what an idiot

flash · Post by **flash** » 06 Jan 2006, 20:29

Hi all
my sturisoma lay eggs on an internal power filter in my 100 gallon tank in my living room.last night as i was turning off the lights to go to bed i noticed some begining to hatch.so i quickly removed the filter and eggs and put them in another tank in the kitchen (as i always do)and went to bed this morning when i got up and put on the lights i found 1 dead l128 2 dead columbian tetras and my rineloricaria fallax she was over 6 inches long and by far the best rineloricaria ive ever had .they had all suffercated through my stupidity.i have kept fish for over 25 years
what an idiot!!
please take care of fish
thanks flash

Kana3 · Post by **Kana3** » 07 Jan 2006, 01:45

(shakes head...)

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 08 Jan 2006, 02:15

we've all done silly things, the tick is to learn from our mistakes! Two key lessons I've learnt over the years are:

1. If you accidently forget to unplug a heater during a water change and you notice steam rising from it, don't pour water on it to cool it down!

2. Never, ever attempt to do any fish tank mainanence after consuming beers, or you will forget something such as doing up the thread on the hose to the water resivior after topping it up

Ah well the laundry floor needed a good clean...

Taratron · Post by **Taratron** » 08 Jan 2006, 22:29

Oh dear, does anyone want to hear of mine?

How about the time I did not replace the air stones in a severely unfiltered tank, and suffered the loss of an adult lima shovelnose, 10 silver dollars, and a pleco?

Or the time I didn't replace the "basket" on the intake tube on the filter, and a young shark, curious, ended up trapped up it?

Or the time I was using a Python to suck algae off the walls of a reef tank, and sucked up a clownfish as well?

(now, the above all happened over a year ago, and at work)

This one happened at home:

Excited to get some nice pleco breeding caves, I swished all the sand from the area I was to plant them down into, and then stacked all 9 of the heavy ceramic caves in what I thought was a clear area. It wasn't.

The next morning I saw a banjo cat's face barely peeking out from under the mountain. I panicked, and ripped the stack down to find three of my favorite catfish nearly crushed to death.

Damn.

Still makes me furious at myself to this day.

Kana3 · Post by **Kana3** » 08 Jan 2006, 22:38

I had a Clown Loach go missing a few days after I'd bought him. I looked everywhere, there were no clues!

Turns out that during a vacuum of the gravel behind the plants toward the rear of the tank, I'd caught him under the pick-up pipe and left him buried under the gravel.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 09 Jan 2006, 12:34

Flash,

Sorry to hear that. I've forgotten to switch things on (or off) more times than I care to confess in public. I was wondering why one particular tank looked cloudy, and on further investigation found that when I cleaned the filter two days earlier, I never plugged it back in... No fatalities, but that was probably more luck than anything else.

I've also (many years ago now) emptied almost half the tank onto the floor by a disconnected hose to the external filter - that was a mess and a half...

Flas: By the way, you didn't say exactly what caused the death of the fishes - what did you do wrong?

--
Mats

Silent Doh · Post by **Silent Doh** » 09 Jan 2006, 16:30

I accedentally forgot to plug my heater back in after a large water change.

It took a week for me to see it, when I went to do another water change. I also noticed that I had forgotten to plug the filter in too!

Fortunately, all of my fish are still fine and just a few days ago I moved them to a larger tank.

Phathead6669 · Post by **Phathead6669** » 09 Jan 2006, 17:06

Yours suppose to unplug your heater???

I rarely do that but then I usually don't remove enough water to have it go under the heating part of the heater.

Anyways for one of my horror stories...it ended alright though.

I was doing a gravel vac, using the Python, and my Albino Pl*co spazzed out causing the whole tank to go berserk. After the fish had settled it was me spazzing out cause my at the time 8.5-9inch ID shark was fully in the gravel vac tube. He survived but it felt like it took me hours to get him out.

Needless to say the water that got into the tank was very cold and untreated. That was the end of that short Gravel Vac session.

hfjacinto · Post by **hfjacinto** » 09 Jan 2006, 18:26

After recently cleaning out one of the filters, I accidently plugged the filter but into the extension cord that the lights used which was connected to a timer. I then went on vacation for a week and had my parents feed the fish. I came back from vacation and looked over the tank. Some fish looked a little stressed, but since it was late I didn't worry too much about it. Next day I did an ammonia and nitrite test and both were high, I assumed it was that my dad overfeeding the fish. I did a 40% chnage and the readings were done again, this time they were low. I then started losing fish, first 3 of my 6 inch red rainbows, then 3 tertas that I had for years and then a rainbow shark that was over 6 inches long. When I tested the tank at night I had very low Nitrite and Ammonia. I increased the water changes. I never tested the tank in the morning. One night when I was feeding the catfish, I looked at the filter and saw no water running. I thought the filter was clogged but when I was going to unplug it I saw that it was connected to the wrong strip. I quickly did a massive water change and plugged the filter into the correct strip. Luckily no more fish deaths. All of the bateria must have died everynight dumping the bioload into the tank in the morning spiking up the Ammonia and Nitrite and then by the afternoon the spike would come down as I have a lot of plants in the tank.

Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!

Silent Doh · Post by **Silent Doh** » 09 Jan 2006, 19:59

You only need to unplug the heater if it is glass. What happens in the glass will heat up very quickly and then shatter, which, as you could probably tell, is bad. However, most heaters have a min. fill line on their side, so If you do a small enough water change, you do not need to unplug it. Some heaters are plastic, or automatically turn off when the water level is too low, you might have one of these heaters.

Waldo · Post by **Waldo** » 10 Jan 2006, 03:59

My business partner still hasn't figured out that heaters are not always submersable. He's busted about $300 worth of them... think he'll finally get it?

Phathead6669 · Post by **Phathead6669** » 10 Jan 2006, 12:48

I know that your suppose to unplug heaters but I have never unplugged a heater unless I am cleaning the entire tank. ie taking all the water out.

I have glass heaters and have never broke one...yet...and I have definetly gone under there "fill limit". I try to only remove a small amount of water but I kinda get caught up trying to suck up all the different stuff that starts floating after you start your gravel clean.

Kana3 · Post by **Kana3** » 10 Jan 2006, 15:59

Well, it'll make your hair stand on end when it pops!

troi · Post by **troi** » 15 Jan 2006, 22:46

This time I am the innocent but the gal who sold me the empty tank (see saga in the lori forumn) sorta spaced. I found four plecs under the ugf of the "empty" used tank I bought two days ago. All are alive and well.

troi

laurab5 · Post by **laurab5** » 15 Jan 2006, 22:52

My 75g mbuna tank is upstairs in my bedroom. I have a hose that goes to my bath tub. Well usually i will just put the end that puts the water into the tub first, then gradually undo the hose till i get to the tank. One day, i didn't realize that the end had gotten out of the tub. So, the water went all over the bathroom floor. And that is not the worst, i went downstairs and forgot about, so i took a good 30-40 gallons out

troi · Post by **troi** » 15 Jan 2006, 22:57

I just remembered my real winner, but again *I didn't do it, the cat did*

In the middle of remodeling, we propped a door in a door frame against the kitchen wall across from the 100 gal acrylic syno tank. I was tending to online fish biz when I heard a crash and the unmistakable whoosh of running water. The door and frame had fallen onto the tank and shattered two AquaClear 300s, flooding the kitchen. Tank survived.

troi

what an idiot

what an idiot

Dumb things

what an idiot