# Worst thing ever knew about happing to a fish?



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

What is the worst thing you lost a fish to?

I will start one of my tetras was so aggressive he nipped and killed my pregnant guppie.


----------



## fishboy199413 (Jan 20, 2010)

I once lost some new rummynose tetra when I was taking them out of the bag in a sink they went down the drain.

Sent from my R800x using Tapatalk 2


----------



## flukekiller (Jun 4, 2013)

One of my fully grown 8in discus committed suicide. Jumped right out the tank


----------



## MiSo (Oct 26, 2005)

once lost all my fish because i refilled my co2 tank and didn't check the needle valve once i set it up. gassed them all. RIP =*(


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

What fish did you lose, hopefully no show grade dicuss?


----------



## MiSo (Oct 26, 2005)

clown pleco, cardinals, neons, cories, oto's. 
lesson learned the hard way.


----------



## JasterMake (Mar 21, 2013)

A long time ago I bought a pictus catfish. After it ate all my small guppies it started on larger ones. It ate so much it couldn't finish swallowing a big guppy. For half an hour a poor guppy head was sticking out the pictus mouth gulping and trying to get away. After it finished the guppies it started hunting neons.


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Coldwater King said:


> What is the worst thing you lost a fish to?
> 
> I will start one of my tetras was so aggressive he nipped and killed my pregnant guppie.




The deep fryer


----------



## mr.bigglesworth (Jul 6, 2012)

Chinese animal keychain

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## flukekiller (Jun 4, 2013)

Coldwater King said:


> What fish did you lose, hopefully no show grade dicuss?


she was a nice hi-fin blue diamond


----------



## Darkblade48 (Jan 4, 2008)

plantbrain said:


> The deep fryer





mr.bigglesworth said:


> Chinese animal keychain
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


I'd like to know more about these two stories...


----------



## Eeyore (Apr 10, 2013)

I was acclimating new Platies and one jumped from the container directly into the garbage disposal. My husband was able to use one of those little grabber things and fish him out. He hung on for a couple of days but the trauma was too much and he went to fishie heaven. Now I acclimate everyone on the table, nowhere near a sink!


----------



## Shangrila (Oct 13, 2012)

About 7 years ago I was doing my usual Friday morning ritual of flushing out my pond filter and replacing the water lost thru back flushing with a garden hose. I forgot to turn off the hose and had not gone to check on the pond until Sunday morning. Needless to say all my koi( ranging from 8-20") were dead, approximately 30+lbs of fish. I was literally crying as pulled one after another out of the pond. A combination of chlorine and rapid temp change did them in. All because I forgot to turn off the hose. Talk about being sick.


----------



## Aquatic Delight (Mar 2, 2012)

i've lost 1 white cloud and 5 pygmy cories to the drain.

i also had a golden wonder killi in a bucket that had gotten infested with mosquito larve, and my one my cats got in her out of the bucket and started playing with her. sliding her across my floor and what not. when i found her she was almost completely dry, and covered in cat hair. i threw in a tank to wash the hair off, saw that she had open wounds and put a little H2O2 on her. that was in march or so of last year and she is still alive today.


----------



## jfynyson (Apr 15, 2013)

My two stories are a little different....

First the Bad: 
Had a dwarf african frog get sucked into my powerhead one night. The next morning I found his legs amputated with his body stuck to the powerhead intake (Maxi-Jet 400 on circulation mode). That sucked to see.

The luckiest fish ever:
Giant danio jumped out of my 135gal (6ft long) this past Thurs night, which I've never had a fish do out of this tank in 6yrs. Lucky him he had landed right in the dog bowl that is only about 5 inches in diameter. What's the probability of him hitting that exact spot and not flipping out ? I have no idea how long he was in there. I found him at 6am...wondered what that was in the doggy bowl. It's back was out of the bowl of water (only about 1/2 inch of water in it). I thought he was dead until I picked him up and he was doing great !


----------



## garloki72 (Oct 31, 2010)

Aquatic Delight said:


> i've lost 1 white cloud and 5 pygmy cories to the drain.
> 
> i also had a golden wonder killi in a bucket that had gotten infested with mosquito larve, and my one my cats got in her out of the bucket and started playing with her. sliding her across my floor and what not. when i found her she was almost completely dry, and covered in cat hair. i threw in a tank to wash the hair off, saw that she had open wounds and put a little H2O2 on her. that was in march or so of last year and she is still alive today.


Thats crazy! Shes a little trooper I suppose.


----------



## Aquatic Delight (Mar 2, 2012)

yeah it was pretty crazy. i didn't she was going to live, she started to lay eggs. i thought it was a sign she wasn't gonna make it. and sadly i didn't have a male to fertilize the eggs, because she harassed him until he jumped the tank :-(.


