Shufflepig
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2018
- Messages
- 443
- Reaction score
- 691
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- What state or country do you live in
- Pennsylvania
Rainy morning in Pittsburgh gave me time to think back to when I started in this saltwater thing in the early ‘80’s. The days of canister and under gravel filters. Protein skimmers were around but looked like an alien robot. This is BI(before internet). We depended on books with 10 year old info and the expertise of our LFS. Things that nightmares are made of!!
I was new to the hobby and had a 55 gallon fish only tank with a blue-faced angel, a Copperband Butterfly, a lunar wrasse, a raccoon butterfly, a couple clownfish, and a recently added rock beauty. All the fish were doing great remarkably and I read in a book that rock beauties loved live sponge. So with excellent intentions of making my fish happy I had my LFS order me a live sponge. He said “great idea for the rock beauty.”
Well the sponge arrived and I put it in the tank, went out to dinner with my wife, and came home to a tank full of a live sponge and dead fish. Turned out this species of sponge could secrete a toxin.
Total disaster through good intention.
I know we’ve all made inadvertent mistakes that ended bad. But who else had disasters when they were trying to do good?
Thought maybe we could all learn something from others mishaps.
I was new to the hobby and had a 55 gallon fish only tank with a blue-faced angel, a Copperband Butterfly, a lunar wrasse, a raccoon butterfly, a couple clownfish, and a recently added rock beauty. All the fish were doing great remarkably and I read in a book that rock beauties loved live sponge. So with excellent intentions of making my fish happy I had my LFS order me a live sponge. He said “great idea for the rock beauty.”
Well the sponge arrived and I put it in the tank, went out to dinner with my wife, and came home to a tank full of a live sponge and dead fish. Turned out this species of sponge could secrete a toxin.
Total disaster through good intention.
I know we’ve all made inadvertent mistakes that ended bad. But who else had disasters when they were trying to do good?
Thought maybe we could all learn something from others mishaps.
sorry for your loss, keep us updated as you get things back in order!
glad it was a lesson learned and not a recent tragedy.
