Kids and fish - horror stories

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Mumma.of.two

Aquarium Advice Obsessed
Joined
Jul 17, 2011
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11,142
Location
Sunny Queensland, Australia
Baby sitting my friends two kids (3+18months) today was hard work! Until today, I had no idea how good my own two (3+11months) are with my tanks.
I came around the corner to find my friends 3yo daughter hitting my 70g with a belt buckle screaming at the top of her lungs. Got me thinking. Does anyone have any kids and tank horror stories that they wish to share?
 
I bought a betta for my niece and she loved him. But one day she decided that Marilyn was hungry and dumped I believe meatloaf and mashed potatoes in there to feed him. He is completely fine, they cleaned out the tank and taught her he only eats his pellets.

Oh, and one of my friends had his sister watch his food while he was out of town and she decided instead of having to feed them everyday for a week, she would dump the whole bottle in at once on the first day. All the fish died from ammonia build up.

I could probably give more that I have heard of my friends telling me that work at petstores.
 
TheCrazyFishLady said:
I bought a betta for my niece and she loved him. But one day she decided that Marilyn was hungry and dumped I believe meatloaf and mashed potatoes in there to feed him. He is completely fine, they cleaned out the tank and taught her he only eats his pellets.

Oh, and one of my friends had his sister watch his food while he was out of town and she decided instead of having to feed them everyday for a week, she would dump the whole bottle in at once on the first day. All the fish died from ammonia build up.

I could probably give more that I have heard of my friends telling me that work at petstores.

Haha. I'm glad he made it. And my brother in law did that to my mums goldy. Poor little fella never stood a chance. :(
 
absolutangel04 said:
When we were little, my best friend killed her goldy by taking it out and petting it for too long.

Lol! That sounds just like my daughter. She always asks me if she can hold the fishies. Has tried to catch them a few times with no luck, thank goodness.
 
When I was a kid I had a little 20L tank with a bunch of crawfish in it. Back then I would just clean out the tank completely once a month, and that was my maintenance routine. Well, I put the crawfish in a 5g bucket and commenced to removing and rinsing the gravel and scrubbing the tank down. I finish, refill the tank, and go to get the bucket of crawfish. I left it out in the sun! Needless to say, it looked like a crawfish boil that day.
 
jetajockey said:
When I was a kid I had a little 20L tank with a bunch of crawfish in it. Back then I would just clean out the tank completely once a month, and that was my maintenance routine. Well, I put the crawfish in a 5g bucket and commenced to removing and rinsing the gravel and scrubbing the tank down. I finish, refill the tank, and go to get the bucket of crawfish. I left it out in the sun! Needless to say, it looked like a crawfish boil that day.

Aww poor things lol.
 
When I was a kid I had a little 20L tank with a bunch of crawfish in it. Back then I would just clean out the tank completely once a month, and that was my maintenance routine. Well, I put the crawfish in a 5g bucket and commenced to removing and rinsing the gravel and scrubbing the tank down. I finish, refill the tank, and go to get the bucket of crawfish. I left it out in the sun! Needless to say, it looked like a crawfish boil that day.
I did something similar with a big fw clam when I was young. I was changing his water, but left him in the sun.
 
My 10 month old niece loves my fish and is constantly "showing" him things, which consists of her either smacking the tank with her empty hand or hitting it with whatever is in her hand.

And I have a tanks and mom story. My mom got a betta one time, one that come in the tiny vase with a plant(not humane, don't like them) she didn't think he had enough water so she filled it to the bottom of the plants cup. She drowned her fish! :( she then got another betta and much larger vase. A 1g and kept him happily for a few years.
 
Oh, I remembered another horror story of a worker at a fish shop. Not a child, but she started when she was a child. She thought that some bettas were dyed, like blood parrots and mollies. So, whenever she would get one and they would shift colors, she would just flush them because she didn't think it was right for her to have a dyed pet. She has been doing this for years until she told me and I almost passed out. That's what she had done to other fish too- a kissing gourami, an oscar, some type of freshwater eel, etc.

I was speechless. I couldn't even yell at her.
 
