Horror story!!

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Emi929

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 5, 2011
Messages
731
Location
Columbus, Ohio
So tonight about 2 hours ago I was sitting in a chair next to my 55gal. and I was reading a super engrossing book. I heard some splashing and nonchalantly looked over at the tank, my red tail shark was digging in the gravel, so I thought "oh he must have had one of his *omg I'm so excited so let's spaz out and splash* moments, and went back to my book. I turned the page and since I had the radio on in the back room, I didn't hear the small splash, but I swear I noticed something sailing past my head. I looked around, and didn't se anything, so I assumed it was a stray piece of hair from my messy ponytail. I went to help my mom make dinner for about 2 hours, and came back to watch some tv afterwards. I strolled into the living room barefoot. I felt a *squish* under my foot and jumped backwards. There was my 4 inch red-tailed shark, half dried out, half gutted by my weight. It must have jumped out of the smallest of spots in the tank and flipped across the floor!! What a terrible way to discover your pet!
Anyone else have any horror stories about fish experiences? Heater fish fry, children deciding to clean the fish tank with detergent (umm, not like that's happened to me hhhummumm), leaks, tanks bursting, kamikaze fish like my poor sharkie??
 
I have a story. When my grandson was about three his dad took him fishing. After spending the day they arrived home and while my daughter freshened up my grandson decided he would practice fishing. You guessed it. When we came into the livingroom there on my sofa washbasin lineup of about three of my fish from my tank. An angel fish and two goldfish. I was able to throw them back in the tank. The goldfish made the Angelfish died. Webdont fish in granny's livingroom anymore. Hahaha! Oh and we've. Done the bubbles in the tank before, too.
 
When my cousin was little he used to take his goldfish out of the tank to give it some love everyday :) his mum couldn't work out why his fish kept dying until she saw him one day sitting on the floor with the fish in one hand gently stroking it with his finger. She had to explain that it's not like a dog, you can't pat it
 
I guess my biggest horror was when my guppy tried to kill himself. He forced himself into the gravel (it was sharp like live rock, too). It was late, so I decided I'd wait until the next day to get him out (I assumed he was dead), because I figured I'd have to take some water and rocks out. So the next morning I get out the net, to see if I could just push the rocks aside and net him out. (This probably sounds really weird, because it'd be easy if it were regular gravel. But it's this live rock type stuff for the Biorb that's used as substrate. It's not easy to move, they're rough and they get stuck.) So once I finally got the rock moved there goes my guppy, forces himself further down! And I thought he was dead! So I move some more rocks and I eventually get him out. He lived though, so happy ending!
 
I have a canister filter in my tank, but one day I was trying to cycle or prepare a small HOB filter for a small QT tank, so I added the small HOB filter to my tank, after two days, the screen from the intake tube of the HOB filter felt, I did not notice it.

That night the HOB filter started to make a loud noise, and the water was not flowing, I kept pushing the pump up and down, and I could not figurate what was wrong, so I decided to remove and to take the filter apart in my sink, then is when I realized that one of my Siamese algae eater went through the pipe, due to the missing screen, and got trapped, and looks like that I crushed him, when I was pushing the pipes and pumps up and down !, :cry:
 
Sorry about your red tail shark...

don't really have a horror story...more like a natural occurrence.

long ago when my columbian sharks were smaller (around 8") I had a medium sized gourami in the same tank (around 4 1/2"). The sharks never bothered or payed any attention to the gourami, and they all seemed happy for a few years. until one day I came home and one my sharks had a huge, funny shaped stomach...and the gourami was no where to be found...RIP =T
 
Dont really have a horror story, just an ongoing nightmare. Im new to proper care of fish, and it all started after my betta developed swim bladder disorder. Now that thats over one of my goldies decided it was his turn (he died :( )once he died my ryukin decided to get [FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Myxosporidiosis...something that I havent a clue how to fix, and the slightest problem with the water could end terribly :(... now that Ive accepted that and am learning how to cope with it my betta decides hes been missing the attention he had from sbd and has now developed velvet. ... there seems to be no end :( and I even keep the water clean. agh[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica]
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I had a gourami that got himself wedged between a rock and the tank glass, who knows how long he was there, but he bunged himself up pretty bad trying to get out. He ended up passing from DGIV, not the injury though.

My mystery snail has escaped from her tank twice and gone on adventures. The first time she was only out for a few hours, and I had to follow a slime trail across the carpet to find her. The second time I didn't realize she was out for 15 hours (I was working 12 hour shifts) and I found her wedged between the wall and dresser. All holes are now covered up, and Destroyer is no worse for the wear! Thankfully she has a trap door to keep herself moist!