----------



## andrewq (May 22, 2013)

I just recently gave 1 angelfish and 2 golden dojo loaches to my sister in law. All of which are about a year old. She has some experience with fish but not really. She texted last night saying the angelfish was losing its color. I told her it was stress related and check her water. Then I get a a text that she thinks its the heater, and she dosent know how to set it. Her words "The heater only has + and -. No actual temperature reading". " So I just turned up to +". I told her I hope your hungry, cuz your probably cooking the fish. I was a little upset, because I raised the fish for over a year. My wife said there just fish. Of course she dosent understand. 


I feel bad because I wanted to give away my angelfish. They were becoming too aggressive towards there other tank mates. My dojo loaches kept digging up my plants. All the other fish are now happy and swimming all throughout the tank. Still feel bad, and I think im gonna have to make a trip to the sister in laws.


----------



## mr.bigglesworth (Jul 6, 2012)

Darkblade48 said:


> I'd like to know more about these two stories...


My aunt visited China years ago I had just started my first 10g tank with guppies and didn't know how to maintain an aquarium. She heard about this from my mom and decided to bring me a Chinese keychain goldfish for Christmas. It died in 2 weeks. Then sat on my desk for another month with a rotting corpse inside.

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Darkblade48 (Jan 4, 2008)

mr.bigglesworth said:


> My aunt visited China years ago I had just started my first 10g tank with guppies and didn't know how to maintain an aquarium. She heard about this from my mom and decided to bring me a Chinese keychain goldfish for Christmas. It died in 2 weeks. Then sat on my desk for another month with a rotting corpse inside.
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Quite gruesome


----------



## salmon (Apr 14, 2011)

lost a rummynose to a drop checker, and still wonder to this day how it even managed to get in there


----------



## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Darkblade48 said:


> I'd like to know more about these two stories...


It was a Discus that was beaten up and was going to die. Ate a pleco once at a fellow hobbyist's place.

Both tasted pretty good.


----------



## LooksLater (Mar 7, 2012)

I had the sponge pre-filter come off my powerhead (with some help from the cats, I assume) ...a Giant Danio was stuck to the open intake when I got home.  
That had to be a hard way to go.


----------



## steven p (Jun 22, 2012)

plantbrain said:


> It was a Discus that was beaten up and was going to die. Ate a pleco once at a fellow hobbyist's place.
> 
> Both tasted pretty good.


You're my hero man....


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

Wow! aquarium fish are the new sushi. :O


----------



## Mizuhuman (Mar 16, 2013)

plantbrain said:


> It was a Discus that was beaten up and was going to die. Ate a pleco once at a fellow hobbyist's place.
> 
> Both tasted pretty good.


lol
I understand discus but a pleco taste good? They don't look it.


----------



## AnotherHobby (Mar 5, 2012)

plantbrain said:


> It was a Discus that was beaten up and was going to die. Ate a pleco once at a fellow hobbyist's place.
> 
> Both tasted pretty good.


Every time I see a discus I think they look like sunfish, and then I think they look delicious. I've always wondered.


----------



## secuono (Nov 19, 2009)

Shangrila said:


> About 7 years ago I was doing my usual Friday morning ritual of flushing out my pond filter and replacing the water lost thru back flushing with a garden hose. I forgot to turn off the hose and had not gone to check on the pond until Sunday morning. Needless to say all my koi( ranging from 8-20") were dead, approximately 30+lbs of fish. I was literally crying as pulled one after another out of the pond. A combination of chlorine and rapid temp change did them in. All because I forgot to turn off the hose. Talk about being sick.



I do this all the time, just so glad I have well water and the change in temp hasn't killed any yet...




I forgot to put the strainer on a filter, woke up the next morning and 3 or 4 big molly fish had been sucked in, chopped up, one stuck to the intake...


----------



## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

My first exposure to fish keeping ended rather tragically (I suspect a lot of people's do). 
It was quite a few years ago, I was about 7 or 8 years old and my mother had a habit of using me as an excuse to do "child things" like go to Disney World, see kiddish movies I wasn't interested in, and.. get a fish tank. Got a 20 gallon set up with a fish-less cycle then she decieded to "test if it was safe" by buying a big fat orange goldfish and plopping it in. After a day it wasn't dead so she went to get our "real fish", my mom got dalmatian mollies (about 5-7) and a common pleco (1-2 inches long). Well they went in the tank in the morning with the large goldfish still there and by the time we got home for dinner the goldfish has killed ALL the mollies and eaten parts off of some of them. Then before bed that night I pulled the pleco out of the tank and put him in a large bowl with tank water because the goldfish was harassing him to death, biting and chasing all over the tank. The pleco tragically had been too severally wounded already, he barely moved in the bowl and died soon after while I was still watching him. I felt so terrible for the pleco that I wasn't able to do anything to save it. After that the goldfish was killed and the tank drained and abandoned in the basement.

