# Post your aquarium disasters



## bigpow (May 24, 2004)

here's my recipe for disaster:
1 dose of AlgaeFix
1 dose of Levamisole
1 dose of Tetracycline

They interracted and killed 3 rosy barbs

Another lesson learned: Patience is the key


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## Gomer (Aug 14, 2003)

CO2 was too high on a new tank. Killed off 10 emeral eye rasboras.


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## Aquabobo (Sep 24, 2004)

A few years ago, my kid fed a beta fish Ramen noodles AND the spice packet. Needless to say, the fish was a gonner soon enough. Removal and cycling through containers did no good.


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## unirdna (Jan 22, 2004)

Aquabobo said:


> A few years ago, my kid fed a beta fish Ramen noodles AND the spice packet. Needless to say, the fish was a gonner soon enough. Removal and cycling through containers did no good.


 :hihi: Sorry to laugh, but the spice packet was too over-the-top. Kids :icon_roll .

As for my story.... [18 years ago ] While practicing for my career as an All-Star-Wrestler, I put my friend's head through his 30g hex.


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## Aquabobo (Sep 24, 2004)

Nice. roud: DeeDee feed fish. Unirdna suplexed 30gal tank.


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## enchanted (Sep 23, 2004)

I was awake early in the morning (about 3:30AM) doing a bunch of important work. I was adjusted to the slight trickle sound from the filter on my tanks, but it sounded louder than normal.

Being fairly dark in the house I was looking over at the tanks (top/bottom) and once my eyes adjusted I noticed water dripping down into the bottom tank.

Luckily the bottom tank was empty. The bottom seal broke on the top tank causing water to empty into the bottom tank. 

I managed to do a rapid swap (less than 3 hours) of the two tanks while temporarily rehoming the fish in my 30 gallon long.


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## IUnknown (Feb 5, 2003)

Came home from class with my goldfish on their sides gasping for air in the 2" of water that was left in the tank. My DIY hang on the back plant filter had leaked. Two weeks ago my new Co2 tubing didn't stay on the in line reactor and I came home to 10 gallons of water on the rug.


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## BSS (Sep 24, 2004)

Not really a disaster, but a strange demise. One day while filling up test tubes for midweek water tests, I dropped a tube into the tank. As I didn't feel like pulling off the whole top, I figured I could get it on the weekend. Two days later, I came home from work to find a Leopard danio that took a one-way trip to the end of the tube. I guess his reverse gear was broken.

Survival of the fittest, I guess. But, a lesson learned.

Then there was a time on an earlier 29g tank. I had sitting right behind the couch. One day, I get a call from the spouse. My toddler had climbed on the back of the couch and while pounding on the glass top, it broke and sank into the tank along with my 55w cf fixture. Amazingly enough, none of the fist were affected and I just needed to order a new ballast.


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## anonapersona (Oct 19, 2002)

I decided to move a filter from one tank to another, and felt that i should sterilize it with bleach. I scrubbed the filter parts and rinsed with dechlor and moved it over. Apparently there was enough dying bacteria still in the filter to send the ammonia to an apparent 16 ppm, topping out my test kit even after repeated large water changes. My water conditioner was handling the ammonia for the most part I guess, otherwise the fish should've died. I eventually lost all but one anyhow, to temp changes with the massive water changes I was doing.

Never quite trusted using bleach after that.


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## observant_imp (Jun 30, 2004)

My husband and I have had an ongoing battle for years. He sets his glass down anywhere, anytime, and I run around after him picking it up and putting it on a coaster away from anything electronic. He loves to tease me about being overly cautious. It was mean of me, but I couldn't help but giggle (all day long) when he set a large glass full of ovaltine on top of his reef tank, removed the lid on 1 side, and then bumped it with his elbow knocking the entire glass into the tank. He spent the day changing water and did his filters twice. Amazingly, nothing died. But his tank looked limp for about 3 months before finally perking back up. And he's quit making fun of me for insisting that the vcr, my computer, and the aquariums aren't coasters.


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## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

I was feeding my fish one day and noticed a dead cardinal. While fishing him out my hand touched the water and it was hot. I checked the temp and it seems my heater went sending the temp to 93F from 75F. I lost one cory, 2 tetras and about 15 cardinals. I wasn't pleased. I put ice packs and bags of ice in the tank and they melted in about 5 minutes. I took the heater out but I didn't have a replacement so the temp was about 73 for 2 weeks or so. I didn't loose anymore fish after the fact. It sucked.


