catshanon Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 So, I was on holidays and had asked a friend to look after my tanks. All I had asked him to do was to remove the duckweed from the top and to add water to the tank, when the water level dropped. When I came back after 2 weeks, both the filters were running dry and the water level had dropped to half the tank. :boom: I was really lucky not to have a fire going in my apartment as that would have been disastrous.. The 33G is an open top, so there is lot of evaporation. It was also absolutely covered with a thick mat of duckweed, so much that no light was going into the tank. I thought I had lost all my fish, so, after unplugging the filters, I removed the duckweed and took stock of my stock.. To my surprise, almost all my fish were alive. The tank is heavily planted, so that must have been helpful. The fish also went without food for 5 or 6 days, but they were still alive !!!!!!! Looks like when you don't take care of them too much, they tend to stay fine or I might be plain lucky..... Next were the filters, which I thought had burnt out... I have a HOB Magnum 250 and losing it would have really hurt my wallet. I added some water, cleaned the interiors and voila...it sprang back into life... . I think it was a big letoff this time... but I was wondering, whether there were enough good bacteria to sustain my tank, so that I wouldn't need a filter ? The tank is a 33G with close to 40 rasboras and cardinals and neons... Maybe not, just that I am lucky.... Raj. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lana Bollers Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 You are lucky, I know if that would of happened at my place everything would be dead, filters, fish, plants...probably would of had the dang fire to boot... Guess you learned not to rely on the friend very much... I am glad everything turned out okay! Maybe next time you go on holidays, put some saran wrap over the top of the 33gal; therefore you will not loose as much water through evaporation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 Raj, good thing everything's Ok! YOu should be fine, if your tank is heavily planted. Just make sure the plants are healthy and your fish will be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ishkabod Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 I think part of that luck is the excessive duck weed. I love the stuff. I have it in Mr. Blues tank and i haven't had to do a WC in over a month and the levels are still perfect. WOW. It's still lucky though. I'd test the water to see what the nitrites and other things are at and go from there if you want to know if you don't need to filter so much. I think though i'm not sure that ammonia isn't absorbed or used by plants allthough i could easily be wrong. I can hardly believe that happened though. Have a great weekend L Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shai Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 Yikes! That's pretty scary. The filters could easily have sparked a fire!! So...I guess your friend isn't your friend anymore (certainly wouldn't be mine after risking my house and home like that...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erin Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 WOW.... first off I hope you kicked your "friend's" @$$, Cause I know I would have. You are very lucky! If that had been my tank... I'm sure everything fish wise would be dead if that happend to me. Your so lucky, keep up the great job because to have your fish live after something like that, you must be doing something right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urban_Cowboy Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 yes you are lucky i left a "friend" in charge of my tanks when i left for the holidays (3 days off) i came back to a tank that was 3/4's empty and all my fish dead what had happened is somehow some sheets off my bed were placed over the tank and some fell in and it syphoned all the water out like a vacuum..... dont know why my sheets were off my bed.... and i didnt want to ask he felt pretty bad about it all but still there were 20 1"-2" baby peacocks just starting to get color the tank was roughly 30Gallon quite a bit of water to mop up!! everyone else seemed to look happy though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catshanon Posted January 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 The friend who was in charge doesn't care too much about pets, so I shouldn't have asked him....But he had said that He would look after the tanks, hence he was in charge.. I was pretty mad with him for quite a while. He didn't care too much about the fish, and since he saw that the tank still had some water, he thought that the fishes would be fine.. I don't think he realised that the dry running filters are a fire hazard... although its a pretty hard thing not to realise that... Urban_cowboy: Sorry to hear about your loss.. It was very very careless to leave a bedsheet into the tank and not notice that.. Thats a very bad way to lose water and fish from the tank. When I leave for a couple of days, I usually starve my fish, and they do fine.... which reminds me to bring up this point... I had an automatic feeder over my 33G, the one that lost half of its water..When I came back, the feeder was empty, and I don't know for how many days it was running empty. I reckon it must have been close to 5 or 6 days if not more... Maybe a reason for not losing any fish is no fish waste, as they were not being fed. I feed my fish twice in a day, and sometimes when I am away, they stay one day without food and they do fine..However, from this experience, it looks like that they can go more days without food... Thanks to everybody who piped in with their comments... Raj. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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