Okay... Time To Fess Up... :)

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰
about 15 yeaars ago I had 2 clown loach, 2 angels, a common pleco and 2 tri-colored sharks in a 35 gal tall hex---when they were about 8 inches long, I found the sharks on the floor ---they had knocked the top of the tank off probably looking for more space--now I know about properly stocking a tank
 
I was 12, owned a 30L (8G) tank with probably
2 guppies
2 red neons
1 Molly
2 neon tetra
1 snail
More fish im sure along with that... also there was no filtration and I hardly ever did water changes...
The poor animals were put out of their misery when we left for America for two weeks and the whole house's power was turned off.
 
Be assured, im sooo much better now!
 
The one that always stands out in my mind was buying a beautiful black catfish and putting it in a well established and stocked 6ft tank.  I was totally dazzled by this fishes beauty and up to that point I always thought catfish were all peaceful, it was pre-internet and the LFS of course told me it wouldn't be a problem.  The fact that this fish was obviously from it's appearance a predator completely bypassed me.  Even when fish started disappearing fairly rapidly, I was in complete denial and puzzled over the disappearances.  The fact that this fish had holed up in a cave which all the other fish now refused to go anywhere near STILL didn't ring any alarm bells.  I convinced myself that one of the angel fish had gone rogue until one morning I switched on the lights to find them both alive and well but completely shorn of their fins.  That night I sat after lights out with a torch and the "mystery" was solved when saw her hunting down the remaining terrified inhabitants :(  I still loved that fish, which turned out to be a Mystus leucophasis and was subsequently christened Dr Death.
 
A LFS told me it was OK to keep my new baby Oscar in a 20gallon tank. 1st tank and fish. Oscar was soon rehomed and I discovered the world of online fish forums. 8 years later things a very different living in the world of long lived fish and CO2 injected systems.
 
with the current cold water fish i have 2 goldfish, 2 shubunkins. 

Never cycled
Never tested
Hardly ever has plants in
Only has a filter
dont clean the gravel (we dont have a gravel cleaner)
very small tank, about 10 gallons.
Dont condition the water

This is very bad i know, they're my mums fish and its up to her what to do although i have told her.

They have never been ill and they have lived 8 years so far and still acting and looking healthy. it's shocking
 
Antoniakr said:
with the current cold water fish i have 2 goldfish, 2 shubunkins. 

Never cycled
Never tested
Hardly ever has plants in
Only has a filter
dont clean the gravel (we dont have a gravel cleaner)
very small tank, about 10 gallons.
Dont condition the water

This is very bad i know, they're my mums fish and its up to her what to do although i have told her.

They have never been ill and they have lived 8 years so far and still acting and looking healthy. it's shocking
Oh, parents 
rolleyes.gif

 
My mum is almost as bad; she has a three foot with at least two common plecs, four or five clown loaches and a bala shark, along with a few odds and ends of fish she happens to have taken a fancy to.
 
I have mentioned that her stocking is pretty bad, which she does admit it is, but then she says, "well, they all look happy"
shout.gif
  
 
I added a glow in the dark cave without rinsing it 
blush.png
 . Two days later, all of my fish were dead. 
rip.gif
 
My first tank was a 10 gallon, with two small goldfish. With no concept of cycling, or partial water changes, id monthly clean out the whole tank...I couldn't figure out why they rarely made it past 3 months.

I also was guilty of rinsing filter pads in tap water.


I've improved much in the hobby, the worst thing i've done as of recent was vacuuming up a platy fry, not realizing it was even in the tank.
 
(sorry, i've got kind of a lot of them. I've done some pretty stupid things over the years)
 
I've made the mistake of trying to keep a goldfish in a bowl, as well as bettas.
 
When I was about 8, I went out and dug a hole in the middle of the lawn, cut open a black trash bag and lined the hole with it, filled it with water and threw some gravel in and my whole family actually tried to keep 3 normal comet goldfish in this 1 foot deep, 2x2 hole next to our porch. They actually lived for a few weeks until raccoons figured out what was going on.. We stuck a big grate over the top of it (Looked like some kind of fish dungeon) but the last one didn't live much longer. This was early fall, also.. I'm not really sure how I thought that was going to work. 
 
My first actual fish tank was a 20H and I kept an angel fish, dyed fish, neon tetras, guppies, and who knows how many different tetras types in there and my mom just kept replacing them if they got eaten or died.
sad.png
I just thought fish didn't live very long. I also forgot to turn my light on many days and often didn't even feed my fish.. I'd go and finally turn the light on and everyone would have their fins missing. 
 
When I cleaned my tanks, I would take every plastic plant and decoration out, scrub them down, scrub the filter cartridge and vacuum the gravel all at once. One of my biggest regrets is one time during one of these bacteria massacres, I had put all of the plants in a big pot while I was vacuuming and afterwards I was putting them back in one by one and when I got to the bottom of the pot I found a little blackline raspbora. I still don't know if he was already dead when I took the plant out but I really hope so.. I feel really bad just thinking about it. 
 