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## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

Okay, since we are telling horror stories, I will retell the blue-green plague of '03 story. 
Basically, I got blue-green algae in my 75 gallon tank and couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. It covered everything so completely, I ended up losing about $120 worth of plants. Then I decided to tear it down and clean it and put all my fish in a 40 gallon plastic tub, thinking I could get rid of it that way. I put the filter on the side of the tub to keep the fish healthy for a couple of days while I cleaned. You know those little holes in the handles on the plastic storage tubs? Well, the filter was dripping down the side of the tank after some hornwort or somethign got stuck in it and dripped about 30 gallons of water onto my girlfirends expensive white carpet. She was so upset she cried (did I mention the carpet was expensive?) Anyway, not only did that suck, but I lost my two macrobrachium sp. shrimp which were my favorites and a couple of fish to boot. After that I bought another $100 worth of plants and the blue-green AGAIN came back so bad it killed them.
Finally, I used Maracyn and that wiped all the BGA out. Not only did that whole experience suck, it was VERY expensive!
-Aphyosemion


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## Rupey (Nov 16, 2002)

75 gallon tank 6 mmonth old cat =bad things!! Did water change one night and forgot to close the door on the cabinet on the tank. Next morning didn'nt have to work so sleeping late. Woke up at 6 am by wife screaming "theres water all over the floor and the big tank is half empty"!! I staggered out of bed walked downstairs into a pool of water!! I had about 45 gallons of water on my basement floor!! My daughters cat went into the cabinet and chewed off the return hose to the filter! It emptied the tank until the syphon broke. What a mess!!! Luckily it was in the basement!!!


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## bellisb925 (Jul 3, 2004)

Another CO2 story...

I had just finally got my long awaited CO2 system. Everything was working great for the first week. I would turn it on in the morning when I left for work and turn it off at bedtime. Finally, I got wise and thought I should hook it up to a timer. Got it all hooked up and let it be. I guess I opened the valve at some point and when I got home all I could see were bubbles. Not good. I guess the valve was almost wide open and all 28 fish and 6 shrimp were dead. All the fishes eyes were black, lungs looked exploded, and some fishes spines were bent. It was my first taste of a death in the fish tank and I think I had bad dreams for about four days. Trying to be the optimist, I finally explained to my wife what pearling was!


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

my story about paying $100 for ONE screw in cf bulb can be found here:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1139

also, not a disaster story, but worth a chuckle (don't leave home without your aquarium mags)...

my gf at the time invited me over to watch some sort of accursed "chick flick". i was wise. she had just worked a couple of 12 hour shifts, so i knew she would be asleep before the movie was an hour old. thus, my crafty plan evolved. into the back seat of my car went a few aqua mags. once she was asleep, i could sneak out to the car, mute the incessant cesspool of nonsense, and at least take in a couple of good articles. on the way over, i stop in to the lfs to pick up something or other. i stop to talk to the (strikethrough: cute blond) clerk. fifteen minutes pass. all of a sudden i hear: "anyone in here own a white beat up mazda?" i look up and there's a distinguished member of the halifax police department. seems i had parked illegally, and he was just about to have my car towed when he saw the mags in the back seat. he sees the lfs across the street, and thankfully thinks to look for the car owner in the store. that magazine subscription all of a sudden paid for itself. i bought lottery tickets later that day. surprisingly, i won nothing.


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## Scissors (Oct 21, 2004)

When I kept cichlids, I had a Stone Bichir with a couple of convicts. The lid had small holes in the back where the filter intake, heater, airline, etc. would go through. The bichir probably jumped out sometime during the night but I didn't notice because it was always secretive and came out rarely. Anyways, the power strip happened to break its fall and my heater went haywire, raising the temperature to 92F overnight and I woke up to dead convicts and an unrecognizable bichir.

Anyways, I'm having a diatom problem right now, which could lead to another horror story if I don't fix it.


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## Poohbee (May 6, 2004)

This happened a couple days ago. Before going to the dentist I had setup my diatom filter to run all night and into the next day to get rid of all the suspended particles. I had the intake and exhaust in between the tank and glass lid with an inch of space between. After coming back from the dental office I headed straight to my room while passing my 72gal tank, which i didn't pay attention to. I came out of my room and went to look at my tank and while heading towards my tank I glanced at the floor and noticed something that was dark and long . I stooped to get a better look at it and noticed it was one of my Golden Wonder Killie Fish. >_< At first I didn't know it was a killie fish I thought it was one of the danios. The poor fish was cold and limp.. but when I touched it it moved a bit.. Which surprised me and made me go into action right away.. I scooped up the dried fish and put him back into the tank and the guy just started swimming like nothing had happened. Almost thought I lost him.. I wonder how long it was out of the tank..


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

This was a classic about 15 years ago...

