What's the clumsiest thing you ever did keeping your aquarium?

djkaty

Vampyroteuthis
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I'm the queen of clumsiness. So far in the month or so since I started I managed to crack an aquarium, break a powered siphon, break a glass bob hydrometer and today I managed to spill 20 liters of water which made a nice little drip in my downstairs neighbour's living room :biggrin2: (fortunately she hates the landlord as much as I do so we just fixed it between us, no harm done).

So this got me to the idea for a thread! What's the clumsiest thing you ever did or biggest accident you ever had keeping your aquarium? :smile:
 
My goodness you win....

Let's see. I too have broken a thermometer or two. A heater when I took it out of the tank but forgot to unplug it so it got really hot and exploded. The worst water spills I have were siphoning. One time I was doing a water change and watching TV, well I was watching TV and not my bucket and hose, and well missed the bucket for a few seconds. I spilled about a gallon of water....its not a tank, but I also have a frshwater pond with oscars and an all sorts of stuff, I fell in it cleaning it one day.

the pond:
 
Hmmm... what should I choose? When my aquarium caught fire (well, not the aquarium, but the electrical parts...), when I shocked myself, when I didn't plug the sump before filling 100's of gallons of water in the holding tank. That doesn't include the things I have done while working at public aquariums...
 
Water on the floor through various lack of attention issues. I have drained a 20 gallon holding tank because I left the valve partially open (fortunately this is in the garage). I have drained several gallons of water going off to do something and then forgetting I was pulling water from the tank (fortunately this was over the unfinished part of the basement), I have not realized my siphon was not IN the bucket. I have emptied a 15 gallon freshwater tank when the pump hose popped out of the tank. I have overflowed the freshwater tank by letting the same hose get caught under the float shut off valve ...

The worst ADD carelessness caused the early death of my favorite octopus though. I was doing extra water changes in his tank because he was entering senescence. I had family coming over and was trying to get in the extra change before they arrived. They came a little earlier than expected (or I was running a little late) and I left the aquarium top open. Octane was asleep and the open top was not obvious from the outside. When he woke up it was obvious from the inside and he exited the tank with no one in the room. He was not out long (still wet) when discovered but the overhead fan caused enough drying to effect his skin and he died several days later.
 
At work...............dumped an entire 20L bucket of chopped fish into our big pond, it's supposed to be fed out slowly so we can monitor whose feeding, and also make sure there's enough left for the bottom feeders (but they WON'T eat the whole bucket full). this is an issue because many of the fish won't feed off the bottom and this pond is a sod to clean (only gets done every 6 months or so), so I'm trying to scoop the stuff up with a net, when I knock the bucket in :roll: Still I managed not to fall in myself! (the pond is about 20m by 10m and about 2.5- 3m deep)
 
enough micro-bubbles accumulated in the overflow box of my hex to slow the siphon rate to *just* below the rate of the pump. about ten gallons slowly trickled out onto and through the floor and ceiling in the foyer below. purchased a square of drop ceiling tile before the downstairs tenants or landlord ever knew.
 
Recently....I ingested feeder tank scum from the bottom of the tank because I tried too hard to start the syphon...and Monday night, fell on rocks collecting crabs at the local inlet...flood a few years back forgetting I was filling a 47 pentagon, but that happened to be fresh...many broken impellers with mad dash to LFS to replace...I now keep spares! And one I felt so bad about...left a new octopus dripping for only a minute and came back to an empty bucket....Found him covered in dust bunnies all the way across the room. Unfortunately he did not survive and I felt guilty as all heck!
 
I accidentaly dumped 25 pounds of salt into my tank. Thank God it didn't have any animals yet. Its 4 months later and the level is still 38. With my freshwater tank I confused the nitrite and ammonia tests and aadded a bunch of products to get my "ammonia" down.
 
I droped 2 sets of lights into my tank with in one week almost caused an electrical fire and my hands were in the tank. I have messed up my filtration and caused a mini cycle by removing to much live rock 1 day before I got a new octopus. Bought the wrong kind of RODI water that puts ammonia in my tank (that was a fun one)
 
I took the filter screen off of the bottom of the intake (temporarily) so that I could suck up more of the algae that was floating around the tank after I cleaned it. Bought some new fish, couldn't find new fish until I checked the impeller... I have no idea how long the fish was in there. It tail is pretty beat up, but it survived...
 
corw314;162815 said:
Recently....I ingested feeder tank scum from the bottom of the tank because I tried too hard to start the syphon

This was one of the funniest things I ever saw Steve do. He retched for about half an hour. :twisted:

Me, I sprayed water all over the aquarium gift shop when the sump-refilling hose popped out and I didn't notice; sank the small dinghy we use when surface-feeding the shark tank; killed a fish in the quarantine area when I took the pipe it was hiding in out of the tank to clean, didn't notice there was a fish inside and left it out to dry (and die); and nearly boiled another to death scrubbing the conch shell clean (with soapy water) where he was hiding. :oops:
 

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