What's your tank nightmare dream?

Zagreus · Dec 30, 2017

I have had many different bad dreams about something going wrong with my tank and then waking up to find out it didn't happen and feeling relieved.

In last night's dream I put in my tank two fully grown Stone Crabs and then proceded to watch them eat my Acropora like corn on the cob. All while thinking to myself why did I just do that?

That's my dream, what's yours?

tdileo · Dec 30, 2017

My biggest and only tank nightmare was that while I was asleep the HOB overflow lost siphon, sump pumped all the water into the DT and ran dry, then heater malfunctioned due to drying out and caught fire. Thank god I won’t have a HOB overflow in a few weeks once everything is transferred to my new tank.

Zagreus · Dec 30, 2017

In case you have not seen a stone crab and its claws looks like....

jda · Dec 30, 2017

I have a 20+ year old Oceanic Tank. My recurring dream is that I wake up to find blown seals. It is because of this that a 12'x4'x3' replacement build is underway, but it will probably take me 24 months to fully convert over.

NowGlazeIT · Jan 20, 2018

Just had a bad dream so vivid I looked up this old thread to post it.
Last night I dreamed that I was in my living room with my wife and I go to look at the tank and I see a crab! At first I thought is this an emerald crab? Then I thought this isn’t possible? I used dry rock then i look back and it’s not an emerald crab it’s a huge gorilla crab haha just munching away dead center of my tank. then I started to think how did this guy come to be! I dip ever coral In bayer? Could it have came on a fish? But how did I not see it before ahhh thank god I switched dreams shortly after but I thought it was real till just now. The real terror was I really didn’t want to chase a crab with a net for days

NY_Caveman · Jan 26, 2018

I have had a reoccurring dream since I was about 30 (I am 47). I get it a few times a year.

In it I come upon a room that is filled with tanks and cages. I walk in and realize, it is all of the pets I have ever owned since a child. In the dream they are all still alive, but were not cared for since I saw them last. Like they had really lived, but I did not realize.

I will pause briefly to say this is absurd given the time passed for most. And the absurdity always makes it seem lighter than say nightmarish. More so because of some relief to see my beloved past pets.

The relief morphs into a kind of slapstick attempt at emergency husbandry. The fish tanks all have lost half their water due to evaporation. There are reptiles and mammals and everyone is HUNGRY. I start scrambling to feed them all, pellets in one hand, crickets in another, and rush to start filling the tanks, but the space is tight for some reason. The animals are not happy with me assuming I forgot about them and I feel terrible and wonder how could I have forgotten to care for all of these animals.

Usually that is about when I wake up. I consider now that I started having these dreams at a rare time in my life when I had no pets at all. I think maybe my brain just felt like there was something missing (uh, reef tank perhaps?). Since I started keeping freshwater tanks again six years ago, the reoccurrence of the dream has definitely lessened.

Rakie · Jan 26, 2018

Seals bursting. Having literally zero time to fix everything at once, and trying to save everything while watching it suffer and likely die anyways.

I'm a sucker for animals, every fish loss seriously bums me out, having that happen would legitimately break my heart.

jda said:
I have a 20+ year old Oceanic Tank. My recurring dream is that I wake up to find blown seals. It is because of this that a 12'x4'x3' replacement build is underway, but it will probably take me 24 months to fully convert over.

The good thing is the seals last longer as they stay wet -- And oceanic makes pretty solid customs, even back in the day. The better news is with real quality manufacturers today, tanks are seriously built to last. Some manufacturers are finally doing what I always wished they had done -- reinforcing corners with strips of trapezoidal smoked black glass. It would take some effort with a hammer and chisel to make a corner like that fail.

NowGlazeIT · Jan 26, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
I have had a reoccurring dream since I was about 30 (I am 47). I get it a few times a year.

In it I come upon a room that is filled with tanks and cages. I walk in and realize, it is all of the pets I have ever owned since a child. In the dream they are all still alive, but were not cared for since I saw them last. Like they had really lived, but I did not realize.

I will pause briefly to say this is absurd given the time passed for most. And the absurdity always makes it seem lighter than say nightmarish. More so because of some relief to see my beloved past pets.

The relief morphs into a kind of slapstick attempt at emergency husbandry. The fish tanks all have lost half their water due to evaporation. There are reptiles and mammals and everyone is HUNGRY. I start scrambling to feed them all, pellets in one hand, crickets in another, and rush to start filling the tanks, but the space is tight for some reason. The animals are not happy with me assuming I forgot about them and I feel terrible and wonder how could I have forgotten to care for all of these animals.

Usually that is about when I wake up. I consider now that I started having these dreams at a rare time in my life when I had no pets at all. I think maybe my brain just felt like there was something missing (uh, reef tank perhaps?). Since I started keeping freshwater tanks again six years ago, the reoccurrence of the dream has definitely lessened.

Powerful man!

oysterk · Jan 26, 2018

I had a dream where I decided to chuck a bunch of full grown foot long squids into my 29 gal tank and they ink the whole thing and the tank is pitch black yet somehow my lawnmower blenny survives. I don't own a lawnmower blenny, so I'm not sure where that's from but otherwise pretty scary dream.

Mark Gray · Jan 26, 2018

I still think about the time I had a seam blow on a 55 gallon tank with now warning just popped we were watching TV water hit the ceiling tank drained in like 30 seconds.

NowGlazeIT · Jan 26, 2018

Mark Gray said:
I still think about the time I had a seam blow on a 55 gallon tank with now warning just popped we were watching TV water hit the ceiling tank drained in like 30 seconds.

Oh my goodness

pirate2876 · Jan 26, 2018

Water damage is no joke

rkpetersen · Jan 26, 2018

A serious leak.

An equipment malfunction with loss of livestock would upset me a lot, but the possibility doesn't wake me up at night.

Sierra_Bravo · Jan 26, 2018

Wife adds up all the Paypal entries. . . (shudder)

pirate2876 · Jan 26, 2018

Sierra_Bravo said:
Wife adds up all the Paypal entries. . . (shudder)

I have a folder at work with all my reef receipts. I've instructed my office to burn the folder if anything ever happens to me...

Krzydmnd · Jan 26, 2018

An aquarium dream that stood out to me was that I had a brittle starfish escape from the tank and was climbing all over my apartment walls, all the while growing larger.

I've definitely had bristle worm dreams before but I'd rather not remember those.

EmdeReef · Jan 26, 2018

Tank bursting. Wakes me up at least once a month.

Back in college I was in a lab when one of the 1000g tanks burst. That explosion sound is still with me many years later.

Edit: forgot a zero lol

azbigjohn · Jan 26, 2018

I don't know if it counts, but I dream I am reliving the great tank boil of 1998.

It was a FOWLR tank, (my first "large" tank, and it was only 90 gallons). It was a beautiful acrylic tank, brand new, and I loved the fish in there like family. I had a porcupine puffer, a large red squirrel fish, (those were the two most personable ones) a some snails and crabs. I had some other fish, but cannot remember them. I went on a 3 day vacation, had everything set up with an auto feeder... (auto top offs were unheard of back then, as were any sort of sump other than bioballs, which is what I used)

Only problem was it was the dead of summer in Las Vegas, NV. AC died the day we left (unbeknownst to us) and 115 temps outside became 100 in the house. Came home to everybody floating on top, basically poached...

I got out of fishtanks for 10 years after that. Someone got a great deal on a 90 gallon tank and stand, too...