My 14" Pacu freaks out, pulls a Great White Shark type jump in the tank when he got startled by my buddies wife tapping on the glass. He blasts the hood off the top of the tank with his head throwing water all over our guests, which in turn caused 3 of them to throw their wine and beer, which in turn made the fourth guest (my buddy) fall backwards over the coffee table which *was* (note the _past tense_ part) setup with lots of snacks (and dip) :icon_roll

We still laugh about that night... well now anyways, not then ... LOL


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## Justin (Aug 26, 2004)

all these are pretty good stories so far lots of lessons to be learned here, now a few of mine....

last year whilst involved in a complete tear down of my 29 gallon tank in my bedroom, i took the three $45 sharks and my $20 dollar dragon fish out of that tank and figured they would be fine over night in my 5 gallon hex on my kitchen counter. i spent the rest of that evening cleaning up the algea flushing out my gravel, and then rebuilding, by the time i was done, i decided to just go ahead and let the tank cycle the rest of the night and went to bed. seemed pretty simple right? well the next morning i went out to get the fish out of the 5g. they were all floating... and bubbles were covering the sides... the night before i had the 15w incandescent bulb on, i pulled it off the timer and just plugged it in and forgot about it. the light ran for probably around 14-16hrs if not more and the temp weighed in just slighty above 100. i will never use incandescent bulbs again...

snails... what can i say about snails, other than they love to crawl up filters and in to the impellar blades. i spent a couple of hours one day tapping out close to 20 shells and a bunch more crushed ones. that was fun. a little bit of screen goes a long way.

and the worst mistake i ever had made was trusting some one would feed my fish properly even with detailed instructions taped to the tank and a copy given to them. i left for a 2 week vacation, when i arrived back home, i dont know what pissed me off more, the fact that my room had been raided by my roommates and a ton of stuff missing, or the fact that every fish that was on frozen food was floating and *decaying* and as for the ones on flake food... they ate all my plants, i came home to a tank full of stems. when i confronted my room mate, he claimed they were alive just the day before. oh yea they shut off my filter air pumps and lights, they went on a save electricity crusade and figured the fish didnt need them.  

i have had alot of bad luck with aquariums over the last year, but i have learned from them all.

oh yea i almost forgot my recent moving experience. i had to work on my last day to move. there was no way they would give me the day off because the other three electricians were on leave. i have some great friends and they volounteered their time to help move the rest of my stuff. i told them to leave my fish tanks alone i would get them after i was off duty, they had a fire in their asses and decided to move my tanks anyways. these guys have never owned a fish tank, as far as they knew, all you need is water a tank and fish. they drained the tank down to about 1/4in of water and put the fish in a 5gal bucket and moved them,(they didnt think fish could breath in plastic bags) however when they got to my new place, they decided they didnt want to set the tank up, so they filled the 80gallon tub with cold (untreated) water and dumped the fish in to some nice hard las vegas water. the only survivors were two plecos and an oscar. on top of that they thought all the plants in the tank were fake so they left them in a pile on the floor next to the tank. so now my 29g has 3 fish and gravel awaiting the rebuild. moving is fun i cant wait to do it again. the fish tanks almost make it worth it to never move again. :tongue:


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## Pearljam11 (Sep 23, 2004)

dont killis go through dry periods were they get stuck in mud and whatnot in the wild? maybe that saved him lol


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## ^iMp^ (Oct 12, 2003)

I put miracle gro plant food spikes in my 20g. A disaster for sure...


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## unirdna (Jan 22, 2004)

*The War on Drugs*

Justin's (  ) and Buck's ( :hihi: ) stories made me remember one from Freshman year of college.

I'll write it backwards for fun.

- Largest stash of pot (marijuana) discovered in campus history (in room 130).

- Fire Dept mistakenly breaks into room 130 instead of 310.

- Building fire alarm goes off in room 310.

- [in room 310] Circuitry begins to melt and smoke.

- Aquarium water pours into the top of a 340 watt stereo receiver.

- Roomate's head creates a 5 inch hole in the side of a 20g aquarium

- Roomate, uncontrolably, falls backwards in his chair.

- Roomate's recoils backwards after his forehead smashes into his desk.

- Roomate sneezes violently.

- Roomate up late at night [sitting at desk] writing term paper (due next day)

- Roomate went on a hot date two nights before term paper was due

- Girl on date had a cold.


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## grungefreek (Oct 9, 2003)

Last time i was making up my own trace element mix fertiliser, i confused the percentage of iron in the mix and ended up mixing my fertiliser 5 times stronger than i thought. So upon adding the amount i thought i needed, i added a lethal dose of copper to my tank, and killed all my fishies. The tank had all my favourites in their as well :icon_frow


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## Hop (Mar 27, 2004)

My worst disaster actually wound up becoming a great event, despite the headache. My son called me a work to say that there was water coming from the underside of my 75-gallon AGA aquarium that was only a few months old. When I came home and inspected the leak I found that the bottom, tempered glass had cracked and I had to do an emergency drain and relocation of all those fish into a 29-gallon hospital tank and an already over-stocked 55. I called AGA and they were great, telling me to take it back to the store and they would call up front and work out the exchange. Well the closest aquarium store that sold tanks over 55 gallons was two hours away. When I got to the store the manager refused to exchange the tank quoting his losing money etc. I wound up leaving the tank at his back door and returned home. After calling AGA back and explaining how I wanted a 125 to begin with, but no one sold tanks that large in the area, they wound up drop shipping a 125-gallon tank to my home, no questions asked. And oddly enough this store is now under new management.


