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siptang

Guest
I understand. My wife hates the concentrated smell as well. (that's why she "insists" that we must have a canopy lol)
Another one coming up shortly if you guys are not sick of them already.
 
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siptang

Guest
Alright since none of you complained about my constant spamming of this thread, here is a another one.

We, the hobbyists all have had our mishaps such as where we leave water unattended while doing a water change and flood our floors or adjust the skimmer's air bubbles wrong and make the skimmer flow out mess our floors up.
That's due to our mistakes, carelessness at times.
This story is about how life threw a curve ball at me as the form of a baby.
As well you as you guys know, I have a 72g bow front.
I also had a 20g long tank as a qt right next to my display tank as a hospital tank or quarantine tank on the floor.
I had many instance where he would throw his cereals in the water to "feed" the fish and such. (I know, why no hood right? that's because I'm super cheap. There I said it.) Thank the lord there wasn't any casualties while he threw his things in there.
(I remember one of the member's child put a chicken nugget inside the tank and could almost visualize my boy doing the same thing)
Now, I have gotten a new fish and as a recommended by many, I started qting the fish. I notice the fish has a 1 or 2 spots of ick so I treat the tank with quick cure. My son is AMAZED how the water turned blue and claps and runs in circles in excitement while speaking to me in his baby gibberish. By this time, I have put on a reptile cover on top (I used to have snakes, bearded dragons) so that my son won't try to touch formalin with his hands and try to put it in his mouth.
I did the treatment for a week and did a 50% water change and then ran carbon and did additional 25% following week and started to observe the fish. My son, always curious ran over every time I did this. Giggling out aloud, clapping and screaming in baby gibberish. I was doing my usual observation, then turned around to get something and next thing i hear is splash, crack. Feeling sick, I turn around and my son is inside the tank. ALL wet and happy, trying to catch the scared to death fish (which died later by the way
) and bottom of the tank was cracked started to leak water but to me, my son was more important then impending flood so I grabbed him out of it immediately and luckily no scratches or cuts on his little feet. I call for my wife for help and then start to do a damage control. Water is now EVERY WHERE. My rug is no longer good. My wooden stairway is soaked as well as anything near it. My work papers are wet. I'm running around like a mad man trying to salvage what I can. I grab the papers, separate them so that they won't stick to one another lay them out on the table, roll out the rug and start mopping the water into a bucket and carefully throw away now my broken qt...
After several hours later, house was some what back to normal and then here it came.
Hurricane WIFE. I was yelled at for not watching him properly that he could have gotten hurt etc etc and that this was more work then anything else in our lives etc etc, that it's a nuisance etc etc.
Now we look back and we laugh at it because it's precious memory to us.
In conclusion I think children is our biggest joy, our biggest asset however also our biggest tank killers lol.
Thanks for reading guys.
 
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chrisnoe

Guest
I just recently got into the marine aquaium hobby and I believe that this happened because I have become physically disabled and can no longer scuba dive.
I grew up on the Long Island coast and took up diving at an early age. I loved exploring the underwater world. The different species of fish and other marine life amazed me. When I graduated from high school I went off to the Floridat Institure of Technology to study "Underwater Technology". We would dive several times each week and some of those dives were on reefs or ship wrecks in beutiful water that amazed me even more since all of my prior diving had been in murky Long Island water.
I then spent twenty years in the Navy and dove in places like the Red Sea and other great areas of the world. Over the years life in the Navy just did not agree with my body and it wore down. Now I have a bad back and nerve damage and other aflictionswhich limit my mobility and prevent me from diving. This is where my want of creating my own underwater world to stare at for hours on end. This brings back many memories of reef diving and I again get to see amazing sea life. Some days I just want to dive into my tank and live the adventure all over again. I even have a little deep sea diver in the tank. I can't wait until I can afford the equipment necessary to turn my tank into a reef tank. My little world will then be complete.
Chris
 

mr. limpid

Active Member
Thanks for sharing Chris. Yep those slice's of ocean in our homes really do good job bring pleasure, relaxation and therapy to all of us.
 