Not all that long ago, I went to petsmart with the plan of keeping some kuhli loaches and ghost shrimp in a 10 gallon tank and when I actually saw how tiny and invisible the shrimp were, I decided against it. The lady convinced me to stick a leopard ctenopoma and rainbow shark in there, and told me they would be just fine and wouldn't grow much bigger, would only eat flakes etc. She also tried to sell me 2 electric blue rams and 2 julii cories and the only reason I didn't buy them is because they were too expensive. Went home and did research and now I realize she had no idea what she was talking about. Now i've got the two fish in my 75 gallon tank, where both have already grown considerably. 
 
I put my screen top on my Green Spotted Puffer's tank at a bad angle and the filter I had was touching it, didn't think it was an issue until I woke up to crazy zapping and popping noises and saw that my tank was half empty, the floor was flooded and an air pump shorted out. The water in the back of the filter was running across the back of the screen top and down my airline tubing. Had a power strip get water logged and it somehow still works, too. I went ahead and did this exact same thing AGAIN, not having learned my lesson, and once again flooded the floor. (Two times is enough, thanks.. Let's put that other top on.) My entire room still smells like the ocean.
 
Not exactly fish, but when I was little I found a huge blob of frog spawn in a puddle behind my house and we set up a tank for them in the freezing garage with no filter and somehow expected them all to live.. They actually hatched but we started finding these tiny little worms in the water which we finally realized were mosquito larvae, and around that time each of the tadpoles vanished without a trace. 
 
I remember as a toddler, I put a chair up next to my mom's 90g aquarium, netted out a pretty little orange swordtail, ran across the house with it and plopped it down on the carpet in my room, happy as can be. It flopped around for about 15 seconds until my mom found out what I was doing and saved it. (I'm still not sure what all that was about)
 
This isn't something I did, but I figure I may as well share. When I was a baby, my grandfather came over our house with a few friends and while my father was in a different room, my grandpa pulled out one of my mom's $50 saltwater fish, smacked our dog across the face with it and threw it back in. My dad came back in the room and they were all laughing and wouldn't tell him why for a while. The fish lived, but my grandfather wasn't exactly welcome near the fish anymore. 
 
I only did the standard mistakes really.  I listened to the LFS about how to start up a tank and what was appropriate to put in it.  I bought a 12 litre tank, ran it for 3 days and put two goldfish in it who died within 4 hours.... then went back thinking since I followed their instructions they must be bad fish... got two more that last nearly a month before suffering a few illnesses and dieing.
 
That is when I found some fish forums and future fish went a lot better.
 
Bought a spare tank! then another and another... x 18
Started rescuing fish..
Rescued an oscar (who shall remain nameless lol)
Showed my then 2 year old son what fish I had in a bag, which he poked a hole in so fish had to be dumped into the nearest tank before the bag emptied.
Gave up trying to prime a filter and suck started it a taste I will never forget.
Put a large plastic small leaved plant in with a plant eating fish :(
Gave my naughty oscar a bouncy ball to play with, which he flicked out of the water and smashed the light tubes.
Did a second water change (started to) on my oscar tank (while he was in quarantine) because I thought the water had been contaminated because he was lying on the bottom on his side after the first water change sulking not dying, I didnt know lol
Buying shatterproof/unbreakable thermometers for an oscar.
Left a heater turned on during a wc.
Completely abandoned a tank for weeks leaving it to go green with only a filter running because I thought the tank was empty and used it to soak wood in,  but only found out weeks later it contained some baby weather loach.
 
When I was young with my first ten gallon I wasnt happy when I cleaned tank so I used glass cleaner on the inside needless to say fish lasted bout a hr

I also made the mistake of letting my tank fill up as I was in anthor room flooded floor of 135 gallon tank

Left a heater on did samething poured cold water on it lol

Iv dropped my fish light in my tank at least 5 times
 
I got tiger barbs and dwarf gourami.  lets jus say I was able to save 2 out of the 3 from being harassed to death.  Brought them back to the LFS and was talked into buying a couple angles.  They were harassed but I was able to save both.  Finally learned that barbs are better in bigger schools and bumped them up to 8 instead of 5 and they have been much nicer ever since. 
 
Lol most of yours are pretty tame compared to mine. Mind you I was about 8-10 years old when this this happened.
 
First thing I did was 2 gold fish in probably a 1 ft tank, completely uncylcled and I would clean the filter under the tap. Then to that same tank I added a banded grunter that I caught in the river at the back of our paddock as well as a huugge yabby. 2 hours later goldfish were absolutely shredded but managed to survive. Can't remember what actually happened to them. Think the grunter and yabby ended up going back to the river. 
 
Then for my birthday my dad got me a huuuge tank and mounted it to the wall. Completely uncycled, added 2 angels, numerous guppies and about 6 neon tetras. Needless to say, they all died.
 
Then I got an axolotl and my dad fed it about 30 million pellets and poisoned it's water. Got another axolotl and didn't have a lid on the tank so of course it jumped out. Woke up in the morning to an almost completely disintegrated (yet somehow still alive) axolotl. Whacked it back in the tank and went off to school. Got home from school that day and the tank was literally axolotl soup. That was by far the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me in my whole entire life.
 
Here's one that I did not do, but my dad did when I was 10 or so.  He bought two live crayfish from our local supermarket (they were meant to be eaten, not pets) and put them into a 15 gallon tank with a few comet goldfish.  Things did not end well for most of the goldfish.  The crayfish also died eventually, not too sure why.
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Members online

Back
Top