TheCrazyFishLady said:
Oh, I remembered another horror story of a worker at a fish shop. Not a child, but she started when she was a child. She thought that some bettas were dyed, like blood parrots and mollies. So, whenever she would get one and they would shift colors, she would just flush them because she didn't think it was right for her to have a dyed pet. She has been doing this for years until she told me and I almost passed out. That's what she had done to other fish too- a kissing gourami, an oscar, some type of freshwater eel, etc.

I was speechless. I couldn't even yell at her.

What?! Wow. Some people are just..... Silly!

After stating 'how good my kids are' (LOL) I found my daughter with her hand in my bettas tank, picking up rocks and throwing them back into the tank from a great height. Arrgh!
 
I've had grape juice in a tank, a baby wipe, and the big mess...playdough.
 
My 2 yr old LOVES 'her' fish!!! She is constantly trying to pet them & catch them & feed them. The worst she has done (thus far...) is dump an ENTIRE container of sinking pellets into the 20gal when my back was turned because the fish were 'hungry'! OMG, what a MESS!!! The pellets blew up immediately & became a gluey mess that stuck to all of the gravel. I had to remove the fish, empty the tank & wash all of the gravel handful by handful to remove the stuck on pellets....now the fish food remains WELL out of her reach!!!
 
This isn't as shocking as most of the other stories I've read, but I worked in a LFS for several years starting in high school. We essentially had one wall with two rows of freshwater tanks the whole way down, and it wasn't uncommon for kids to want to tap on the tanks. (BIG PET PEEVE). I had a child come in one time who went down the entire wall tapping tanks. I kept saying, please don't tap on the tanks," but the kid was oblivious and the mom only responded with "he's only a child" but did nothing to change the behavior. I wanted to snatch a knot in both of them.
 
This isn't as shocking as most of the other stories I've read, but I worked in a LFS for several years starting in high school. We essentially had one wall with two rows of freshwater tanks the whole way down, and it wasn't uncommon for kids to want to tap on the tanks. (BIG PET PEEVE). I had a child come in one time who went down the entire wall tapping tanks. I kept saying, please don't tap on the tanks," but the kid was oblivious and the mom only responded with "he's only a child" but did nothing to change the behavior. I wanted to snatch a knot in both of them.
That sounds pretty frustrating. I think dealing with parents who don't expect their children to children to listen would be more annoying than the behavior of the kids.
I ran a nature center for awhile and it was hard to keep kid's hands out of all my tanks. Snakes, fish, crayfish, mice. Whatever it was, hands tried to go in. Ugh.
 
I've heard many stories of fish and kids. I've heard about teens pouring beer into tanks for fun at parties... I know someone who bought their 4 year old a goldfish and she decided she wanted to go fishing with a pencil...
 
Oh, I remembered another horror story of a worker at a fish shop. Not a child, but she started when she was a child. She thought that some bettas were dyed, like blood parrots and mollies. So, whenever she would get one and they would shift colors, she would just flush them because she didn't think it was right for her to have a dyed pet. She has been doing this for years until she told me and I almost passed out. That's what she had done to other fish too- a kissing gourami, an oscar, some type of freshwater eel, etc.

I was speechless. I couldn't even yell at her.

I've heard of people flushing fish because they have ich... Completely curable. They didn't know that.
 
My 4 yr old daughter had a 25l tank in bedroom and cought her the other night with her pyjama top in the tank. When asked what she was doing the reply was "my top was dry, so needed it wet"..... And also found my pair of police sun glasses in there... :(. I have since taken tank out.. Lol.. But she loves all our fish..
 
I was looking around for a fish tank with a good deal on cragis list a few months back. I finally found a 40 gal i liked with alot included so i went to check it out. When i got there i couldnt even see onto the tank thats how gross the water was, an algea was everywhere! His decorations were about 20 or so whicky, beer, and wine bottles just thrown in there. Haha the only fish that survived was a huge jack dempsy and a 1 foot long common pleco.
Not too much of a horror story, but i was shocked!
 
Nu-Nu the eel said:
I was looking around for a fish tank with a good deal on cragis list a few months back. I finally found a 40 gal i liked with alot included so i went to check it out. When i got there i couldnt even see onto the tank thats how gross the water was, an algea was everywhere! His decorations were about 20 or so whicky, beer, and wine bottles just thrown in there. Haha the only fish that survived was a huge jack dempsy and a 1 foot long common pleco.
Not too much of a horror story, but i was shocked!

That dude has style.
Just kidding:p
 
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