Tragedy Strikes!

jadmitch

New Member
Joined
May 4, 2006
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
by me..... Oh man, ridiculous. So it was about that time of the month and decided to deep clean my fish tank. The timing couldn't have been better because I had just medicated my fish five days ago and was ready to remove any traces of it. I proceed to clean and re-setup my filters. I put the carbon and blue mesh back into the filters of an Emperor 400 and a Magnum canister. I bought the deluxe version of the Mangum so it came with the syphoning kit. Anyways, I empty everything from my tank to notice that one of my clown loaches are missing. I check around the tank and there was nothing. So the number one suspect is the Oscar because he has been a bad bad fish before.

I proceed to clean and attach the syphon to the filter and look up at the tank to make sure no fish were near the syphon. I turn my head for two seconds to flick the switch on for the filter and when I stand up my friend behind me yells "there's a fish is in the syphon." I rush to the filter and hit the off switch and thought he was fine. When I turned it off, he floated down into the filter and I scooped him out with my hand. Upon doing so, I noticed this weird gunk on him. I thought it was just fish #### so I put him back in the tank and he didn't move for a couple seconds. He sank to the bottom and then slowly his gills moved. I wondered what the hell was up with him. So I take a closer look at him and his intestines are hanging out of his gills. So I think to myself "Damnit, I am a foooooool! Those POS Marineland bastards should have incorporated some mesh to strain fish. And that's kinda gruesome. Poor fish."

I am hating the world at this moment, especially since it was my red-tailed black shark that I had bought when he was just 2cm long. When he died, he was 5cm long and I had only had him for a month. So I have a cigarette and blow it over, I proceed to clean my tank again with the syphon. I look at the tank to make sure there were no fish in the syphon and low and behold when I turn the switch on and jumped back up to the tank, what do I see? A large piece of dirt got into my filter. Or so I thought! To make sure I look into my filter and what do I find? My other black shark that I got when he was very small. Okay I know you aren't supposed to keep more than one red-tailed black shark per tank but the three I had swam and swam hand in hand all the time and got along perfectly. I am devasted for a moment and when I take him out of the filter his guts are everywhere.

Yummmmmy, okay so all my red-tailed black sharks are now dead thanks toe Murphy's Law, the other one was eaten by my Oscar about a month ago. I think I will get over it when I just buy one tomorrow to replace them. Hopefully I can find one of similar size, I don't think that's going to be too hard to do. Anyways, I just wanted to share my horrible cleaning experience today. Does anyone else have a bad story to share?
 
I'm so sorry about that, i guess we all have to learn from trial and error.
Only bad accident i witnessed was when my best friend was doing a water change and he accidently sucked up a guppy. Well he pulled the syphon out to drain out the water to release it but the guppy got stuck in the tubbing, so he blew on one end of the hose and guppy came shooting out but the force also broke his neck. :S
 
hrmmm, i dont think it was the filters fault unless its really really strong. healthy fish dont usually get caught in the filter. maybe that fish was still recovering from the sickness you tried to cure
 
Since I have one of those magnum filters on my 64 gal thanks for the warning! I have sucked up fish in the regular gravel vac....but that was their own faults for being too darn curious and refusing to stay away, eventually I wasn't quick enough and they were! I use the gravel vac with my magnum filter about once a month, the rest of the time I do a regular gravity vac. I would hate to see my fish get sucked up and torn apart. Maybe I will put a piece of mesh over it with a rubberband!
 

Most reactions

Back
Top