When I was packing my fish up to move, I caught one of my bettas (I use my hands, no nets) and as I was transferring him, he flopped out of my hand and onto the floor, about a 3 foot drop. He is fine and had no damage.

Lastly, I noticed that my BGK was getting too big for his "houses," so I decided to get a piece of PVC pipe and use silicone to put sand and beach glass all over it. Well, I didn't let it cure long enough before I put it in the tank! :( I noticed Elvis not doing too well, and he had blood streaks on his white stripes so I moved him to the 20 gallon. I drained the 75G, refilled and put him back in, and put one of my D. Gourami's in there as my "alert" fish. The DG did fine so I put Elvis back in, came home from work the next morning and he had passed away. I still miss that fish SOOO much! :(
 
We had two guppies give birth one evening, so after spending two hours catching the fry to put them in a floating fry box I thought we'd got all of them. We always push the box into the side of the tank so suction holds it in place and stops it floating round the tank banging into things.
When I checked the tank the next morning, I could see an extra fry in the breeding box and thought that was strange. I noticed another four in the box and couldn't figure out how on earth they got there.
Then I realised that they were all pointing up, and weren't moving. They had all somehow wedged themselves between the wall of the box and the wall of the tank. They have all survives so far (2 weeks), but it really freaked me out!
 
I had a bad experience cleaning my 60 gallon tank. I'm so used to most of my fish swimming away from the gravel vac that I wasn't worried when one of my peppered corys swam by as I was cleaning the gravel. The next thing I know the poor guy is getting sucked up. I started freaking out which only made the situation worse. I run to the kitchen to see I can catch him before he exits the other end (so freaked out that I didn't stop to think that there was no way he could pass through the faucet end of the gravel vac). After a few moments without seeing the cory I started to search the length of the 50 ft hose. I found him about half way down the hose. Unfortunately, since I had switched off the vac and left the faucet running the cory wasn't in water. I quickly (remember, I'm still freaking out and now it's even worse) switch the vac to fill mode and try and get the poor guy out. He eventually makes it to the end, but I can see he won't easily fit through the hole he entered. So, again without thinking I unscrew the vac from the hose and SPLOOSH. Water sprays out everywhere and I can't find the cory. At least not until a week later when I pull out the tarp that I use when performing water changes. There I find his dried up body all wasted away. I still feel so bad :(. I hope he can forgive me up there in fish heaven.
 
I have some from my 55 and my new 90

First the 55
Kids are so caring :) When my daughters were 4-5(they're 11mths apart so like to do things like twins, including ganging up on mommy ) They decided that the fish were hungry so they emptied my pellets into the tank. A big container 3/4 full. But, it wasn't enough, they needed Fruit Loops, toast and 3 packets of oatmeal. To top things off a spoon. Everyone lived but it took forever to clean.

When I was raising convict fry I decided that it would be a bad idea to have the filter near the bottom of the tank so the babies don't get sucked in so I took off the extension pipe and left it at just below the water line. I figured I wouldn't need the cage that goes on the end because it was all big fish up there. Well, one day my filter wasn't working so I took it apart and looked in the pipe and there was a huge eyeball staring at my crammed against the plastic crossbars in the pipe. It was my prized mommy convict. I'm sorry girl. No one has ever looked as pretty as her.

In my 90
My daughters algae shrimp hitched a ride from her tank to mine as I was using filter muck from her filter. He must have been getting a snack up in there and I picked him up. He was dumped in my tank and I can't get him out. I have no idea if he is still alive in there or not.

One from my dad's 55

When Oscar was an inch he lived with data the betta. They were happy. they chased each other. My dad thought that the game was getting to rough for data and he built a divider with holes big enough for data but not oscar. Data would go to Oscars house, tease him and then run though his holes. Well, one day Data lost and couldn't find a hole. Oscar killed Data. A few years and many inches later, my dad reads that if you don't feed your Oscar live feeders, they won't eat fish. I said it's not true. But daddy's don't listen and he bought a 7.00 Betta and food for it. I said don't do that. He said it would be fine. He dropped it in. Oscar circled, checked him out and swam to the other side. My dad said see it's fine. He didn't even get his words out when Oscar rushed the other side and ate the Betta. He just had a 13.00 steak dinner(if you count the food). I feel sad for the Betta, but my dad's face was classic. You could have tripped over his jaw :)

Sorry for the long post, My family has a ton of these :))
 
I have some from my 55 and my new 90

First the 55
Kids are so caring :) When my daughters were 4-5(they're 11mths apart so like to do things like twins, including ganging up on mommy ) They decided that the fish were hungry so they emptied my pellets into the tank. A big container 3/4 full. But, it wasn't enough, they needed Fruit Loops, toast and 3 packets of oatmeal. To top things off a spoon. Everyone lived but it took forever to clean.