As tragic as that was, it seeded my love for plecos and a strong desire to have a successful tank as an adult. My tank is nearly a year old now and all the fish doing quite well. I have a Sailfin pleco that I hope to keep alive and happy for a long time to make up for the loss of the one as a child.


----------



## Abe Froman (Jul 25, 2013)

LooksLater said:


> I had the sponge pre-filter come off my powerhead (with some help from the cats, I assume) ...a Giant Danio was stuck to the open intake when I got home.
> That had to be a hard way to go.


Similarly, but no cats involved, I only had 10 Neons so I would count often just to see. So one night after several counts, and they are hard to really count anyway, but I went ahead and gave up on one of them. But my tank is not yet heavily planted, so I figured I'd find the body. No body, looked up and down. Eventually I said to heck with it and pulled the powerhead to look, yep, he was in there. Number 5 isn't alive anymore. Oh well, make sure it has a sponge on it now.


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

Lots of people probably lost fish due to not proper cycling or over stocking and not proper filtration.


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

My sister won a goldfish at the fair and put Keith (the fish) in a bowl. My sister panicked not having food so she googled diy fish food. She found that fish eat bananas so she dropped half a banana in the bowl. Keith was dead next morning. Wait! forgot to say, she won 8 Keith's.


----------



## nofearengineer (Mar 20, 2013)

plantbrain said:


> The deep fryer


+1 on that.

I habitually practice catch and release into Lake Crisco.


----------



## SunDevil76 (Jul 24, 2013)

I heard about an event way back that happened at a local country club. There was a pretty elaborate game set up for the kids. They filled a swimming pool with hundreds of goldfish and one betta, and kids could keep the fish they caught and if they caught the betta they would win some grand prize. And no, they didn't fill the whole pool with dechlorinator. Needless to say, that coupled with a bunch of crazy fish snatching little kids resulted in judgement day for those goldfish.


----------



## mr.gaboozlebag (Feb 22, 2006)

I've lost multiple herring down the drain when siphoning, My grandfather lost his prize koi from a 5 gallon bucket to a crane on the way to a koi show


----------



## adamprice271 (Jun 10, 2006)

My worst was being a tad too tipsy while doing a water change...I filled the tank back up after draining (125g) and had some left over in the bucket. I decided it wouldn't hurt anything, and poured it in. Passed out on the couch and woke up about 2 hours later to a tank full of death. Filled the water up to the glass tops, and with a few canister filters, they suffocated. 8 Discus, 12 clown loaches (4") at least 7 different species of fancy pleco, 30+ Diamond Tetras, and plenty more...hell even my crayfish made a leap of faith to no avail! Lesson learned the hard way...Lost over $1200 in fish, and I worked at an LFS at the time, so that was with my discounts


----------



## QuoVadis (Feb 5, 2012)

I once found one of my favorite fish dead after it choked to death on an earthworm twice as long as he was. It was a mudminnow, and quite the personality, so I guess it was a fitting way for it to go. 

The most sick I've ever been over a mistake was with my loach tank. I had a bunch of loaches, and about a third had wasting disease because they had been wild caught, so I wanted to worm the tank, but most worming medcines aren't super effective against WD. So I did some research and I bought this wormer that was supposed to work well, but it was sold as pig wormer, and thus very difficult to measure (it was supposed to be mixed with the food). I decided to try it first on a loach that was pretty far gone to make sure it was safe. After about 20min it was fine, and I had to leave to go somewhere so I gave it to the rest of the tank (botia - striata, dario, historanica, kubotai, and sidthumunki, rasboras, gourami, etc.) When I got back everyone was dying. And it was a horrible, long drawn out process. I literally could do nothing as all these rare loaches I had tracked down slowly died. I was just sick, and wished so much I had waited longer before giving it to them. Never do anything other than really basic care when you are in a hurry. I think only 4 fish out of about 50 lived.


----------



## stealthypotatoes (Feb 2, 2013)

Bought a pleco when I started fishkeeping and I put it in the same 6 gallon with 50 other neon tetras. They ate him overnight and I found his body inside the pirate ship decor.


----------



## Shcrimp (Jul 20, 2013)

When I was 15 a friend and I set up a 55 gallon tank with pacus in it and they ate everything except a pleco. Being an idiot and all, I decided to dispose of the fish by throwing them into the lake that was part of our yard, assuming shock would kill them. Until the summer when a friend was fishing and showed me a picture on his phone of my damn pacu on his line. Saw the pleco and thought it was a black catfish. Nope... just a huge plecostomus. Told a DNR ranger about it later in life, he was like "Yeah thats illegal" 

So thats the worst thing I think you can do to fish.


