Anybody Got Any Horror Stories?

[snake007]

Im not sure if there was a thread about this so I thought ill make one, Have you had any horror stories with your fish tank or fish, (ie: glass breaking, leaking, dead fish) that sort of stuff, Heres 2 of mine - 1.)

A Long while ago, I had a 75 gallon with 2 blood parrots, 1 Ruby shark, 8 Tiger barbs, 1 Clown Pleco,
Went on holiday for 2 months to the Carribean, had a wonderful time, came home to find there was no electricity my fish tank was stark cold, no filter no nothing, the house keeper dissapeared aswell (never saw him again )
The fish were all upside down, looking lethargic, but still alive, I immediately put some warm-hot declorihnated water slowly into the tank, Saved my fishies lives!

2nd story, as most of you know from my recent post with my cousin smashing my fish tank (wont go into much detail).

I went out to a car boot sale leaving my 14 year old cousin and my 12 year old cousin with my grandad at my house, got back home catching them cracking eggs in my tank, sorted the tank out, boy was very rude, got his parents round, he got punished, He smashed my tank, I was furious with rage, I could barely look at him or his parents, Im no violent person but I was full of anger so I thought its best not to talk or see anyone.
Got a new tank from them and still making requests for the most expensive filter and some fancy carpet

Whats your story?

 

[the_lock_man]

Both my tanks are AquaOne, with the filters built into the hoods. There is a powerhead/impeller which draws the water up from the bottom of the tank, and distributes it over the sponges via a spray bar.

I once positioned the spray bar such that the water was being distributed out through the hole where the electrical cable for the impeller comes in. Thus I had a large puddle and a half empty tank.

The main issue was that I didn't realise that this was what the problem was - it was a new tank, and I assumed it had sprung a leak - therefore all plants and fish were hastily rehomed in the bigger tank, and a trip to the LFS the next day. Only to be told that the tank was perfectly all right, thanks very much, but you have positioned your spray bar wrongly. Felt a right twonk, I can tell you.

 

[The Taffy Apple]

Once a month i do what i call a 'deep clean', where all my fake plants are taken out and given a good clean.
Anyway, last months' effort had me running round in circles...
What i like to do is remove all the plants at some point before lunch then return an hour or two later and 'hoover' up any mess that has fallen to the bottom of the tank.All the plants go into 2 buckets of de-chlorinated water whilst i go about my daily life for an hour or two (which in last weeks' case was my weekly driving lesson). returned home to find the living room floor covered in water, #MASS PANIC#, searching high and low for any towels throughout the house before it had the chance to settle inbetween the laminated flooring.
So, lesson for that particular day, check that your 20L builders buckets don't have an inch long crack in the bottom of them!

Another one, which is more of a newby mistake ,involves my small 30L tank when i knew next-to-nothing about fishkeeping. Came downstairs one morning, still dark out, and switched on my tank lights to see how my Cardinal Tetra were doing (i know, i know, they have since been moved into the big tank with another 10 of their kind). Now, as you may all know, they lose their bright red bellies at night time (which is simply the flow of blood round their bodys), but i didn't know this.. cue a 04:45am 90% water change in complete panic, and having Mrs.Apple sit in all morning checking on the little fellas! Again,

Terry.

Terry.

 

[willowstwin]

+1 with taffy about the tetras losing colour. Turned my tank lights on at 2am (I was curious to see what they were up to) to find all my neon tetras motionless and almost see through pale... cue 40 litre water change, running up and downstairs with buckets of water to do the change, straight downstairs and out the front door in my PJ's throwing the tank water onto the front lawn at gone 2am must have been the weirdest sight ever. Because I'd disturbed them, by the time I'd refilled the tank they were back to beautiful blue/green and red... ARGH

