Just For Fun: The Dumbest Mistake You Ever Made With A Tank

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I think its inevitable that if you have a large object filled with water in your home, at some point the water will wind up up on your floor! Did this just a few weeks ago! Well, I drain my tanks out the back door. In the midst of trying to do 50 different things at once, my little girl comes running into the living room screaming 'Mommy, mommy!!!' and pulls me into the kitchen. Well, I had forgotten to put the end of the hose out the back door and now had a nice pond a couple of inches deep in my kitchen! Its amazing how big 40g of water looks when its siphoned onto to your kitchen floor....
 
I nuked my own tank. All fish killed. :-/ My old freshwater setup.
 
Not QT - had some ich. And getting distracted during a WC. My level didn't get as low as completelycich's did, but it was about 5" left in the tank.
 
DragonFish71 said:
Last year I had surgery and was home for 6 weeks recovering. Well, I couldn't just let the tanks go without care, so one day when I felt good I grabbed the python and got to work.

I finished my two tanks and had just set up the third for refilling so I decided to sit doing and rest. BIG mistake, I mean HUGE. I had been warned that I would get tired easily between my body healing and the pain meds, they said to rest when I feel tired. So yeah, sitting down was good. Until I fell asleep. The 120 over flowed. I woke up to water running into our laundry room, the carpet flooded.

My hubby came home as I was starting to clean up the mess. I was hurting, tired and upset.

Moral of the story, don't over do it after surgery by trying to clean a tank!
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Oh no!! I actually have overflowed my 60 gallon 3 times :oops:
 
I have to say the biggest mistake I've made so far is listening to people at petsmart I have learned they are only there to sell very little of them a aquarist and don't know nearly as much as people on aa :)
 
ArtesiaWells said:
Ahhhhh yes -- I remember the neon gravel/decor phase! I went through that too! I think everyone does at some point, much like the sneakers from the early 90s that had to be neon (Nikes, etc.)...:eek::rolleyes::banghead:
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Yay I loved the 90's!! I remember my grandma washing that neon gravel in the typical tiny 2-gallon fishbowl he had my (poor) goldfish in! Don't think he lasted too long, my mom later rocked the tank for me when my Science teacher sent me home with guppies and anacharis!

She added neons, which I recently bought again to reminisce :)
 
marsh said:
Yay I loved the 90's!! I remember my grandma washing that neon gravel in the typical tiny 2-gallon fishbowl he had my (poor) goldfish in! Don't think he lasted too long, my mom later rocked the tank for me when my Science teacher sent me home with guppies and anacharis!

She added neons, which I recently bought again to reminisce :)
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:nono::nono:
 
ArtesiaWells said:
Ahhhhh yes -- I remember the neon gravel/decor phase! I went through that too! I think everyone does at some point, much like the sneakers from the early 90s that had to be neon (Nikes, etc.)...:eek::rolleyes::banghead:
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Yup, I remember thinking the natural gravel in the tank my dad and I kept when I was really little was boring and I wanted neon clown puke instead. Thankfully he never gave in, it would have ruined the nice planted amazon biotope look. Kind of like when I was a kid I always wanted the blinking colored lights on the Christmas tree, and I have since decided the nice white lights are far superior.

When I finally got my own tank I didn't go for the neon gravel, but instead with those big shiny glass pebbles. Just as gaudy, and even harder to keep clean! Boy was that a mistake. Oh, and they always ended up with fish bones in them somewhere because I didn't always get around to taking the dead fish out...
 
Moving a aquarium and forgetting too turn 100 watt heater off!
Sparks and fire shot out the end!
Worst thing was me and my girlfriends hands were in the water! Could hv been fatal :(
 
Alyxx said:
Yup, I remember thinking the natural gravel in the tank my dad and I kept when I was really little was boring and I wanted neon clown puke instead. Thankfully he never gave in, it would have ruined the nice planted amazon biotope look. Kind of like when I was a kid I always wanted the blinking colored lights on the Christmas tree, and I have since decided the nice white lights are far superior.