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## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

Wow, those stories are great. I think we can all learn a couple of things from each others pain. 
1) Tank leaks are bad.
2) Never EVER let anyone else touch your tank or fish.
3) Miracle grow isn't such a miracle when applied to fish tanks.
4) Scaring giant fish is bad.
5) Your pain makes for great reading.
:icon_bigg 
-Aphyosemion


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## jcgd (Feb 18, 2004)

This is an extremely good thing, but also annoying.
If I get ANY cichlid that likes soft, acidic water, they spawn in my tank in under a week after I get them. This is good except that the cichlids are always aggressive. The rams wont tollerate anything else, the angels are bums and my kribs are slowly killing my cardinals. But I have lots of nutritious eggs laying around everywhere. No babies though.


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## travis (Nov 17, 2004)

I don't think I can even come close to the Room 310 story I just read. A few months ago my tank was going through a fuzz/hair algae outbreak (I thought TSP meant tablespoon :icon_roll and OD'd the KNO3) so I ordered a batch of SAE's in a desperate attempt to get rid of it. They arrived and were a bit smaller than the 2" size advertised. I keep African cichlids in my planted tank. I went ahead and put the SAE's in assuming that, since most of my cichlids were herbivores, they would only chase them, not eat them. Incorrect. Apparently a certain subset of herbivores likes a nice meaty snack once in a while. As it turned out, over the course of two days they ate all but two of the dozen SAE's I put in the tank. I kept fishing out the half-eaten corpses but I was basically powerless to stop it since it would be virtually impossible to catch any kind of fish in my tank unless I completely tore it down.

I thought that the loss of the SAE's was the worst part of it. I was wrong, however. All of the cichlids that ate the SAE's (about a half dozen of my largest Afrcians) died within the next two days of Malawi Bloat, which is caused by protein clogging the extremely long, narrow, twisted gut of many Malawian cichlids. I lost my prized wild-caught Ps. sp. Elongatus 'Usisya' male and several of my other favorite fish. Those cichlids that didn't eat the original SAE's seem to have no desire to eat the two remaining SAE's in my tank (which are getting very large now). I would like to add some more SAE's but I'm afraid of a repeat of the last episode.


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

I don't know if it qualifies as a disaster, but it sure felt like one when it happened a few hours ago...

I got a new venturi for my python. The wife was pitching a fit because the old one was straying water all over the kitchen sink. But not this one, no sirreee! Tight as a drum. So I start the water change...

After a relaxing while, sitting watching the water slowly drain out of the tank, it finally get's half way down. So I briskly walk to the kitchen to reverse the flow of the python, and step right into water. Lot's of it!

I forgot to make sure the drain in the sink was open! Sink filled up, water spilled over... and not straight to the floor either. Oh noooo! It had to flow across the counter to the wall, and run down into all the cabinetry! So the 75 gallons or so on the floor was just where it settled. It tried to ruin a whole lot of carpentry on the way down.

Well, the mess is clean. now, after hours of cleaning. The wife has been suitably calmed, and went to get dinner in a diner with the kids, leaving me to kick myself in the butt, pour a gin and tonic, and try to find the humor in this somewhere... :hihi:


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## rain- (Mar 29, 2004)

I don't even dare to read any of your posts, I am still recovering from my disaster and still trying to find the interest to continue as before 

A bit under two weeks ago I was moving all my tanks to different places in my room (well, only 5 of them are filled with water right now) and raising the uhm, leca block (?) stands by one block. I was also putting finally my metal halides to work. I stripped down my planted tank and put all the plants in bags and buckets (I assumed I would be replanting them within few hours). I moved the tank, put the metal halides in their places, put them on and started doing repeated water changes since some clay had surfaced from bottom of the sand, well, lots of clay since I desided to give a good stirr now when there weren't any plants on the way. 

After 4 WC:s I started to replant the most demanding plants, that was like 4 am. And when I was standing next to the another MH, the condensator exploded and released lots and lots of smoke and started dripping yucky smelling fluid straight to the tank. 

Well, I didn't get hurt, only my ear was ringing and it hurt for a day. I managed to move the MH and rip the plants once again from the, now foul smelling, tank and washed them many times to get rid of the stench. After a full day my room still smelled of smoke. I had to replace the sand, scrub the tank and do so many more things. In the end the plants needed to be in the bags and buckets for two days and I lost 2/3 of the plant matter. 

Well, I will be getting the broken MH back soon and they both have now new condensators which don't contain any liquids. And the plants are growing again. And luckily my Crystal Red shrimps were in another tank when the explotion happened. I still haven't moved all my tanks to their new places, I was so exhausted after all this.

I might consider keeping my tanks if nothing bad happens for a while now


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## Cheeseybacon (Feb 13, 2005)

Way back when I was about 12 or 13, my little sister creating a soapy, bubbly fish halocaust by squirting nearly half a bottle of dish detergent into my 10-gallon. Her excuse was the fish needed a bath! It was so funny I honestly couldn't be mad at her.