I suppose you could add to this the tank at work. One of the teachers bought a tropical tank, had (initially) 5 rummy nosed tetras and 5 harelquin rasboras. Another colleague needed to rehome some fish, so she dumped 2 clown loaches, some form of cory and a HUGE (6 - 7 inch) pleco in. All were doing well, then the cory disappeared. Then the pleco "disappeared" and I found out the person "in charge" of the tank wasn't water changing or anything of the sort (he told me the filter did all that - I knew no better). I looked in the tank to feed them and found the pleco skull. Then came the wave of algae. Eventually the 2 loaches "disappeared" (they were my favourites, named tweedledee and tweedledum - they had facial recognition with me, as I was the one who ended up feeding and looking in on them). The tank, now over run with algae (mainly due to being put in a display cabinet which was a sun trap) was bad to look at and the teacher kept promising to clean it out. In the end, the technician at that site said he was getting rid of the tank, and he was either going to flush them down the toilet, or collect them, put them in a bag and drop a brick on them so I panicked! I ripped all the elodea out of another tank we had, went out and bought a filter, heater, sand, ornaments, etc for it. Put some media in from my filter and the original filter. In catching the fish and hitting the gravel I found half of one of my beloved loaches, to which I had to go and be sick - trying to catch fish whilst crying is hard. Shifted many kilos of water, tank and fish down to my site. Set up the tank and left 4 rasboras and 3 rummies. Came back the next day, 2 fish dead. Over the course of 4 days, all bar 1 (which hid for over a week) died. I still have 1 rummy, and my bully DG is in here to try and get him to forget him territory in my home tank. But I'm constantly being hounded by my boss to get rid of the tank. It's really upsetting, especially because all bar 1 died, but I couldn't let them be flushed or squished :'(

 

[nurglespuss]

Yes...

My brother had a 4 foot tank (old style, wiremesh reinforced base), on top of an old dresser (bad move)...

I creaked once, twice and broke in the most bizzarre manner, all 4 sides fell downwards around the base, leaving much of the scenery intact!

Although unfortunately, I was stuck on my bed as water/extension cords and a broken heater mixed! ;{

I've never sinxe trusted anything other than dedicated stands! ;p

 

[HayzH]

I came down this morning to check on Jackson ( after not being able to sleep worrying) and he had a close encounter with one of my platy..he jumped behind my filter at the top and wedged himself between the filter cord and the tank halfway out the water...within seconds i released him by moving the cord. But What if i hadnt come down

 

[micko]

I use a garden hose on the end of my gravel vac, left it in the water to do a 50% water change, forgot about it and emptied 90% of the water. Don't know how I managed that one.

Put a tank on a table, after a few months I had a smashed tank and a swimming pool in my kitchen.

Broke the shaft in my external filter.

Left the lid off the tank, fish jumped out.

Let the kids feed the fish without me watching how much they were feeding.

Set up a external the wrong way, water was getting sucked through the spray bar.

Moving about rocks in my tank and somehow managed to place one right on top of a cory.

Listened to a LFS.

I could go on, but the list is endless.

 

[willowstwin]

Listened to a LFS

scariest one yet.. one which most (if not all) of us have encountered at some point

 

[creeker]

I was managing a fish shop back when I was a freshman in college. We had a 70 gallon saltwater tank that had a few fish in it. One was a Spotted Moray Eel, about 24" long. I found I could hand feed him goldfish by holding them by the tail. He would also come over and mouth my hand when I was cleaning or rearranging the tank. He wouldn't clamp down, just gingerly searching for food. A friend of mine came in the shop and I said "watch this," and put my hand in the tank for the eel to mouth. I had forgotten that moments before I had been handling several feeder fish with that hand. The eel clamped down on my fingers, then pulled back. I had several deep gashes on my fingers after that genius move.
At another shop I managed we got in about a 10 inch baby Electric Eel. We found the eel wouldn't shock you unless you picked him up and broke the surface of the water with him in your hands. Of course we all had to try it. Now this thing grew like a weed, and the shock grew stronger, and every week we would see who was brave (stupid) enough to pick him up. All I can say is never ever try to pick up an Electric Eel more than 20" long.
I also learned from experience not to grasp the outside of a net with a fish with venomous spines in it, but it took me several stings by various fish before that sunk in. Worst one was a Coral Catfish.
I mentioned this on a different thread before.I was working in a shop with a ton of freshwater and saltwater tanks. I had a small wound on the back of my hand. Being a typical guy, I ignored the non healing wound for like two months. Finally I went to the doctor and he said I had tubular bacillus in my lymph system. He said I got it from one of the tanks. He also said the infection was working it's way up my arm and towards my heart. So after 6 months of TB drugs and Prednisone I was finally cured.
I remember one time we had a decent sized earthquake when I was working in a fish shop. Several tanks fell and broke. I was doing a mad scramble to get the flopping fish into the remaining tanks. I remember having to throw some African Cichlids in with some Platies and Swordtails.

