Never leave kids alone with a tank...

[Natural_Born_Killer]

Last Saturday my boyfriend and I decided to get his 7 year old daughter a fish tank from her birthday money.

We got to the shop and we got her a 14g tank to keep little guppies in.
At home I got it all set up for her, got the gravel all clean and it was all nicely sorted out.

Then yesterday as my boyfriend and I were sitting outside have a cigarette we hear her screaming for us from her bedroom. It was the kind of scream that makes you panic. We thought something happened to her brother so we ran into her room.

I was not quite prepared for the sight... there is her tank, gushing out water. There is water everywhere... its under the bed, under the floor, and trying to creep out the bedroom door.

The tank is still half full at this point so I rush over to see if ti was a broken seal - hopefully it'll stop gushing. Nope.

She wanted to move a rock around her tank and dropped it causing a major hole at the bottom.

So there I am desperately trying to catch the poor little fish that are very quickly running out of water. I get them into a bucket and put them straight away into my 14g grow out which is housing 2 small convicts at the moment.

It took us a good hour and half to clear up the water - we had to pull up the floor and remove all the furniture.

So the lesson learned... Never leave kids alone with a fish tank.
Needless to say, I think she learned a bigger lesson as she will not be getting a new one from us any time soon.

 

[gomezladdams]

Lesson learned no heavy ornaments in your kids tank!
Shows interest though.She was trying to aquascape.Some eggcrate is in order!

 

[Natural_Born_Killer]

Lol... yeah exactly.

I'm glad she was enthusiastic but rule was if they wanted to do anything with the tank myself of my bf had to be there to "help"

The cons seem quite happy with their new tank mates... lol.

 

[suki_koko]

lol the poor child, she just wanted to "fix her tank up" all by herself. I've got a 7 yr old, and she is just like that, they want the independence and they think they know it all. She had probably seen you working on a tank, and thought she knew what she was doing. The good thing is that she will be too scared to touch a tank all by herself for fear of ruining another one.

I just showed my daughter your post, to show her how easy it is to break a tank, and she said that she won't be touching my tanks without supervision again. So thanks for sharing.

 

[Natural_Born_Killer]

lol the poor child, she just wanted to "fix her tank up" all by herself. I've got a 7 yr old, and she is just like that, they want the independence and they think they know it all. She had probably seen you working on a tank, and thought she knew what she was doing. The good thing is that she will be too scared to touch a tank all by herself for fear of ruining another one.

I just showed my daughter your post, to show her how easy it is to break a tank, and she said that she won't be touching my tanks without supervision again. So thanks for sharing.

Lol, yeah when I asked her she said basically exactly that "I thought I was big girl and could do it myself" Felt really bad for her - and I know she learned a hard lesson.

Glad this came of use to you - shame I don't have pictures of drenched rooms to prove the point

 

[tthanatoss]

That's to funny but I know where you're coming from I recently set up tanks in each of my kids rooms, a 20 and a 10 gallon. My kids are 9 and 10 and every day has been a war to get them to leave the fish alone. Thing is they never showed much interest in my tank and I more or less gave them tanks to thin out my overstock but I guess now that they have their "own" fish they're suddenly expert fish keepers and I know nothing.

 

[richnsue09]

oh wow thats crap... happened when were were younger too... mm mum when i WAS around five or so had just gone out back garden and my brother about three at the time had decided to pick up a hammer and put it through a 500g tank!! what a mess!! everthing had to be replaced... my bro lived though......

 

[Plec123]

That's to funny but I know where you're coming from I recently set up tanks in each of my kids rooms, a 20 and a 10 gallon. My kids are 9 and 10 and every day has been a war to get them to leave the fish alone. Thing is they never showed much interest in my tank and I more or less gave them tanks to thin out my overstock but I guess now that they have their "own" fish they're suddenly expert fish keepers and I know nothing.

i hate it when people act like that.... my dad thinks im trying to kill my fish because i do 45%-50% water changes and he thinks thats too much... when i dont feed them for a day he thinks im starving them.

 

[tscharf]

when i was little, prolly around 5, my parents had a fishtank in my room for me. during the day i would chase the neones around with my toy plastic alligator and at night i would catch them by hand and put them in my little cereal container with some water. Well the cereal container had holes at the bottom so when i woke up in the morning and my fish wa sall dried out i didnt know why, i did this for about a week until my mom noticed i was missing some fish. she asked what i was doing and i told her. Then she explained to me the whole fish need water to breathe thing and i finally understood.

needless to say, poor neons

 

[Natural_Born_Killer]

That's to funny but I know where you're coming from I recently set up tanks in each of my kids rooms, a 20 and a 10 gallon. My kids are 9 and 10 and every day has been a war to get them to leave the fish alone. Thing is they never showed much interest in my tank and I more or less gave them tanks to thin out my overstock but I guess now that they have their "own" fish they're suddenly expert fish keepers and I know nothing.

Thats cute though...

I've "given" her a couple of fish that are in my tank... she wanted to put them into her 14g. I had to explain that they wouldn't have enough space in there.

when i was little, prolly around 5, my parents had a fishtank in my room for me. during the day i would chase the neones around with my toy plastic alligator and at night i would catch them by hand and put them in my little cereal container with some water. Well the cereal container had holes at the bottom so when i woke up in the morning and my fish wa sall dried out i didnt know why, i did this for about a week until my mom noticed i was missing some fish. she asked what i was doing and i told her. Then she explained to me the whole fish need water to breathe thing and i finally understood.

needless to say, poor neons

well I once put all my Aunts Koi in her swimming pool - my cousin and I had ambitions to be like Ariel.