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## Jerm (Sep 26, 2005)

LOL these are funny. I enjoy reading about all of your misery. I really havent had any problem with my ---->low tech<---- tanks. It seems only large and/or complex tanks have problems. The worst thing that has ever happend to my 29 gal was it overheated when we turned on the woodstove.. in the same room. It heated my tank up so hot that the water was HOT to the touch. We instantly did a BIG water change and my sister put fans on the tank (i didnt think it would help, but what the heck) Suprisingly enough, the only things they killed were a juvinial platty, 1 of my corries (sob) :icon_frow and my zebra danios (i hated them anyway, always tormented my other fish) and they say danios are hardy. Overheating kills them F A S T


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## Zach210 (Feb 1, 2005)

My first fish tank resided on a bookshelf next to my bed. A bookshelf that was bought at target. Needless to say the craftsmanship was not up to supporting the 160+ pounds of my 20 gallon tank and I woke one night after hearing a loud pop and suddenly feeling wet. No I had not wet the bed rather the shelf had broken and the tank tipped over onto me and my bed. Amazingly the tank did not break and all of the fish survived.

My third tank was a 110 salt tank. The lesson I learned here was don't use cheap plastick "quick connect" hose clamps. They fail. Which lets 75 gallons of water come spraying out of a hang on skimmer directly onto a power strip and outlet. In my case water and electricity made fire. Another bad way to wake up but a great way to piss off your parents.


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## Jason Baliban (Mar 3, 2005)

*Martin's Aquarium*

There used to be a store in Jenkintown PA called Martin's Aquarium.....so of you may recall this store.

Anyway, the legend goes like this. There was once a lonely arowana in a 55-75 gallon aquarium. This guy was big and old.....he wasn't even for sale anymore. Well as you all know awowana's have got "ups". Knowing this, the people who worked at the store put a glass cover on the tank with a large rock to secure it. Well one evening the arowana went for the jump of his life. He hit the hood with such force that he shot the rock up high enough into the air that it came down.....shattered the hood and procededed to blow out the front glass of the aquarium. The next morning the employee's came into find the empty tank with a huge hole in the front glass......and the dead arowana on the floor.

jB


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## Hawkeye (Mar 22, 2005)

How fast can a 55gal dump all the water on a hardwood floor? About three minutes.









Hawk


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## scolley (Apr 4, 2004)

Lol! Lol! Lmfao! Lol!


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## unirdna (Jan 22, 2004)

:eek5: 

I wouldn't even know where to start.


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## jimmydrsv (Apr 8, 2005)

I am about to setup a tank over a hardwood floor too... Hopefully that doesn't happen to me.

So far, no disasters or any major algae problems. My experience has been rosey so far.

The only thing that sucks so far is i got the idea of putting my clippings in my 20 gallon tank without having any plan of what to ever use them for and kept doing it until you couldn't see anything but clippings. There were 10 fish somewhere in there. I finally cleaned it out today and found them again.


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## lumpyfunk (Dec 22, 2004)

Let me see, 90 gallon tank with a 20# co2 tank and no needle valve. . . dumped into my tank, killing all my fish and even the snails. The day before we left for my grandfathers funeral. I got all the bodies out and turned the spray bar up for circulation and hoped for the best. Four days later, my tank was full of brown thread algae, I mean full. Tore the tank down, washed the substrait and replanted what was left. Brown algae came back, )#@$&*)%#&) and when I finally got that a little under control. . .Bam massive Green water. My tank looked like a Mountain Dew bottle. . . Still does, however it is clearing up now. (do you think I just gave myself the kiss of death on that?)


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## Pseud (Oct 2, 2005)

Evacuated most of my tank. 
Left 10 Neons in there. 
Drained it to just a few inches, sand in the bottom. 

Added one big bag of flourite. 


Realised my mistake. 



Said a little prayer for the Neons.

Mixed up the sand and flourite with the intention of putting an inch layer of sand on top. 

Made a face that resembled ---)> oO at the water color. 

Quickly drained the last couple of inches.

Rescued 8 Neons.

Rebuilt tank.



Yes. I am officially an idiot.


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## rlschne (Aug 3, 2005)

dude, baby2boy, i have to ask.... im not sure i want the answer.... what the hell is your avatar?


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## Errin (Nov 16, 2005)

Not a very dramatic disaster but it is the one thing I feel the most guilty about in all my years aquarium keeping. I was doing a water change and decided to clean the intake tube on my Aqua Clear. I removed the lower section of tube and left the upper section (without the little screen thing) attached. Well when I reattached the lower tube the upper section wouldn't go back in so I pushed, jiggled and wiggled the tube until it did. All the while my propeller is making funny noises. Then I look in the tank to admire my cleaning and do a quick head count. My favorite molly is missing and suddenly it hits me! That’s what was stuck in my filter!!  I took apart the filter and there he was all chopped up. I felt so bad I barfed and cried. Mostly I just felt plain stupid! Now I always turn off my filter when I clean it. A lesson learned the hard way.


