed into my 20 gal tank.