Some people shouldn't have an aquarium at all ....
So i head over to my bosses apartment to help him with an issue. He is looking after his roomates aquarium that has a single fish in it, a black shark. He tells me that every time he goes near the bottom the tank just gets all cloudy from when he flicks his tail.
I think to myself, sounds like your roommate (who i also know) needs you to clean the gravel. So i gather up my gear and head on over to his apartment Friday after work. I walk into the apartment and i smell something kinda funky and blame him for passing gas, well was i ever wrong. He denied doing the nasty and then shows me the tank he is looking after. My jaw literally dropped about 4 inches agape. It wasn't him, it was the water that was so nasty.
The water literally had a brownish/yellowish tinge to it, the algae on the side of the tank and few ornaments was aweful and then i saw what i thought was sand. Boy was i wrong. What i thought was 1/2" of sand on top of the gravel was actually fish detrius!!! At this point i nearly fainted because of the aparent neglect of the tank that the owner of this fish had. I mean when there is 1/2" of fish poop on TOP of the gravel, that is just absurd. Then the fish proceded to swim and took one swipe of his tail and it was a cloud of crud that encompassed the tank. This made my jaw drop in shock again. (now comes the worse stuff .... yes it can get worse)
So I immediately start by doing a 60-70% water change to get the more severe crud out of the tank. Then i proceed to refill the tank. This was like putting one more hole in swiss cheese, it didn't make a whole lot of difference. So, once it was refilled, then i prceeded to do a scrape of the algae that was all around the tank. It wa a good thing i brought the actual metal scraper and not the brushes. The brushes just would have been tickling the algae with the amount that i took off.
Once the algae came off (and in strips i might add) I proceded to do another water change and more of a deep cleaning. I took out about 85-92% of the water this time. I left in just enough water in one pit that he made so that his gills were still wet for a short time. I took out ALL the decorations that were in the tank because they were literally covered with even more algae and crud/fish poop. Even after placing them in a bucket of fresh water, it started to release the buildup on them. Just to give an idea of how much was on her ornaments, the green silk plant that she had in there was brown and had buildup that was about 6mm thick on the leaves. Once i fished hauling out and cleaning the ornaments, i proceded to clear out the bamboo skewers that were in the bottom of the tank as well as, get this, the cover to a HOB filter that wasn't even part of the tank. I have no idea where it came from. It also looked like there was a braclet of some sorts with gold colored plastic cubes that was in the tank but obviously destroyed as the gold cubes were all over the tank.
By this point i am cursing and swearing and telling my boss that she really shouldn't keep a fish if this is what she does to them. After cleaning and refilling the tank this time, it is like a new tank already. The fish is even active and moving around compared to just laying there when i fish walked into thier door. Then i moved onto the filter .....
By this point, i thought nothing would shock me until this. I take the filter out and almost puke because of the funk that is coming from it. The filter itself was missing the bottom part of an intake tube and was the size of an aqua clear mini. The missing filter intake tube would have been useful as there was a plastic plant lodged inside the remaining intake tube. This plastic plant was so poop and sediment filled that it weighed about 5 oz for a plasic plant that, once everything was removed, weight MAYBE 3/4oz. The inside chamber of the filter was so clogged with detrius and crud that the motor stopped working and was just barely moving. The filter floss bag that had some carbon in it was so full of crud that i didn't think there was anything left to the floss. Luckily i was wrong and was able to clean off the brown floss back to a whiteish coloration. I looked inside the motor housing and there was so much sludge that i wasn't surprised that the motor basically stopped working. Luckily the lack of movement didn't burn the motor out and all was good (once i gave it a good cleaning).
So, by the time i am finished you can see a noticeable difference in this persons tank and also you can tell that there was still some detrius in the tank, but i will get that next week (if i can).
Now, for the most shocking. This black shark was the lone fish in a 20-25 gallon tank!!!! What makes it worse is that the shark itself was about 14" long!!! This tank is ONLY about 20" (maybe 24") long. For a fish that gets upwards of 20" it was aweful. I could tell signs of deformity as well as some bacterial problems on a cut that it recieved from being in the tank. So off to the store we go to get her some meds for the bacterial problem.
I told my boss to tell his roommate to come see me when she got back from her extended vacation so i could personally smack her up side the head and better educate her so that she knows to get a bigger tank, a bigger filter, actually put a heater in the tank (did i forget to mention that there was absolutely no heater; mind you the ambient temperature was around 75F) and how to do a gravel cleaning.
I later find out that all she did was take water out and then put water in. I wouldn't be surprised if the fish didn't know what fresh water was when i put it in the tank. So after a few drinks, we actually see the fish swimming around the tank and actually being more active (even with the severe lack of space for the fish.)
now to go out and buy a set of brass knuckles to pummel on the roommate and teach them how to keep a proper aquarium ........
I hope that no one ever has to run into a tank THAT aweful EVER!!