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## Fosty (Oct 17, 2003)

Here we go: When I first moved from a goldfish bowl to a ten gallon tank with tropical fish and dying plants about 6 years ago, me and a friend came across a tank that had been left out as trash. We took it and I brought it home with me. We cleaned it and checked for cracks. There were none that we could find. I brought up to my room, put it next to my other tank (both 10 gallons) and filled it halfway up. I really don't know why I only filled it halfway up, pure luck I guess. Anyways, that night I didn't sleep in my room for some reason. I was downstairs from the tank. 

That night, shortly after midnight, I get woken up by my parents. The smoke alarm in our house was going off. It was right above my head and I still slept through it :eek5: . But, thats not the point, we couldn't figure out what set the alarm off. There was nothing on fire. We eventually unplugged it and realized that the ceiling was dripping with water. I sprinted up stairs to find that my tank (the one I found in someones trash) was about empty. The water had dripped down into the smoke alarm and fried the circuits. 5 gallons of water had dripped down between the second story floor and the first story ceiling. 

We put buckets on the counter of the kitchen and let the water drip into that. The next morning we called a carpenter and he came over, drilled a few holes in the drywall ceiling and quite a bit of water drained out. I later checked the tank and there was a huge crack in the center of it. We ended up having the section of the ceiling completely replaced. And I was bummed about losing my second tank.


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## dschmeh (Feb 5, 2006)

I had a 40 breeder reef setup for years I walked into the room heard a snap and water started gushing out of the bottom. I had saltwater madeup ahead of time so i grabbed a bucket and threw the fish in . the corals i wrapped in wet newspaper and took them to my friends house and put them in his tank. I saved most of them. Looking at 40 gallons of saltwater on a rug is quite disturbing.


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## Keck (Jan 18, 2006)

My 2 year-old Nephew decided my 10g holding tank needed cleaning so he dumped 2 cups of powered laundry detergent in it. Luckily I got the few fish that were in it out in time.

Been stung by a Lion fish twice. Both times were my fault for not paying attention while moving things around in the tank.

My cats like to help me do my tank maintenance. They gave up on the fish years ago, but now try to run off with plant clippings I place in a bucket. Last night while doing a WC, I had over 3g left in a bucket sitting on the floor. I turned my back for a second and heard a CLUNK…SWOOOSH. I turned to see the water flow across my hardwood floor and 2 cats scattering out the door.


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## Betowess (Dec 9, 2004)

I wasn't there and was about 12 years old. And very proud of my 10 gallon tank with maybe 70 to 100 baby guppies in there from multiple pairs. I was off at camp and happy as a clam at high tide. When I came home and my tank was no longer set up, I asked where was it and what happened? My brother showed me his pool cue, and shrugged his shoulders, saying it was an 8 ball. I guess I should have known better than to set up a tank in the game room.


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## Suzanne (Jan 14, 2006)

Last night I was doing a water change - my 110 gallon is in another room -I
hooked up the python to the kitchen sink and as always put a cloth over the
faucet to prevent water spray and proceeded to happily syphon and clean
the aquarium - I went back to the kitchen to adjust the python to fill mode and walked into a lake of fish water on my kitchen floor - the cloth had fallen and got stuck in the drain! I spent all last night cleaning cupboards, drawers and floors! Lots of fun ... and had to hang my fully soaked kitchen carpet in the basement to dry out - every towel in the house was sopping wet. The only really surprising part is that all the tiles on the kitchen floor didn't curl or pop up... Now the really stupid thing is ... this is the second time I've done this - thank goodness we're in a rental!


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## unirdna (Jan 22, 2004)

Suzanne said:


> thank goodness we're in a rental!


:hihi: :hihi:


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## jade_dragon71 (Dec 2, 2005)

My worst disaster was before Tim (Tama drummer 73) had any interest in this hobby and I was fending for myself with all the "tech" stuff. I had made up DIY CO2 for a 29 gal I used to have in two liter bottles and felt very proud of myself, that is, until I came home from work and the contents of both had emptied into the tank. (Ever heard of a check valve, genius???? )


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## Pooky125 (Jul 30, 2002)

Mmm, where to begin. I have to admit, the froom 310 story is by far my favorite. However, just like so many others, I've had my fair share of bad luck.

Many years ago, I was over at a friends good bye party over night. Thirty six hours after leaving, I came home, caffinated (thankfully), but ready to FINALLY sleep. Being up for a day and a half is very draining. I get, home, walk into my bedroom, and find my heavily planted 10 gallon tall tank, with my prized pair of near breeding blue rams, and clwon pleco on the floor. Broken glass, fish and gravel everywhere. I say several choice words outside my door, when my dad grunts whats wrong from his bed. I ask him if he heard a watery splash at somepoint that morning. Yes he says. I ask if he bothered to check. No, of course not, why? 

The next 2 weeks were spent ripping out my carpet, painting my room, and $400 dollars worth of linoleum later, I have a water proof bedroom. The male ram was saved, as was the clown pleco, who still happily resides in my 30. The female was lost. I haven't found a pair of rams that georgus since. They were from a local breeder who had the most amazing pair. Needless to say, I didn't manage to get any pictures of them, nor have I been able to keep a ram alive since.


