Have you experienced a catastrophe or a near catastrophe for your fish or tank

[GaryE]

never experienced any near catastrophes in my tank, all my catastrophes are full blown.

Agreed. Near doesn't count.

A natural disaster killed all the fish but 7 killies, in 40 plus tanks once. Over 300 rare fish. That was bad.

I had the entire line of silicone along the back base of a budget priced aquarium split open when we were away for the weekend. All the water went straight into a heating vent and did not harm (amazingly), and the heater was off because it was high summer. 40 cardinals died in that one.

And for sure, there were ones that were entirely my own fault - introducing diseases by not quarantining fish upon arrival. That happened a couple of times when I was younger and had crowded community tanks.

 

[Boundava]

So a few years ago the heater cranked up to max and cooked my 120 gallon full of cory, plecos, a knife fish, tetras and krib pair. 98% of everything died. Anything that survived went immediately into the 120. If I remember correctly it was 2 Buenos aries, a whiptail cat, and a few corry.

When I drained and broke down the tank I found tons of corry bones in the substrate. If it was my only tank it would have been my last.

On the salty side, I had a tank set up with live rock, cleanup crew, hawkfish, clown and a lined blenny along with corals and an anenome. There was a venomous goblin scorpion fish that passed and within 24 all of the fish were dead. No matter what I did I couldn't put anything with fins in the tank. I wound up taking the tank apart, buying all new liverock and upgrading to a 38 gallon. In the meantime I lost 75% of my corals, lost my anenome, and had to replace my live rock, substrate, filter media and tubbing (FX207), just in case. Also bought Purigen for the filter, set up a HOB with another Purigen pillow and let the tank run for 6 months before putting in sacrificial test fish. After the thousands I lost I should have stopped while I was ahead. Instead I spent another lump of $$$$ getting it up and adding new fish to the tank that didn't die overnight.
Expensive lesson, I have another venemous fish, but he is by himself in a 13.5 surrounded by pulsing zinnia.

No one could determine if the venom was the culprit but no one could deny it...

Just proves I am stubborn beyond common sense.


Oh I forgot, we had a used 120 gal but with a 5 foot print. The center brace was old. New home has basement with low ceiling and we have cats that like the rafters. The Ginger likes to jump down onto tanks and one day he jumped on the 120 brace and broke it. We reinforced it but my Dad had a better way and his way put a stress point so the back of the glass split diagonal from the repaired brace to the bottom corner of the tank, letting loose 1/4 of the tank before we noticed. Had to get a new tank up and move the pleco, wolf fish and 2 almost adult sevrum into 3 other tanks. Tank was trash.