When I finally got my own tank I didn't go for the neon gravel, but instead with those big shiny glass pebbles. Just as gaudy, and even harder to keep clean! Boy was that a mistake. Oh, and they always ended up with fish bones in them somewhere because I didn't always get around to taking the dead fish out...
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:eek::eek::blink::blink::blink:
 
Well, a few things that pop to mind...

1. I too have over siphoned and thoroughly wetted the floor.

2. I put a gsp in a 1g tank once when I was younger and the internet was not as readily available for researching.

3. This one wasn't me, but my bf at the time was distracted when we got home after grocery shopping and the pet store and he put my new betta (in its cup) in the fridge with all the food accidentally. Betta came out fine.

4. Learned that betta will jump out of uncovered tanks.

5. Learned that cats will pull bettas out of uncovered tanks. Again, all bettas made it through these blunders just fine and went on to live for several years.
 
absolutangel04 said:
Well, a few things that pop to mind...

1. I too have over siphoned and thoroughly wetted the floor.

2. I put a gsp in a 1g tank once when I was younger and the internet was not as readily available for researching.

3. This one wasn't me, but my bf at the time was distracted when we got home after grocery shopping and the pet store and he put my new betta (in its cup) in the fridge with all the food accidentally. Betta came out fine.

4. Learned that betta will jump out of uncovered tanks.

5. Learned that cats will pull bettas out of uncovered tanks. Again, all bettas made it through these blunders just fine and went on to live for several years.
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Poor refrigerated betta! I could see my ex doing something like that once, though. We once found his keys in the freezer where he had been putting away groceries. Not exactly a "mistake" but one of my current Bettas survived a car wreck. He lost all the water in his little cup, which was then replaced with untreated tap water out of necessity (by the idiot that I hit - he was trying to back a boat across a busy highway in the dark with no warning lights in an area with no street lights) and then when I got him home I was still shaking from the adrenaline and I dropped his cup again. He's fine, though.
 
Alyxx said:
Poor refrigerated betta! I could see my ex doing something like that once, though. We once found his keys in the freezer where he had been putting away groceries. Not exactly a "mistake" but one of my current Bettas survived a car wreck. He lost all the water in his little cup, which was then replaced with untreated tap water out of necessity (by the idiot that I hit - he was trying to back a boat across a busy highway in the dark with no warning lights in an area with no street lights) and then when I got him home I was still shaking from the adrenaline and I dropped his cup again. He's fine, though.
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Oh my! Glad he ended up ok.
Yeah, I was crazy angry when it happened. Luckily, I caught the mistake after not too long. I wanted Mountain Dew, so I opened the fridge. Once again, caffeine addiction FTW!
 
Did not DO THIS ONE....but was a witness to this piece of boneheadedness...When I was a teen my friends and I all had aquariums. My one buddy had a 20 gal full of local natice fish he had caught and put in the tank. He had some channel cats, bluegill, and minnows. Dont remember how many but he had them in the aquarium in his room. Well I was visiting him and he was messing around with his Crosman pellet/bb gun....and you can see where this is going... he accidentally pulled the trigger, and fired off a bb. It hit the steel frame of his closet, ricocheted off, and off course, hit the tank in the bottom above the frame. (This tank was like one of the 60's type... thick old glass) Well, the bb hit and at first, it only cracked, or it appeared, but then a jet of water sprayed across the room. My buddy panicked and I just busted out laughing while we scrambled for buckets and the net. He didnt lose any fish, but had about 18 gallons of water to mop up, and some 'splaining to his mom of How it all happened. Needless to say, he was grounded from his BB gun for a while....
 
Awesome! Just realized my bb rifle is only a few feet from my 55.

I'm secretly thrilled that I'm not alone in "wetting the floor" disasters. I recently did a late night WC on said 55 FOWLR and set the HOB skimmer to a seemingly good level and hit the hay.

8-9 hours later I wake up to loud bubbly sounding waterfall Noises from my living room, I get up and see 25% of my tank has drained behind the tank down the wall overflowing my skimmate cup and at least one koralia running high and dry!

I felt like I might not be cut out for this for a few mopey days. :(
 
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