 

[smokeyjo]

When I got my new tank I was given an albino red tail shark with it so I had the not very smart idea of putting him in my smaller tank while I set it up and cycled it etc well with in 10 mins he had gone mad and ripped 3 of my neons to bits what a horrific thing to see last time I have a shark

 

[Baccus]

Had a heater malfunction and cook around 200 cherry shrimp of various ages, only managed to rescue about 10, just thankful I have other tanks with stable populations of cherry shrimp. But still felt really bad for the poor cooked ones .

 

[mark2109111]

I have an marineland c220 canister filter on my tank and one day i was watching tv in my room and i herd a splashing sound. It turns out that the intake hose had slipped of the filter. So of cource i made a mad dash towards the tank and plugged the hose with my finger. Now with me sitting beside my tank with a hose on the end of my finger i find out that there is no way for me to reach my fish bucket (cleaning bucket). so lo an behold i spend a half hour sitting beside my tank plugging my hose with my finger waiting for my dad to come home. Lesson learned is to use a wrench to tighten the hose to the filter.

 

[This Old Spouse]

My worst is coming home after Christmas vacation visiting relatives to find that the power had gone out on my 55g community tank. I had neons, tiger barbs, gouramis, and various tetras, and most were dead when we got home (the water temp was 58ºF!). It was so traumatic trying to recoup from that one. I do still have some of the von Rio and serpaes.

And lately I've been seeing bad things happening with heaters, so I'm going to invest in an inline heater or two. Especially the one for my cory tank.

 

[trianglekitty]

Set up a external the wrong way, water was getting sucked through the spray bar.

Not a fish story, but I'm a vet tech and we use infusion pumps to deliver IV fluids to the animals. The fluid runs through the pump to a catheter at a measured rate of so many drops per second. We had a new girl who we had shown several times how to set it up. I heard her call for help one day and walk into the ward to find a dog hooked up to an IV bag that was full of blood- she'd set the line through the pump the wrong way so it was actually pumping the dog's blood OUT of his body. The dog was fine, but if that had happened at the end of the night and everyone left...

So far my only horror fish story was using paper test strips for ammonia. This was when I first rescued my dwarf gourami and got him a new tank. I found out about cycling here and started going daily tests- but the ammonia was always at zero. So here I am feeling good and thinking everything was fine, but I kind of knew it couldn't possibly be right since it was a new tank and I wasn't doing water changes. Someone suggested the API master test. Turned out his ammonia level was maxed out. So I can very close to killing my poor rescued fish.

I narrowly avoided a horror story due to this forum. Luckily from reading all the great info here I already knew about cycling by the time I went to the LFS and they told me not to touch the water for the first six months after adding fish, because doing any water changes would 'stop the cycle'. This was at the same time they told me a freshwater clam would clean up all the waste.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I listened to the LFS and bought a Jewel Cichlid and Green Terror in a tank together.....Green Terror is back at the LFS and his fins have grown back.

My husband fed my fish once. I had to gut the tank the next day as it looked like it snowed fish food in my tank.