Worst tank accident?

[Thedaniokeeper]

What was the worst tank accident you've ever had???
Be it a bursting, Heater Malfunction, or pH crash, feel free to list it here.

Mine happened last March...
We were doing our regular monthly 100% wc And I left the heater plugged in and put it on my mother's boot. Both were ruined. So we went to the store and bought a new one. What we didn't know was that it came turned up REALLY HIGH. The overnight bloom, along with around 100 ml of water conditioner, resulted in something that was a bit like 90 degree milk . I lost the first of my 3 scissortails, a new impulse buy my mom bought, and a zebra danio the next night while he was in the emergency tank. It also triggered a genetic malfunction, making my obese Zebra danio.

 

[likestofish]

Didnt understand half of what you said but with my salt water tank i created a algae scrubber but it sprung a leak and overnight drained half of my reef tank onto my hard wood floor.

 

[Miomo]

when i was starting my first fresh tank i put in fish at what i thought was the time...caused a huge ammonia spike and got it down in about 3 months...

 

[Stingray12]

didnt qt petsmart fish lost entire tank, this was a 55 gallon fw

 

[dawn]

Well, we've had a accident once! My dad was doing a water-change to my guppies, and forgot he'd left the pipe in (he was refilling it). And needless to say, the tank over-flowed, but luckily we didn't lose any fish! So the moral to the story is, keep a close watch when changing the tank!

 

[Otto_VonBacon]

First time i set up a saltwater tank, i added saltwater everytime i had to add water instead of freshwater, over time the salt became so hight,(also a falure to use my hydrometer) that my hydrometers neddle maxed out, it wasint before i drained and replaced 3 gallons of freshwater that i actually saw movement in the needle. This was on a 12 gallon nano...

Didn't loose much tho, pretty much every touchy invert in the tank, it also caused a huge cyanobacter outbreak. The entire tank was covered in a thick coat of red.

Then i joined MFK, cyano was gone in 3 days, and i haven't had a catastrophic accident since!

 

[bfhslilred93]

i had both of mine in the same month. i had the bottom of a 10gal fall out when there wasnt anything heavy in it and it was stable. also, i had a random ammonia spike that came and went before i could react but it took casualties

 

[Rhodes09]

my heater malfunctioned while i was ot of town and i came home to a 96 degree tank. lucky i noticed the starnge behavior of my oscar and caught it before i lost any fish..

 

[vaine111]

ummmm... it would have to be the time i was 7 or 8 and my sister threw a bottle of peroxide at me and it went threw the 55g. lost all the fish and i never saw another tank till i was 14.

 

[metalyx]

I'll give you guys some of the greater misfortunes(?), or perhaps just poor decisions(?).

My first one was just over two years ago when I got the fish crack in me and went crazy. Picked up a ten and overstocked the heck out of it. Like a good addict picked up a twenty gallon tall to ease the space. At this point it struck me that we had a great glass topped table that no one was using. Sure enough it looked great for about 8 hours, both tanks side by side. Then the table broke. To be fair, neither one of the tanks busted until they hit the floor of my second story apartment. Lost three out of a dozen fish.

Did my first reach into saltwater via a mini reef for my girlfriend. The first catastrophe came in the ick infection. Took everyone except for the scooter blenny. Learned that medicating a reef tank is a bad idea and had to break it to the very upset girlfriend that Nemo just isn't as important as this here plant/animal thing. In fact both the Nemo's are worth less than these here plant animal things.

This same tank got me into water quality very quickly. I had picked up a calcium supplemant as I was told "calcium's important, just add this according to the label" and of course did. Found out I didn't need to supplement as it turns out, and I found this out when the calcium tested over 600+ and the ph leveled at 7.3. Lost the toadstool of all things.

First reach into monster creatures, my 2ft tessalata. Beautiful eel that ate very heartily and left my damsels alone. I knew that eels had a tendency to escape and did my best to eel proof the tank. She escaped 4 times in 3 months. First time I got a call from my roommate circa 2:45 a.m. "hey dude, Lucy's out, threw a towel on her, picked her up, smell like a fisherman's fist, come check on your fish". This continued in kind with someone else always putting her back in the tank and me having to run back home as fast as I could. The last time she did it was the worst as she acted like she hit her head a little too hard and couldn't see.

That's about it minus mini-crisis in the meantime. Just remember, it's not the worst tank disaster you've had, it's the worst you've had so far.