good & bad aquarium or fish related experiences

Re: Dumbest Mistake

i wonder if anyone has ever dropped their phone in the water change bucket

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

no doubt, anytime.....

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

Okay, this is all I can come up with right now...

When vacuuming my tank I took the hose to start a siphon and got all the water in my mouth.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

i do that at least 2x a month anthony....and mine includes salt too

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

that used to happen to me all the time when i was a teenager trying to steal gas

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

Anthony thats all you got? That happens to me like 50% of the time I do a water change. and it was I that dropped my phone into the water change bucket as well.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

there was another time i remember hooking up the python to my sink to take water out one day and i cleared my sink but didn't notice i left the sponge in there, soooooo i started the syphon and was watching how much i was taking out of the tank but didn't notice how much was overflowing from the sink.......when i turned around , i had to put on my rain boots to get into my kitchen!!!! trust me it was that bad....

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

you the best nelson, one of a kind

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

Dude, I got hit in the head by my ceiling fan while putting the overflow box onto my 125. Mind you I have to use a step ladder to do anything with that big boy, the second step on the ladder now reads, "turn off the fan".

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

thats what we need to do nelson is build you a stand

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

In all honesty man, I love this thing being this high. Its grown on me, I need a 55 stand though that we can scratch together.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

yep, that stand is way up there.....you should try to build a simple one for now.....until you can get your hands on a good deal for one.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

which stand we talking about, I love the 125, its like an showpiece like no other. The metal alone in this things is prolly worth hundreds. But if I make a stand its going to be done right, why go through the effort if you only half-a~s it.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

okay, probably not the dumbest thing as sad as that is....but it's the first one that comes to mind although it doesn't deal with aquarium equip mishaps and blunders
I call it a day in the life of Dawn
I was at the pgh zoo and going through the aquatic exhibits with the kids when they were telling me about this fish that spits water when it senses/sees something overhead (arowana)...me not truly paying attention because I was busy watching this kid who appeared to be alone try to climb over this open enclosure that had one of those warning labels showing that shows your not allowed to put your hands into the tank.
Anyways I finally see this kid is leaning over and starting to slide forward (as if to fall into the tank) and I go on mothers instinct & grab the kid & put him back on his feet before he can fall in...And as I go to grab the kid who was almost in tears cuz he scared his self S*itless, I get this faceful of water blasted at me. I turned around to my kids who were laughing hysterically as I said wtf? ...and they quickly replied (as they pointed to the enclosure that I had just saved the kid from falling into) that I was just showered by an Arowana!
Moral of the story...pay close attention when your kids are telling you about something WHILE you save other people's children.

 

Re: Dumbest Mistake

while thawing the frozen brine shrip in a cup of warm water i sat it down next to my drink.
NOW I AM NO NELSON but i'll tell you this the brine shrimp might taste good to the fish but i would rather starve then try those again.
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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:47 pm

 

Best/Worst Experience with your aquarium

Best/Worst Experience with your aquariumPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 2:30 am

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Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:54 pm

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Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 6:18 pm

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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:11 am

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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:40 pm

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Brynn
I always like to hear about aquarium owners best and worst experiences with their aquariums, so I thought it would be a great thread on this forum. It could be helpful to not only myself but other members that may experience the same or close to the same experiences you have had and to not give up when they feel they are going through a hard experience with there own tank.
I am also going to include an achievement that I hope to achieve someday.

So I will start and hope you will follow

I currently am the mom to a 75g freshwater aquarium. It includes numerous corys, 2 juvie sevs, 1 juvie rainbow shark, and a baby jelly bean parrot fish.

Best Experience or Best achievement...
When I first started with aquariums I decided to do a fishless cycle. I did not have anyone around that I trusted to take aged water from or filter media to get a jump start. I ended up adding approx. 3x the ammonia I was suppose to, and my reading were off the charts. It took soooooo long for it to get through the fishless cycle even doing numerous water changes. There were days I would brake down. But in the end I achieve my first and hardest fishless cycle I will probably ever have to go through. It ended up being the best achievement and my favorite tank (although small at 20g) I have owned to date. It was my baby... RIP

Achievements I would like to accomplish...
There are several things I would like to achieve in the future. I would like to achieve breeding either Corydoras, Angels, or both. I would also like to achieve having a successful planted aquarium. Lastly, I would like to become a better owner to my current fish by upgrading to a canister filter. I am scared to death of them and do not understand them, but know I will eventually have to switch over to one.