----------



## fish_22 (Jun 13, 2013)

I was in like 4th grade and i lost 3 bettas in like 3 months.
My first fish wouldn't eat any fish food i fed it and died of what must have been starvation.
The second never left the bottom of the bowl and appeared to not be able to swim so i think he too died from starvation because he couldn't come to the surface to eat.
The third one lived the longest, but I killed it by accidentally hitting it with the net too many times while trying to catch it to clean its bowl (that was a traumatic moment for my 4th grade self).
I also know now that fishbowls are awful and that it is possible that they died from the lack of cycling.
I gave up on bettas for a while after that, although now, years later, I have successfully kept one for 4 months so far and he is doing great


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

A sick fish.


----------



## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

My worst was probably guppy that jumped the night i got it... it got dried and crusted to the table the tank was sitting on... I had to scrape it off... D:

I also had a nice big ramshorn snail commit suicide by getting sucked into the tiny little emergency drain prevention hole on my canister filter intake line...


----------



## jeepguy (Jul 24, 2013)

My cat ate my rainbow shark that jumped from my tank with roughly a one inch square hole in the lid. Found the rainbow a couple days later in the corner, guess my cat didn't like the taste.


----------



## ADJAquariums (Jul 5, 2012)

Strangest thing that's happened to me was one of my dogs eating a mystery snail one morning, then the other the next day, guess they decided to go for a midnight stroll but couldn't make it back to he tank In time to escape the dogs jaws, needless to say that didn't make me happy


----------



## Taari (Jul 31, 2010)

mr.bigglesworth said:


> My aunt visited China years ago I had just started my first 10g tank with guppies and didn't know how to maintain an aquarium. She heard about this from my mom and decided to bring me a Chinese keychain goldfish for Christmas. It died in 2 weeks. Then sat on my desk for another month with a rotting corpse inside.
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Oh my god, those things are terrible! I looked them up online and saw ones with baby turtles in them and a firebelly newt! How can they possibly think those are a good idea? The critters can only survive in there for a couple weeks at most, no food, no way to get fresh air, no way to clean the water! What a horrible way to die ;-;


----------



## patsplat (Jul 5, 2013)

i had a neon tetra that got nipped by aggressive guppies and then died, i mean when the heck does a guppy eat a neon tetra


----------



## valsfreak (Apr 14, 2008)

tried bumpin my temp. 3 degrees. ended up my heater was more sensitive than i thought. when i came back from work my 55gal was at 105 F. lost all my fish.


----------



## gSTiTcH (Feb 21, 2013)

Two nasty situations...

1) When playing with a power head and plumbing, I forgot to put my pre-filter on. A neon tetra got pretty well mangled as a result.

I thought that was horrible..until...

2) One day, I found myself doing my routine maintenance as well as some algae warfare. My typical maintenance routine involves soaking my foam block prefilters in bleach. I prepared my bleach in one Solo cup, and my peroxide in another. I started disassembling the filters and deposited them into the sink to be scrubbed before a bleach bath and de-chlor. I then used my syringe to spot treat some BBA with peroxide as I had done several times in the past.

I went to the sink and began cleaning the filter blocks, then grabbed the bleach to soak them. That's when it hit me.... this cup doesn't reek of bleach.

I ran back to the tank to find about half of my stock swimming oddly, some not moving...clearly in distress. I did a quick double dose of Prime, then opened the drain on the tank.

Overall I lost about 15 fish, including my entire school of Neon tetras. 

I have since taken very clear and simple steps to prevent this in the future.
1) All containers for use with the fish tank, temporary or permanent, are labeled immediately.
2) One task at a time, one chemical at a time.
3) Where safe and plausible, I use a sniff test to verify chemicals.


----------



## atom (Sep 28, 2011)

Both of mine involve tiny micro rasboras. 

One was eaten alive in 10 seconds by a Betta.

The other I literally lost to a shag carpet! It leapt from the tank when I was cleaning it and disappeared in this ugly horrible hairy rug. I just couldn't find it!


----------



## Freyr (Feb 17, 2013)

This happened just last night. My biggest male praecox rainbow rammed himself behind my ladder diffuser. Before I could get to him, he freaked out violently and just about tore his own head off. 

Most idiotic death ever. :icon_sad:


----------



## MKNguyenV2 (Jul 26, 2013)

Freyr!!! Almost the exact same thing happened to my Serpae Tetra! I bought a school of 8 and everything was going along great one morning I woke up and the tetra some how wedged himself between the glass and the piece of drift wood head first!!! It was one of the weirdest things I have ever encountered! The other 7 are perfectly....normal.


----------



## tripleDot (Jul 5, 2013)

Some of the fish I took care of before where Tilapias... and we had them for dinner. 

Nah, I'm kidding. But I did lost around 3 fancy young goldfish when the OHF went amock after a power outage when I wasn't home. I came home to a flooded living room and the tank close to empty. I have unfortunately positioned the powerhead too low and most of the water was sucked up.


----------



## SmittyInFla (May 3, 2013)

Years ago, before I knew what I was doing. Went to a busy LFS, and bought some fish. The clerk, who must not have known this, put the price on the plastic bags using a magic marker. I went home, and put the bags in the tank to equalize the water temp. Left the room, came back twenty minutes later, and everything NOT in the bag was dead.