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

*Almost suffocated everyone in my tank!*

I removed my bio-wheel after my tank was fully planted so as to not gas off CO2 and compete with plants for nitrogen. After a few weeks of establishing planting and stabilizing a pressurized CO2 system, I decided to replace many of the "nutrient-depleting" plants with some that I wanted to try my hand with. In anticipation of the mail-ordered plants arriving, I removed many plants, and trimmed the ones that would remain. Mail-order didn't arrive when expected. Turns out that the decreased plant load resulted in a very large decrease in O2! CO2 remained the same, no spike in NH3, NO2 or NO3. Although I never used any type of airstone, the bio-wheel was evidently producing enough surface agitation to keep the O2 level acceptable before planting the tank. By the time the bio-wheel was removed, the heavy plant load was provinding the O2. After lightening the plant load NOTHING was providing O2! 

My wife called me at work and told me something was wrong with the fish. Immediately thought CO2 was the culprit, and told her to close the valve on the CO2 tank and turn the spraybar up. This helped a little, but when I got home, I realized that there WAS no CO2 spike (KH and pH were the same as always)! After testing the water, I added a bubble wall which releived the fish's symptoms within an hour or two. I tapered the CO2 back up and the fish were fine! 

Lost 3 japonica shrimp and almost killed 2 clown loaches and 2 flagfish. Gourami's didn't seem to affected.


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## aquamoon (Jul 26, 2004)

55,3 10's , 2.5 ,20 and 5 gallon fish tanks mixed with x-mas break(we were gone for 3 days) and a landlord who at this time thought that it was cold....
Well, the out come of this was over 150 dead fish ...


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## kimmer189 (Sep 11, 2005)

Suzanne,
I did EXACTLY the same thing with the python! Unbelievable. I will not put towels anywhere near that sink, now. I don't care anymore if spray hits the wall. When this happened to me, my wash sink overflowed & I only figured it out when my husband came running up from the basement screaming b/c water was dripping onto his computer & desk through the ceiling. The computer was actually fine & we laughed about it later.


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## wantplantsnotwork (Nov 28, 2004)

I had a neighbor feed my tank for me (before planted) and used a whole large can of food in a week. Enough to feed a damn cat. Came home, the house stunk, everything was dead, a septic tank.
I was VERY explicit about how to feed. SInce then, when I go on vacation, so do the fish tummies. No loss yet, they do fine. Especially now with a planted tank.


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## mrbelvedere (Nov 15, 2005)

In my pre-planted tank days, I did some time for a few months. When I came back, my 37 gallon tank with 6 zebra danios and an otocinclus was dark brown, truly black water. The filter hadn't been changed (horrible smell), the water hadn't been changed, and there was a half inch thick layer of feces on the bottom. Imagine an overfed, neglected tank that hadn't had the water changed in 3 months. Nitrates were beyond the test kit. Never trust anyone to take care of your tank. Even when you leave a detailed instruction list that only takes 15 minutes once a week. Even when you have only plastic plants and hardy fish. Those unititated in the hobby have no hope of understanding.


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## Stealthy Ninja (Feb 16, 2006)

My very first proper tank (goldfish bowl didn't count) was a 50 gallon (I think) saltwater. The problem was that I had the great idea to put it on a TV cabinet, which was on wheels. This was ok till the wheels slowly started to bend (over weeks). I then tried moving the tank...with water in it (what a crazy stupid thing to do)...little did I know back then that trying to move a filled tank will nearly always cause it to crack - which is exactly what happened. I had to empty it half way and stick on a messy amount of silicone.

Back to the cabinet wheels. I ending up having to jam a bunch of paper-back novels under the tank to keep it up (good thing I read a lot LOL). Needless to say, all this lead to me buying a new tank. Ahh happy endings.


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## audioactive08 (Mar 6, 2006)

the dumbest thing i ever did to my first planted tank was to put a bunch of cichlids in it.. (i was rather ignorant back then.. good thing ignorance is very curable. =D)


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## Glouglou (Feb 14, 2006)

*Playing at night*

I was excited when my CO2 system came Home 

—The Milwaukee setup—

I Install everything and after a couple of day fidling with the pretty coarse neddle valve, I obtain the around one bubble a second I needed.
Couple of days pass..........
Let’s crank up that baby, I was adjusting the valve _(off the needle on this one)_ when my solenoid went off _(Timer)_.

After a good night of sleep, up in the morning to get my son ready for school.
In my dreaming state, I hear a funny bubbling sound, a little look (like every morning) to the tank to see a steady stream of bubble coming out of my CO2 reactor and all the occupant nose down or belly up in a livid wihtish color.

Panic... shutting off the gas chamber. aeration full blast—> lost 2 neon and one Ram.

And feel like a bad father for the rest of them.