One from my dad's 55

When Oscar was an inch he lived with data the betta. They were happy. they chased each other. My dad thought that the game was getting to rough for data and he built a divider with holes big enough for data but not oscar. Data would go to Oscars house, tease him and then run though his holes. Well, one day Data lost and couldn't find a hole. Oscar killed Data. A few years and many inches later, my dad reads that if you don't feed your Oscar live feeders, they won't eat fish. I said it's not true. But daddy's don't listen and he bought a 7.00 Betta and food for it. I said don't do that. He said it would be fine. He dropped it in. Oscar circled, checked him out and swam to the other side. My dad said see it's fine. He didn't even get his words out when Oscar rushed the other side and ate the Betta. He just had a 13.00 steak dinner(if you count the food). I feel sad for the Betta, but my dad's face was classic. You could have tripped over his jaw :)

Sorry for the long post, My family has a ton of these :))

I'm sorry but I had to laugh at both of these stories:D:D:D! Kids will be kids! I'm sure they had no idea that they did something wrong. The image I got of your dad's jaw hanging wide open really cracked me up:D! Thanks for the stories!
 
My story happened a little over 2 years ago when my son was about a year and a half. 3 of my cousin's were at the house (20,16, 14 yrs old) and we were watching T.V. in the family room. We pretty much let my son run around because there were four of us there. Next thing I know, my son taps me and said "Fishtank bubbles! It's clean Mommy." So my youngest cousin ran to the fishtank and noticed bubbles forming and called us over. We panicked at this point and someone grabbed a bucket, the other netted the fishes out, the other held my son, and the other tried to keep the dog from eating the fishes...

My son reached a dishwashing liquid from the sink (I didn't even know he was tall enough to do this) and "cleaned" the tank for me. None of the fish survived and the tank was crystal clear after we were done with it.
 
my biggest horror was just about a week a go. 1:00 AM and my tank bursted open. Water everywhere All the fish made it but some of my corals died it took about 5 hours t get the leak under control. And there was no red sea max tanks on craigslist. So i was forced to buy a brand new one at retail price then a day later when we have the rocks and water in the tank and working on getting fish and corals a brand new red sea max popped up for only $100 with a whole bunch of corals.
 
I'm sorry but I had to laugh at both of these stories:D:D:D! Kids will be kids! I'm sure they had no idea that they did something wrong. The image I got of your dad's jaw hanging wide open really cracked me up:D! Thanks for the stories!


Aw your welcome :) My family really does have a lot these horror stories. Now, thankfully our death rate is really low but our sides have been split many times.

We still laugh at dad today when he wants to put like angelfish in with his RD or JD's. Thankfully my mom has the wallet :)
 
my biggest horror was just about a week a go. 1:00 AM and my tank bursted open. Water everywhere All the fish made it but some of my corals died it took about 5 hours t get the leak under control. And there was no red sea max tanks on craigslist. So i was forced to buy a brand new one at retail price then a day later when we have the rocks and water in the tank and working on getting fish and corals a brand new red sea max popped up for only $100 with a whole bunch of corals.


This is ALWAYS the way it goes :)
 
good thing I have my shark tank covered up well.

It's not really my story, but years ago I had a coworker who kept a catfish in a tank at work (long story, not going into it). It was a bit overlarge for the tank, but seemed reasonably healthy. One Monday, she came in to find the catfish dead. Turns out that the cleaning people had unplugged the aerator to plug in a vacuum cleaner, and didn't plug the tank back in when they were done. She was bummed all week.
 
I almost gave up on aquariums after our horror event happened.

My wife replaced the carbon in our canister filter. We were rearranging some decorations when she made the comment that the water level was dropping in the aquarium. Quickly we noticed the filter was leaking all over the floor. She had not put it back on correctly.

So, I freaked out and unplugged it. It didn't stop leaking for a while. I'd estimate 5 gallons worth.

What a nightmare. Couldn't get the filter back up that night either, so they were without filtration for a night.
 
Oh how can i forget my recent mishap!

I had pea gravel size in my 29 gallon and recently changed it to sand. Well i dont think I let the sand settle enough before I put the filter back on. Sand went into the impeller and the filter was making horribly loud noise. So I unplugged it, cleaned it like 3 or 4 times and nothing. So I decided to use my spare filter. In the process of swapping filters, I spilled water on my powerstrip and I hurriedly unplugged it. The powerstrip was not working anymore and I had a choice of what to plug on the wall outlet (i had no spare power strip). I plugged a heater and the spare filter. Well the sand got into that filter too so I unplugged that and turned on my air pump. First thing in the morning when the LFS opened I ran in there and got a new motor for my filter and set it up. It was a very tiring night.
 
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