Apparently, chemicals in Sharpie ink are NOT GOOD for fish. Lost two Cory cats, a bunch of platys and tetras.


----------



## Philia (Jan 6, 2012)

When I was 4 years old, my dad got me a goldfish. The next morning I woke up and there was clearly something wrong with the fish. So I went & woke up my dad. "Your fish is dead," he said.

"No, it's just sleeping!" I protested (realizing something terrible had happened & hoping it wasn't true, & thinking that denial would fix things, like one does when one is 4.)

My mom went to make my bed later that morning and found a big wet spot right around where my chin would be in the bed.

I had taken the fish out of the tank and snuggled with it, presumably until it "fell asleep," then returned it to the tank.


----------



## cownose-ray (Sep 28, 2013)

When I was new at fishkeeping I was going on vacation, and my neighbor was hired to feed the fish.
Almost all were dead when we came back.
Although, it was a 5 gal with neons, platies, a betta, a brockis catfish... so it was doomed anyway

More recently, a boraras bailed out of the bag when I was trying to transfer it into another tank. I found it alive on the floor, so I picked it up in the net. 
It leapt out again! Since it was so tiny it was really hhard to find.
I found it eventually, but it was too much for it to handle and it died a few days later.


----------



## gt turbo (Sep 13, 2012)

The worst experience I've had thus far was when I bought quite a few GBRs. I placed them in a quarantine tank but I did it under the cover of darkness to try to keep their agitation and stress level to a minimum, additionally because I was in a hurry.

Anyhow I checked the tank the next day and I was missing one. Had no clue where it went. I checked every tank and all around it. No fish!!! Checked all tank decor, still no fish.

Gave up looking, assumed the carcass had been eaten. A few days later I went to do some tank maintenance and lo and behold, the scales and skeleton were in the net. It seems that in my haste one female was trapped in the net and I never noticed. Was really torn up over it.


----------



## fishwater (May 31, 2012)

Treble hook...fully barbed. :icon_wink


----------



## oblongshrimp (Jul 26, 2006)

When I was 8 or so I had a 10 gallon tank with goldfish (a couple with the telescope eyes). My dad was doing a water change on the tank and I remember one of the telescope goldfish got to close and got its eye sucked out by the force of the siphon (no gravel vac attachment). I remember seeing the eye go through the tube and into the bucket and then the tank turning red...the fish didn't make it.


----------



## fishwater (May 31, 2012)

plantbrain said:


> It was a Discus that was beaten up and was going to die. Ate a pleco once at a fellow hobbyist's place.
> 
> Both tasted pretty good.


Curious...what color meat did the pleco have?


----------



## Frank158 (Oct 1, 2013)

I had a weather loach one time and when he was about 5-6 inches long he decided to jump out of the tank while I was doing a water change. He must have made his escape while I was at the sink because I did not notice him until about an hour later. He was stuck to the carpet, dehydrated and covered in a whitish mucus (an emergency response thing) to keep himself wet. It was so bad I had to slowly scrape him off the carpet.

He went into a first aid tank, got better and lived for a few more years!


----------



## Luminescent (Sep 13, 2013)

I used to buy wholesale (for a place I managed) discus, angels and bettas from an old breeder with an amazing set-up in his basement. 

He had great fish- contacts in Germany and also we traded back and forth to prevent inbreeding.

One year we had flooding. His basement flooded above the betta tanks, which were on the lower level. He was in another city at the time picking up a few fish- so he couldn't rescue them and his street was blocked off, anyway. He lost most of them to freezing sewage water- gorgeous, show quality fish. 

He said he went to the basement when he was finally able to get back into the area and 2 of his prize males were literally in puddles on the basement floor - with bubble nests and fry. Two females were huddled in another puddle by themselves.


----------



## wendyjo (Feb 20, 2009)

I've had a few nasty mishaps. I used to feed frozen food off the end of a wooden shishkabob stick (I don't even remember why now) and I stabbed one of my fish in it's side and killed it.

Another time I sucked up a female betta during a water change and didn't realize it and she was stuck where the tubing meets the cylinder for quite a while - she survived for a few days then developed dropsy and died.

And I had a danio jump into my HOB filter and get caught up in the impeller and chopped into a gazillion pieces. That was really gross.


----------



## WestHaven (Jun 30, 2012)

I had a neon tetra get sucked down an airline tube into a bucket while I was doing a water change. The tetra was fine.


----------



## zankotsu (Jul 26, 2012)

I bought a fiddler crab once. It walked away. 
Never saw it again, not even when we moved from the apartment.


----------



## Luminescent (Sep 13, 2013)

zankotsu said:


> I bought a fiddler crab once. It walked away.
> Never saw it again, not even when we moved from the apartment.


Maybe it met up with my fiddler - and they scuttled off into the sunset together.


