All of my horror stories happened when I was too little to know better, and my parents surprisingly let me have fish.
First there was Tina the goldfish, who I had when I was about 4. I was a pretty responsible kid, and had an array of little pets such as hamsters and the like which I took care of. Tina lived in a bowl, (
) and this might explain why she didn't live long at all. My parents were always the ones to find her belly up, and instead of breaking it to me, would replace the fish. (without changing the water...) and I went through several Tinas...
Then there was Ray. The red betta. My sister had him in her room, and when my mother found him, (long since forgotton) he was surprisingly still living, in one inch of slime green water and skeleton thin. We nursed him back to health and he lived a year longer, and died of SWD.
Then, my dad's fishtank, which turned into a giant icecickle in the ice storm. We lost power for 2 or 3 weeks, and it was in the negatives. My dad wrapped the tanks, did water changes every day, and floated baggies of hot water and filled it with warm water, and they lived for over a week, then my dad couldn't come back to the house for a while, and the tank froze.
EDIT: forgot a story. My sister had some aquababies and a snail in a bowl, and kept finding the aquababies dead with missing centers...
The snail was climbing up the bowl and dropping onto them and eating them! We witnessed him do it. The LFS had never seen anything like it, and replaced the snail with the ADF we still have, LaFitte.