FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I thought it would be fun to start a thread based on your most horrific tank. It could be that something happened and created a problem in your tank. It should be something that your have a pic of it, so yeah the problem would have to be of a visual nature. Could be an algae problem, feeding, stocking, tank explosion, whatever, but it needs to be visual. It doesn't have to be current just something that has happened to one of your tanks. I know there's some good ones out there. We all have a past, So all you Moderators, Ultimate Fish Gurus, Fish Gurus, Moderators, Masters, Bensaf and of course ChaosMaximus please post your pics here.

I'll start it off. This is what happens when your DIY co2 bottle leaks into your tank and starts a brewery.



Attached Image:


My Scapes

The algae, oh the algae!

Take Me Down to Ammonia and Light Town '04



The Million Protist March '05



The Great Green Out '05



A close runner-up, the great hair/ staghorn outbreak of '04-'05, where every leaf and branch and even the substrate looked like this:




I was great at growing the plants, I just didn't have the heart to keep the algae out in the cold too...

---

Back in the saddle!

The beginner's tank! Oh the horror of cheapy, too small plastic plants and tacky, fluorescent ornaments!!

LOL I wish I had a pic from last night when my Eheim ECCO filter basket fell open accidentally spilling thousands of little pebbles (bio-filter) all ove the floor!!

Attached Image:

---

~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

I had a tank full of BBA before I started my tank log over 1 year ago. It got bad enough for me to take the whole tank down, bleach everything and start over. Oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough, the gravel was green.



Attached Image:

---

Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Yes, indeed. Here she is, star of the show: terrifyer of children and warning for all to be careful with bright lights!

Chaos

This picture was about 3 weeks ago



This is a few days ago. Note I removed as much of the staghorn as possible about 4 times in between.






__________________________________
- - - Humorous Bit of Wisdom - - -

Sorry i dont have any pics but i do have a question for tetratech. Did the fish all die in the accidental brewery accident?

Chaos! LOL

I'm sorry dude, but that's insane! Are these new pics?

---

Back in the saddle!

wow.. you all make me feel like a pro! I luckily havent had any disasters, (knocking on wood now).. but im sure i'll keep you updated when i do!

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

Sorry i dont have any pics but i do have a question for tetratech. Did the fish all die in the accidental brewery accident?

No, I did lose an angel, a very nice snowball type dwarf pleco, cardinals, otos and some rummynose tetras. It was pretty bad in there. Some fish that survived included another angel, a few rummynoses, 2 other dwarf plecos, cory, a few otos some of which I still have today others have been given away, etc.

I'm sorry dude, but that's insane! Are these new pics?

Nowher you neve saw those in Chaos's thread. Why do you think I mention him specifically in the beginning of this one. Chaos - Thanks for being a good sport. Believe me everyone has had problems at one point or another.


My Scapes

Nowhere -

They are pretty new, they were on the page before you posted last (put on the previous page so you didnt see them. The staghorn stuff grows very quickly ~1 inch a day. Bensaf enlightened me on how to deal with this. I didnt think there was a problem before because there was miscommunication and I thought the brown stuff all diatoms, which would necessairly stop growing when silicates ran out.

Anyway, I just found out its a problem (because its algae) and have a bit of work ahead of me.

Chaos

__________________________________
- - - Humorous Bit of Wisdom - - -

OK, I see. I saw the second round that are on the current page in Chaos' log, I guess these were on the page before. Missed 'em. And you're absolutely being a great sport, but this is how we learn. Hopefully you'll restart that tank up after a good cleaning and come away from easier to deal with results.

There was a thread in the planted tank forum ( I think) a month or so ago and the guy had the WORST case of BBA I've ever seen, the back of the tank looked like a brillo pad. It was beautiful in a way, nice texture, would've been a lot nicer if it were green that would make it look like a moss wall. Hopefully he'll see this and post a pic

---

Back in the saddle!

Okay, my newbie, psychadelic, platic plant tank pales in comparison to these disasters....

Too bad I don't have any pics from the time I was treating for ick, the entire tank was blue/green and most of the fish were floating and gasping at the top....

Win some, lose some.

---

~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

Nowhere

I invited the BBA guy over via pm. When this thread has colected its share of stories it might be a good project to get everyone who submitted pictures to write out a quick bit about why it happened and how they fixed it. I probably will either way, might help keep others out of my situation.

Chaos

__________________________________
- - - Humorous Bit of Wisdom - - -

Yes mine also doesn't compare to some of these, but I thought it was pretty bad at the time. Here's a pic of my 25 gallon before CO2 and new light, with massive water sprite floaters, fake castle, the lovely black and red gravel and dying plants. Luckily this is as bad as it has gotten so far!
My tank horror picture

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

chaos,

Cool, sounds good. Hopefully he'll post.

That's actually a great idea for advancing the thread. We'll see how many people post and how many write up explanations etc., but if it does evolve that way I think it would be great to make this a sticky. To show newbies etc. that all is not lost, that we all make mistakes.

krib, Sorry, it's the gravel... why the red?

---

Back in the saddle!

I really have no idea, we bought the tank near Valentine's Day as a birthday present for me, for some reason I wanted black and red, I must have been thinking Asian decorating or something. Now I'm aiming for naural gravel and a combination West Africa/Asian river biotope. The two seem quite compatible. If you look closely you'll also notice all the hardware out in plain sight. Whenever I hide my uptake tube it gets clogged up really badly, so it had to be where I could see it. Now the ladder must be where I can see it so I know it's working! Control Freak!, who me?

A really good tank for this thread would be the 2 gallon I had to start with, it was like Chaos's only 10 times worse because it was so much smaller! But I still have the betta from that disaster, too bad the ghost shrimp didn't make it.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

Hmmmm, red and black gravel, but ive seen worse castles lol. The plants dont look that rough.
I wonder who first though castles would look good? Cos thats what you see everyday, huge 200 foot inflatable goldfish floating round castles.

Actually id love to see that, someone really ought to recreate that with a full size castle, an airballoon fish and some huge plastic plants. Maybe a 90 foot plastic diver with a searchlight for an LED.

The most tacky (and therefore the best) aquarium decoration ive seen have to be those small bouyant jellyfish that have a piece of (ironically enough) fishing line attaching them to the floor of the tank. They look just sooooooo good in a freshwater tank with a goldfish.

I wonder if dropping an old castle grayskull and perhaps a mer-man from the masters of the universe toy range into my 120 gal would look good?

You should have seen the skeleton in a barrel that my kids insisted we have, it was air driven, but it stopped working pretty quickly, now it is on display in the living room, outside the tank, and the castle is now on display in the kitchen outside the tank! So now just the gravel has to go. To see the algae you have to look real close, I am not good at close-ups, but trust me there is some there. The back of the tank was really bad for awhile, I finally gave it a scrub. It has a horrible busy plastic background, I am looking at painting my own and sticking it on.

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

Well,

I don't have a full tank shot of my 125G showing a good algae population as the tank is so big that any algae seems to be invisible from so far away. And I for sure cannot compete with Green Water or Major Brush/Beard Outbreaks

But here is a close-up of my Xmas Moss at some point in the way past while the tank was establishing itself. In this picture you can see Brown Slime (aka diatoms), BGA, Thread, and Staghorn living nicely side by side. I was very surprised that the Moss survived this at all.

Ingo

Attached Image:

All kinds of Algae

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Thanks for sharing LF. It is amazing how durable moss is when it looks suffocated.

Is that riccia in the lower right corner of your pic?

My Scapes