----------



## Coldwater King (Jul 23, 2013)

I now hate fungus even more.


----------



## Art by Stef* (Jan 27, 2013)

I was 18 and in my first apartment, I got a betta. 
I would faithfully pour him in a coffee cup and clean his bowl at the kitchen sink once a week.
One time, I turned my back, and he jumped the cup and landed in a greasy, crusty frying pan that was soaking in Palmolive. I rinsed him off under the tap, and believe it or not, he lived for another year. I wonder if it softened his fins as I did the dishes...?


----------



## Oceangirl (Feb 5, 2013)

1st tank 1.5 gallon tetra cube. I would carry it to the bathroom and then suck the water out with the gravel vac right into the drain. Well, I had just gotten some Zebra Danios, (bear with me) and I turn my head for a second, *splash* what the heck was that, turn back. Hmm, Then right before I turn back sloop! a Zebra danio jumps from my tank down the drain! Before I can stop holding the tank and set it down, another floop! the water was running for some reason, and there they went. I live on the beach, so I am hopeful that all pipes lead to the Ocean?


----------



## Art by Stef* (Jan 27, 2013)

Hate to break it to you, Oceangirl, but aren't danios freshwater?
If they did make it to the ocean, probably salted like kippers.
If in denial, can always imagine them peacefully swimming in a septic tank somewhere with Mr. Hanky.

 Stef*


----------



## Ach1Ll3sH33L (Mar 1, 2012)

I just started doing a water change and spooked a rasbora which jumped out of the tank and landed on the ground. As i bent down to pick him up, my dog ate it.


----------



## Oceangirl (Feb 5, 2013)

Well, It was my VERY 1st tank. like 10 or more years ago. So go easy on me. They most likely ended up in an estuary, we have tons of water ways and canals. Who knows?


----------



## Art by Stef* (Jan 27, 2013)

They are pretty hardy, Oceangirl, and they use them for water experiments, hence the glofish was created. Not picking on you. 

My betta ended up in a frypan and not for dinner.
I didn't even know about water additives at 18, and would place my finger in the freshly cleaned bowl to see if the new tap water felt the same temperature as the old. I thought if the water looked clean and you could drink it, waz good enough for the fish. Poor fish.


----------



## MERSF559 (Oct 18, 2013)

my betta of 6 months fried due to a heater malfunction  came home to see him floating and the temp. at around 100 degrees!!


----------



## Joe Fish (Dec 12, 2013)

On some bad advice from Petco, I bought lucky bamboo for a planted tank. I removed it and put it in a vase not long after I bought it. Fast forward almost a year and my daughter decided to buy an orange crawfish at a show. It was thriving in our planted tank and went through 3 molts. I decided to put the bamboo back in the tank one day because the vase had become green with algae. Only took about 3 days before the crawfish used it to make his escape. Nothing sadder than my 6 year old finding "Reggie Crawley" lifeless on the floor. So, if anyone has a line on orange crawfish, let me know!


----------



## staypuft (Aug 31, 2013)

1. I went out of town and asked my brother to watch my tank, I had everything laid out with the right amounts of food per day, ferts, etc. and my brother thought it would work if he put EVERYTHING in on the first day so he wouldn't have to worry about it for the next week and a half, I lost an angel I had raised from dime sized, a breeding pair of rams and babies, and many other fish.

2. this happened recently: my tank is in my bedroom, and sometimes at night I can hear a fish "jump" or something in the surface. One night I heard a few little pops of fish upsetting the surface and thought nothing of it. the next morning I had three dwarf neon rainbows that had their necks bend at unnatural angles and their noses crushed in, they must have hit my hood pretty hard for no apparent reason.

3. I got a trio of silver hatchets and one day they ate all (12) neon tetras while I was at school, so I gave the fish to one of my brothers, one day one of the hatchets just disappeared and we couldn't find it, six months later we moved the tank to another room and found hatchetfish jerky underneath the tank.


----------



## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

staypuft said:


> 1. I went out of town and asked my brother to watch my tank, I had everything laid out with the right amounts of food per day, ferts, etc. and my brother thought it would work if he put EVERYTHING in on the first day so he wouldn't have to worry about it for the next week and a half, I lost an angel I had raised from dime sized, a breeding pair of rams and babies, and many other fish.


Hate that, almost better to invest in an auto doser/feeder.
Incidentally that line of thinking is was turned my (and probably many other people's) cats obese as hell when cat-sat by others. "I'll just dump a whole bag of food out and not come take care of them for the week..."