1 lesson + 1 question

Lesson : Never adjust your [email protected] system when you cannot monitor it for some time.
PS: I remark, sometime in the morning the needle on the regulator gauges take a certain time to go to their real reading, don’t adjust at that time, wait a little bit when the reading is stable.

1 question : after the accident if trowing half of cup or so of peroxide can revive my poor fishies or kill them for good.


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## rickztahone (Jul 20, 2009)

i can't say i had a disaster yesterday but i had a pretty stupid thing happen to me. Each water change i take off the strainers from my 2 xp3's so that i can clean the pre-filters. I tossed them in the sink and forgot about them. I turn on both filters and leave them running for a good 3 minutes until i remember. I immediately turned them off and started counting my 100+ chili rasboras, needless to say it is very difficult to count 100+ rasboras, lol. At the end of the day i counted a good 70 but a butt-load were missing. Lesson learned and forehead palm was in the works...


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## karatekid14 (Jan 16, 2011)

I was adjusting the paintball co2 a bit and BOOM the tubing blew off and started flapping around. In the process it froze half my room and scared my dog an I to death. I (and my dog) ran out of the room. My mom came in and managed to turn it off. I couldn't go in my room for 30 min.


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## chiefroastbeef (Feb 14, 2011)

karatekid14 said:


> I was adjusting the paintball co2 a bit and BOOM the tubing blew off and started flapping around. In the process it froze half my room and scared my dog an I to death. I (and my dog) ran out of the room. My mom came in and managed to turn it off. I couldn't go in my room for 30 min.



Haha, that is pretty funny! 

I was cleaning my algae encrusted filter hoses with a pipe brush. I finished cleaning it, but it still had plenty of loose crude and remaining black algae water in the hoses. So I started a siphon to rinse the dirty water into a bucket. Only that I had no choice but to use my mouth at that time, I thought I could suck on the hose to get siphon going and immediately put the hose into the bucket. But I was definitely wrong and had half a mouth full of black nasty algae filled tank water.


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## orchidman (Dec 15, 2010)

i dont have time to read this whole thing now. but i will later. here is my story

i was changing the DIY co2 in the tank ( the co2 was hooked to the inlet of my filter as a diffuser ) so i left the room with the co2 bottle in hand, leaving the co2 tube behind. one end was still stuck in the filter. when i came back, i noticed the tank wasnt very full anymore. so i got a pitcher and topped it off. after doing that a few times, i noticed that water was gushing out of the co2 tube and onto the floor. at least 5 gallons. under the door and into the closet too!!


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## home grown (Jun 7, 2010)

fish and plant loss will never amount to the type of damage water can do. With that said, a tank that cracked and leaked 20 gallons onto a hardwood floor. Amounting to thousands of dollars to completely fix. Wish that amount of money could be spent on new tanks, equipment, plants, livestock...


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## MarkPeggie (Jan 18, 2011)

Iv had a few distasters over the years .

1.Leaving a discus tank to my brothers care while i went on holiday for 3 weeks ,came back to find 6 dead discus and the substrate covered in flakes..my brother thought he could put it all in at once ..

2.Cleaning a Oscar tank i lifted up a large rock only for it to slip out my hands and smash the bottom of the tank ...bugger.

3.This is my worst one ..i accidentely dosed 10 times the dose of PP INTO MY 3000G pond ...it was ment to be 6.6 grms i dosed 66.6grms ,i came back a few hours later to a pond where 70% of the koi were dead ....i was heartbroken at such a stupid mistake :frown:

4.this one happened last week ,i filled a nylon stocking with some activated carbon that i was going to place in a canister filter when i got called for dinner ,so i left the stocking in the tank with the end hanging over the rim of the glass ...i came back an hour later to a puddle of water on the floor .i didnt think the water would climb the stocking and start to empty the tank ..dam capillary action


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## GDP (Mar 12, 2011)

My doh moment was when I though it would be a good idea to disconnect the ehiem quick disconnects without turning the valves off first. Got water everywhere and even into the power strips. Kinda shocked myself a little bit lol. It was funny cause I looked down and seen the indicator light on the power strip flickering as I was being shocked.


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## amberskye (Apr 22, 2011)

well im still new to this, so havent had the misfortune to do anything or create anything bad (yet) but I just know its in the post. But thanks to everyone for sharing. I come here sometimes and think everyone is 'GOD' and has never flubbed up...its good to know that noone is beyond a disaster...or four 
EDIT: actually i MAY have told a blatant lie. I DID accidentally suck up a cherrybarb with my gravel vac last week. I didnt notice until I saw it heading down the kitchen sink . I bet every single person on here has done that right?


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## laurenjane (Sep 1, 2013)

Every time I suck water up the syphon tube I wonder if today is the day I will get a mouthful of fish tank water... I've done it like three times now. :confused1:

I've also done stupid things like dropping test tubes into the bottom of the tank, and forgetting to turn off the heater and filter during a water change. Hey I know.. heaters still on a really good idea would be to splash some water on the heater and see what happens. I'll tell you what happens.. the glass cracks into a million pieces. 

And I've only just started...


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