Your worst disater

[White Whale]

Yesterday I bought 3 really tiny tiger barbs for my 2.5g tank. I was going to return them once they reached more than an inch. I thought I would try out my hand in keeping another type of fish besides a betta. Well, that didn't last too long. This morning I found all three of them dead and stuck to one of the filter siphon (I used the tube with the grate so nothing gets sucked into the main filter tube of the Palm Filter; I am running 2 Palm filters on that one tank). So much for that. Tiger barbs looked really pretty. I may have a few photos I took of them. I didn't realize how strong the suction was for the filter. I think the oto talked them into swimming near the filter. Oh sure, the oto can grab glass in case of strong current, the barbs can't.

I also lost Awww (my tiniest female cambodian) the day before, a swordtail back in April, and a neon tetra, all in that same tank. I still have yet to find their bodies. My 2.5g seems to be a "tank of death" - save for the lone oto which seems to hold its secrets.....

 

[CFC]

The worst thing that ever happened to me was when the powerhead on the main filter failed during a heat wave while i was on holiday, it really couldnt have come at a worse time. A friend who was looking after our house phoned me to break the bad news and i talked him through the process of getting a emergency airstone into the tank and doing a 75% water change but i still lost all but about 4 of the fish in that tank by the time we arived home the next day. With no surface movement and the 30 degree heat the oxygen levels had dropped too far for the large fish that were in the tank, one of the victims was a 11" bala shark, in all i lost about £200 worth of fish.

 

[Bomag]

my worst thing to have happened to me was when i got my first redtailed catfish called kitty the one before bruce.
i had wonderful plans for her raised her from a small fish real small to one which was about 5" long the first thing to go wrong was that she ate some slate that was just longer than her we saw her struggling and got her out of the tank and managed to get it out.
but the last straw was when i got some foxtails of about 4" long and for some reason they all died well kitty decided to eat one for tea we saw her looking bad then sure enough the next day she was dead, bless her little fins. that was a sad day

 

[silent_one]

My wort disaster was when I just started the aquarium hobby, I had a 12 gal and my filter broke. I had no hospital tanks or anything I also had no idea what to do. And by the time I got my filter fixed I lost half of my fish, because my tank was so badly overstocked.

 

[smithrc]

touch wood... i've not had any major disasters... although i've only just realised... i've used my back up heater and filter in other tanks... must get some spare equipment...

 

[karrihug]

my disaster lasted a while, not sure if it is over yet or not. my daughter brought home a bunch of feeder fish and zebra danios in a 10 gallon she borrowed from a friend. when the fish started dying i started doing some research and figured out why. i had the ten gallon almost under control when her friend wanted it back, so i figured what the heck and bought a 56 gal column tank. got it set up (not cycled) and moved the fish and was doing major water changes all the time, it was just about cycled finally and the damn thing exploded in the middle of the night. blew the front glass several feet across the dining room along with all my fish and everthing else. luckily mts had over taken me by then so we picked up everyone we could find and put them in the 2.5 in the kitchen and the 10 (from garage sale) in my daughters bedroom. it took about 12 hours to get to the pet store and get them to replace the tank. all i lost in that round was a few neon tetras and 3 glow light tetras, course my betta died 2 days later, i think it was the stress of sharing his 2.5 with 10 other fish for 12 hours. so a week after we set up the replacement tank my husband went on vacation and the new one sprung a leak. woke up to get ready for work and had to siphon the remaining 50% of the water out and move the fish again. of course with him out of town i had gotten a 55 gal to go upstairs and had just set it up the day before. kinda blew my plan for a fishless cycle but had the almost cycled filter from the other to put on so i didn't loose any fish in that round. i am now fishless cycleing the 3rd 56 gal column tank. hopefully this one will last a while.

 

[CMC]

Here are mine:

When my husband and I bought our first tank at Christmas (the 55-gallon) we were uneducated about tank cycling and (most newbie's mistakes). At that time, our definition of cycling was setting up the tank and letting it stand for a day or two . After two days we went out and bought 10 small angelfish, a plec, cory cats and two silver dollars. The plec died within 12 hours and the other fish didn't look too good. That's when we discovered this forum and found out what we did wrong! We did water changes everyday for two weeks and luckily the rest of the fish survived it. We were lucky I guess, and thankful.

Earlier this year my son gave me his bala shark because he didn't want it anymore (I was so excited because I really loved that fish) so I took him out of my son's tank by filling up a bucket with his tank water and putting the fish in there to transfer him. Well my son was in a hurry to get to his friend's house so I set the bucket down next to the 55-gallon and figured I would transfer him when I got back home (it's about a 20 min trip). When I got home, the fish wasn't in the bucket anymore. I asked my husband if he put the fish in the 55-gallon for me and he said no. Confused, I picked up the bucket and found the fish laying behind it - dead. He has jumped out while I was gone.

Last week we did water changes on all our tanks and the next day discovered that the heater in the Oscar tank had malfunctioned and the water temp had shot up to 90 degrees. You could feel the heat on the outside of the glass. We did small water changes throughout the day to bring it back down and the Oscar seemed fine until the next day. He wouldn't move or eat at all for a couple of days and we thought we were going to lose him. He has since recovered and is back to his normal self.

I just hope the 240-gallon holds up. If we get an earthquake, we're in big trouble!

 

[amazingbioloboydp]

Once I had my tank open and i dropped the light in the water and without thinking reached in for it...ouch

 

[Sorrell]

I thought of another one...When I was in high school, I had two Oscars who were 14 inches and beautiful. One morning I woke up and the lid to the tank was upside down on the floor and one of my Oscars was dead on the floor with burns on his side. All I can figure is that he jumped out, taking the whole hood with him and landed on the light strip, burning himself. How horrible, and the worst part is that I slept through the whole thing