----------



## houbanna (Nov 29, 2013)

I've had normal fish death, but the funniest death in my aquarium was a drowning. I use a water hose from outside to drain my tank. I always hook it up and purge into my tank then turn off the hose and let it sifon out, well I guess a lizzard was inside an
d got purged into the tank, he floated around upside down over the gravel. I pulled Ihim out and tried pushing on his little chest to get water out, and lizzard CPR. Crap would've worked if it was a geico commercial. Poor guy


----------



## NeonFlux (Apr 10, 2008)

Had a pair of silver dollars in a new tank that wasn't properly cycled over time.. One sadly wasn't able to make it, but the other barely did, because I put her into a more established tank and is still alive to this day. About 6 years old now. Still a little annoyed about the loss of the other SD, because I was kinda close to it.. but oh well.

Another sad loss was when my my one of co2's needle valve bubbles per second randomly messed up and it gas'd the crud out of my community fish while I was away.. Some of them gasping for air, a lot were laying on the substrate/plants dead. Sadly it has happened TWICE. Frustrating big losses. Some were able to make it, but I lost a lot.. So now you guys know why I'm mostly low tech now.


----------



## thechibi (Jan 20, 2012)

Kamikaze the betta kept trying to jump out of his 10 gallon tank.  I usually was there to scoop him up until school started.

Unfortunately, one afternoon, the cat was just a bit faster than me on the grab...


----------



## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

thechibi said:


> Kamikaze the betta kept trying to jump out of his 10 gallon tank.  I usually was there to scoop him up until school started.
> 
> Unfortunately, one afternoon, the cat was just a bit faster than me on the grab...


Sorry for your loss, but amusing name choice!


----------



## Cuddly Porcupine (Feb 25, 2014)

Lucky story,
I had just gotten my African Dwarf Frog and I noticed my fish were trying to nip his toes off!!! So when I tried to net him he jumped out of the net and went behind my hamster cage meanwhile my hamster was trying to break out of the cage biting and scratching at the bars. Then he jumped onto a giant stuffed animal with long hair and I was searching frantically for him and he was so lucky for me to eventually find him!

Unlucky story,
So, I bought this bag of exotic shrimp to put in my saltwater tank and I also bought a lunar wrasse as well. I first put the wrasse in and he started swimming around doing great. Then I put this really cool cleaner shrimp in and like 5 seconds later he is in the belly of the lunar wrasse! I thought that that was it of his aggressiveness but no way! He ate every single living thing in that tank. Did I mention that this lunar wrasse was roughly the size of a small flashlight!!!


----------



## skelley (Jul 18, 2011)

I purchased a large container of water conditioner and went home to do my weekly water change. Within minutes of my water change my fish started dropping like flies. I looked at the bottle of conditioner and saw that I had accidentally purchased the Balance Plus instead of water conditioner. They were next to each other on the shelf and the labels/bottles were the same color. Who knows what that stuff did to my ph, but I didn’t even take the time to check. I did a massive water change and raced all over town to find a place that had water conditioner (pet shops closed at this time of night), near tears. Went home and found more dead fish, did another water change. I lost nearly the entire 35 gallon tank worth of fish because of this mistake, only one Gourami and one Oto survived. Not my only disaster, but probably the worst.

I totally relate to everyone who has said that they felt sick or were in tears dealing with these things. To many people they are "just fish", they just don't get it.


----------



## Imaginary1226 (Jul 27, 2010)

I had a betta sorority at one point in high school, one of the girls got stuck in an aquarium decoration and the others nipped her to death...I found her when I got home and had a really hard time getting her out of the ornament. I also just had a Cory catfish swim to the surface to get a gulp of air and get wedged into a skinny hole in the newly added driftwood. I had to break of pieces to get to him. I got him out but he got septicemia and I had to freeze him. I also threw away a fish in the trash before. I used a net to get out plant trimmings and threw him out. I left for awhile and when I went back to feed them I realized one was missing, remembered about the trash, dug through the trash and found him. He was fine even though it had been awhile. Good times.


----------



## Morgan_9300 (Dec 8, 2013)

I have had three: 
I had gotten my 60 gallon planted perfectly cycled and set up. I added plants and got a few tetras and a few angelfish. Then I got two large african knives. I had them for several months until one day I couldn't find one of them. Letter that day I found him, dried up, on the floor. 

I had my 25 gallon for a few years and wanted to do something new with it. So I got a 2 juvenile angelfish. Then I got 3 more. And one little baby one. 1 of the originals died. Then the baby. And all 3 of the others. Learned the hard way not to overstock your tank. 

I also had a nice pair of angelfish. I had just bought them and was about to put them in after acclimating them. I tested my water parameters just to be safe and saw I ha a pH swing of 7.2 to 8.5! I tried to add some RO water from my sink to the tank but it was still high. I could not leave them in my bucket so I put them in the tank. The next day my awesome pair of angels was dead. I was on the edge of tears. They were beautiful and expensive :'(


----------



## Morgan_9300 (Dec 8, 2013)

The worst!!!!
For my birthday I got a brand new 37 gallon tank. I cycled it and got african cichlids. One day I came home and the entire front of the glass bursted open and all the water was on my carpet which was up stairs and already soaking through the second floor and dripping onto the room below it. All the fish were dead except one was flopping on a piece of glass that ha some water on it. That was a year ago and he is big and healthy and alive today!  the house took a long time to dry. Got everything again for free from petsmart cause the tank had lifetime warranty. Yeah that's not true.... Anyway that is the worst ever for me.