fcatch76

Member
On Thursday night 4/7/2011 my tank heater (stealth 100watt), Friday while I'm at work my wife opens our sons door and sees the tank filled with cloudy water and all the fish floating.
The heater failing caused the tank to crash. This is fish, sand, rocks and my DSB in the refugium. Thats where the ammonia and bacteria etc etc came from. Me stirring the sand beds, touching the rock with bare hands was not such a great idea. While all this is going on, I had a huge colony of the ugliest palys growing in that tank (hitch-hiker from another purchase). I figured the colony would be dead like everything else but it was still exuding the toxins into the water and again I was touching everything without gloves. In this pic you can see the greens palys. Anyone with palys and zoas should read... and read alot about palytoxin and the effect on the human body. Palytoxin is one of the worse toxins known to man.
The ammonia levels were enough to affect my wife (who was helping) and our 2 year old son (2 rooms away). My wife was kept overnight in labor and delivery to monitor her and our newest addition (she is 8 1/2 months pregnant). My son sent home that morning with motrin for his fever and I had a 3 day stay in the ICU. My symptoms were nausea, constant headache, metallic taste, dizziness, fever, labored breathing, shortness of breath and low blood pressure and heart rate. This was not a fun experience, quite scary and life changing.
Here are the test and treatments performed: 7 X- Rays
4 EKG
2 Echo Cardiogram
1 Cardiograms
9 bags of IV solution
15+ vials of blood taken vitals performed every two hours
Heart monitor 24/7 for the 3 days
3 liters of oxygen for 1 1/2 days, then down to 2 liters for 1 day
Spirometer Respitory treatments Lasik Prednisone (steroid)
Albuterol (inhaler)
Protonix helps with stomach pains from steroid Potassiums pills and other pain relieving medication after my heart and blood pressure rose to acceptable levels.
My fever was up to 103.8. WEAR GLOVES and if you can, TAKE A DEAD TANK OUTSIDE or wear a respirator, because now I have to go back and get x-rays again to check for permanent damage to my lungs.
 

fcatch76

Member
we didn't check at the time, but I bet too high for a test kit. Not much of success story in terms of the story contest, but it taught me the importance of buying HIGH quality heaters and heater controllers.... that $30 heater cost me thousands in hospital bills and of course all my live stock in the tank. I had pictures but they did not work when I posted. BTW, marineland covered the livestock of $815, which was a little sunshine at the end of all this.
The tank has been up and running with a whole new theme. Just thought it would be fitting to come back to the place that got me started in all this. Even placed an order today.
 
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siptang

Guest
Wow... that is just crazy... I'm glad to hear that you are still alive after all this..
 

fcatch76

Member
thanks, my family felt the same way..lol. Yes, marineland got 5 heaters back from me plus the one that failed in the on position. The recall came to me 1 month after it happened.
 
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siptang

Guest
sorry for lack of update guys. Just been going through another emo moments, I am forcing myself to be back at everywhere I used to go to keep my thoughts occupied.
I will try to write another story to keep my mind busy and for you to read.
 

ladyreefseeker

Administrator
Staff member
travelerjp98 is Novembers Winner! Please continue to tell stories or experiences you have had in this hobby. Continue with Decembers posts right in this thread. Thanks everyone!
 

mr. limpid

Active Member
This my Decmber Story. I hope you all like it.
Getting a fish for my birthday.
Well I was keeping fish for now about 3 years and my tank was full, Heniochus Butterfly; Hippo Tang; (2) Percula Clowns and Coral Banded Shrimp. Even though back then we didn’t test our water, it was a 30 gal long (that was big back in the day). I figured it was full because it looked full. The only thing that I was doing right was a 20% water changes a month and the week prier to the change I would run a hang on filter with carbon. It was my Birthday and I had a feeling my wife was throwing me a surprise party, so I was ready for it. Walked in a sure enough the house was full. Before I could even get my coat off my brother grabbed my arm and said you have to come to your tank, I think one of your fish is in trouble. I was on full alert, because I would go to my tank before I even said hello to my wife, she claims. Arriving in front of my tank, there was bag floating in the tank and in the bag was a medium size emperor angel. My jaw almost hit the floor, not from excitement but because I wasn’t ready for a fish, (not because of QT no such thing) nor was I planning to add more fish and I new of nothing about this fish. This guy was three times bigger than any fish in my tank, I didn’t watch it for weeks, didn’t know how big it got (even though it was huge already) or nothing. My brother said the guy at the store said it would do great in my tank. I didn’t want to hurt my brother’s feelings so I acted like this was the best gift I ever got. Needless to say I should have hurt his feelings the angel did not survive nor did the rest of my fish. This was my first but not last encounter with ICK. And you would think the story would end there nope, several years ago my oldest son bought me a hammer coral head for my fish only tank for my birthday, but that’s a story for next month.
 
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