The Worst experience I went through...
(keep in mind my worst experience could have been avoided if I personally would have been a more informed aquarium owner (and did my homework better I have no one to blame but myself)
I had a 40g high fish tank before I moved to my new home. During the move I planned to move my fish to a larger 55g. I had 2 larger parrot fish that I was completely in love with, and wanted to give them more room. I ended up purchasing a used aquarium. The gentlemen I bought it from "seemed" VERY knowledgable and I trusted all his advice. He advised me the aquarium was used for saltwater prior and I should wash it out with a vinegar/water solution and it would be safe to add my fish. Well I cleaned this tank for about 1 hour straight. Scrubbing, washing, rinsing, ect... I would not stop until I was confident the tank was spotless. When it came time to add the fish I knew I was not going to be around for days afterwards, and I was taking a chance. My brother fed the fish and told me he thought something was wrong but did not really express how serious the situation it was (and he was not experienced with aquariums what so ever). Well when I came back they had past. To this day I believe I did not clean the tank properly and in turn did not remove all the live matter from the prior saltwater use. This then caused the pH to spike off the charts...or... moving them caused a mini cycle that went out of control because it was not attended to properly. After that I was very emotional :cry: . I threw the tank out and said I would never get one again, and here I am going to be starting a second tank.


Hope to hear about your experiences....

 

Best/Worst Experience with your aquarium

Best/Worst Experience with your aquarium
I'll bite!

Best experience:
Difficult to answer. There have been quite a few over the years and how to judge one over the other? Soooo I guess one of them was in a small 20g I had and one day I found 3 baby lemon tetras that had survived in a large clump of java moss. Very excited to see them there as I did not know the fish were in breeding condition yet. Another was in a reef tank I had, the bubble tip anemone split (over time) into 5 seperate anemones. Oh and the first time my angels bred Keeping saltwater nano tanks before they got popular (when everyone said it couldn't be done), cultivating shaving brush algae, hand feeding the fire eel....

Worst experience:
Again, difficult to answer. There have only been a couple but they've been doozies. One was when my first mated pair of angels died within a month of each other. I had bought them as an adult pair and I had them for 7 years before the male died, then the female shortly afterwards. I still miss them. The next two are both saltwater related. I had a volitans lionfish that became ill after eating a detached mushroom coral. He had been sick for months. I had him in a QT in the bedroom. I had sand in the tank and some live rock too. Anyway, I came home one day to find the tank had busted a seam and there was saltwater, sand, rocks and one very dead lionfish on my carpet. That really broke my heart and I nearly left the hobby that day. Then was the hurricanes of 2004. In my area we had one pass by and we lost power for 5 days. Everything survived but 28 days later a second went by and we lost power for 7 days. That's when my reef tank died. I nearly left the hobby after that too. The only things to survive were my yellow tang which I still have today, a clownfish, a snail and one shrimp. Everything else in that tank died. I lost at least $1000 worth of coral and inverts. Not to mention the life on the rock and in the sand. It was a huge mess to clean up and stunk to high heaven. I tried to restart the reef up later on but I just couldn't do it and ended up selling the whole thing except for the yellow tang who was in a different tank by then. Haven't had a reef since.

Things I want to do:
Another one that's hard to answer! To be honest, I don't know. I am really drawn to the New World cichlids....and I know I want to keep the fish I have now until they die of very old age. New projects? Hmmm....sometimes I feel like setting up another salt tank with more of the shaving brush algae. Sometimes I think having a local biotope tank would be good - both fresh and salt! But my main thing is to not have any more tanks than I already have right now!! So that means my fish must die of very old age before I can try something new!

 

Re: Best/Worst Experience with your aquarium

Thanks for sharing. I was hoping to hear of other forum members experiences.
I am so happy that some of your fish made it after the hurricane even though you did lose ALOT..., and happy you stayed in the hobby... That is hard to even imagine and it hit me hard reading about it because there was nothing you could do.

Great stories/experiences... although some sad experiences.

Again thanks for sharing... and good luck with your future endevors in the aquarium world....

 

Re: Best/Worst Experience with your aquarium

I started a thread similar to this sa while back.