----------



## elegysanft (Feb 3, 2013)

I had 4 paradise fish and 4 salt/pepper cories in quarantine and over night the paradise fish ate 6 of the 8 eyes all the cories had

I returned the paradise fish and still have 3 of the 4 cories in my tank


----------



## Cuddly Porcupine (Feb 25, 2014)

This isn't a fish story, but they did live in water. I decided to give my one turtle a bath, so I put him in and turned on the water. I wasn't smart enough to check the temperature of the water and I totally boiled my turtle! Even worse, it happened again!


----------



## Snowflake311 (Apr 20, 2011)

It is the worst when you find a dead dry fish.


----------



## GuppyGuppyGuppyGuppyGuppy (Feb 11, 2012)

I'm 100% sure I win on this one...

I had terrible luck with getting my female tiger endlers to live. One after another would die, they were very weak from inbreeding. I finally got one that was thriving and giving birth. A few days after she dropped her first batch, I went to feed the tank and noticed the water level was a bit high. I decided to siphon out some water. All the fish thought it was feeding time, so they swam to the siphon hose.

*I started the siphon and within 2 seconds, the female guppy was sucked into the tube. She turned red, her eyes started popping out and all of her fins were sucked off.*

Winner winner gebratener fisch dinner.


----------



## AnthonyW8822 (Feb 15, 2014)

Dropsy got 7 of my danios

My GF's comet goldfish had like a tumor growing out of its head for months, but miraculously got better.


----------



## jpchaos (Feb 23, 2014)

Probably the coolest story iv heard. The fish didnt die but close lol. About a year ago when jersey lost power for like two weeks i talked to a guy who was trying to keep his fish alive with no power( he has a generator now lol) he litteraly had a blanket wrapped around his tank and a candle floating in a jar to try to heat it and stiring it with a wisk to make air bubbles. After day 3 his wife told him he was nuts and took the kids to her moms and he stayed behind and rode it out for like 2 weeks almost. I think he only lost 1 fish lol. Thats love

Sent from my SCH-S738C using Tapatalk


----------



## ctaylor3737 (Nov 14, 2013)

Not covering you,intake finding ottos in the filter a month later

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk


----------



## fraviz (Dec 7, 2012)

jfynyson said:


> My two stories are a little different....
> 
> The luckiest fish ever:
> Giant danio jumped out of my 135gal (6ft long) this past Thurs night, which I've never had a fish do out of this tank in 6yrs. Lucky him he had landed right in the dog bowl that is only about 5 inches in diameter. What's the probability of him hitting that exact spot and not flipping out ? I have no idea how long he was in there. I found him at 6am...wondered what that was in the doggy bowl. It's back was out of the bowl of water (only about 1/2 inch of water in it). I thought he was dead until I picked him up and he was doing great !


I love it... lucky danio

You know how we tied anubias to rocks.... well my albino brittlenose wrap his neck around the len I used to tie the anubias... and I think he was there for a while because he kept pulling the len untill it cut him badly... euthanasia... The cut was way too deep ... he would have died painfully


----------



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

Lost perhap's a near record Flathead catfish that was too big for me to carry back up the riverbank by myself ,so I left it tied to tree limb with nylon cord to go get help from buddy, and tub to haul it in.
Returned within and hour,and the fish had pulled loose from the limb.
Have caught a few since then but none as large as the one I lost.
Caught him on a black bullhead about eight inches long .


----------



## ValMM (Feb 22, 2011)

I had a power outage at college. My blood worms had melted, but I hadn't realized how long. I threw some in my tank for my panda cories to eat. It poisoned the water and I lost 2 juveniles. I was only able to save the oldest one.


----------



## someoldguy (Feb 26, 2014)

Some time back , I accidentally bleached a tank of about 10 or 12 pairs of fully matured A. Australe chocolate . Sometimes you just gotta pay more attention.


----------



## Oceangirl (Feb 5, 2013)

Well, I just accidentally overdosed Peroxide in my planted tank, I just got a little carried away. I lost 2 ottos and 1 zebra danio (I had the danio 2 years, it was the biggest jerk I have ever owned). I got a little carried away spot treating, and well. 1 otto died though because it was munching the intake sponge cover (why?) and would not let go and suffocated because it would not let go. I had to yank it off, and drop it in the tank. I was freaking out too because those guys have face spikes.

I must have a planted tank that is cursed. I just woke up this morning and my dumb FAT FAT FAT danio decided it wanted to wedge itself between the sponge prefilter and the intake tube. I put the sponge on there to keep plant material and my future CPDS in tank and not in the filter. REALLY???


----------

