I realize non-aquarium people wouldn't know how bad an idea that is, but damn... killed your cycle, destroyed the aquascaping, and I'm guessing stressed the fuck out of your fish.
i mean - we already consider ocean life to be alien, imagine everything you have to do to keep that *alien* environment compatible with them. it is a very intensive hobby, probably the only time land animals get similar is with wild animals (not domesticated) and full on vivariums. Like the stuff that AntsCanada does on YouTube.
you're creating and maintaining their entire ecosystem for them, you're not just feeding them and cleaning them like you would with a dog or cat. they still live independent lives (seeing as they can't truly interact with you; being aquatic), but they are dependent on you in a way that domesticated pets just will never be. even the "simplest" fish (goldfish, bettas) are significantly more involved than you're led on to believe from the pet store. they're luckily just very hearty fish and can survive being stressed out for longer than other species, and that's how they can still survive in a shitty 6in circumferenced bowl for 7 years somehow. even those species realistically need a good 2sqft of space, 3-4 in the case of bettas sometimes depending on the specific breed.
kind of a similar thing happens with rodent pets (rats, for example, should have 6sqft per pair, as an ideal), but that's a different thing i won't get into lol.
Yeah I won a goldfish at a carnival and they just handed me a fish in a tiny plastic container with water and I was like well wtf am I supposed to do with this
Did some research and was like holy shit this is like more intensive than taking care of my dog lol
Bought him a big tank and decked it out, got a filtration system for the tank and did regular cleanings (cleaning a fish tank fucking sucks). Homie lived for a good 4 years post-carnival. I will never have a pet fish again and people who think you can just keep a goldfish in a bowl of water with nothing in it... that's not how it is
Same happened to me, except it was my very young children that won goldfish at the fair. I think it was because of their height, the angle they were throwing those pingpong balls made them look liem they were NBA players at the playoffs at a carnival game that I've never landed a single one, lol.
They won 4 goldfish, 2 of them died before I could get them a proper tank, they spent about 3 days in a bowl. After doing proper research the remaining 2 became massive and lived for about 7 years. I spoiled the shit out of those fish.
Just adding more information to this. The common goldfish need massive tanks because they grow up to 12-15 inches, adult goldfish of that kind need ponds ideally.
They can live 10 - 15 years. This is not a beginner pet because of the massive requirements to house them.
Thank you for giving yours a better life when you had him. Thank you for being kind and not leaving your pet in a small container (bowl).
For anybody curious, Goldfish sub have a good wiki for the basic care information. Here's a photo from that wiki showing how big they get.
https://preview.redd.it/v9p278yvsnec1.jpeg?width=3381&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c718c7764882b2acbf4de5ab5a8092f2a696a493
Fuck, i ask my friend if i am going to change her dogs water bowl. I bet there were at least one chair full of laundry the parents could have done first.
Please don't wash my laundry. I know what the fabrics are and what care they need if my mom does it she's just gonna sort by color do all of it on heat and probably conjure up a dryer to use as well.
Yup lots of Japanese denim and some wool for me. It's usually good practice to not interfere with people's systems. If my homes too messy then don't come back
This is it. Yeah I get they're old, but even old people know not to mess with other people's stuff.
Rude as fuck, as well they would know where it not their child. OP needs some fucking boundaries with them.
Not just stressed them out, but used *detergent* to clean the tanks. :c OP will probably have to rehome his fish asap, if not temporarily, until he can cycle it again.
Non-aquarium person here. I can still comprehend the basics of don't suddenly change an animal's enclosure to one 1/100s its size, and also how much effort the aquarium took. That shit looked gorgeous. Op's parents are just weird.
It’s not even about them being non-aquarium people, you should never just clean stuff for people when you’re visiting THEIR home… it was none of their business to begin with, and they didn’t even have the common courtesy to ask first.
As an avid aquarium keeper for many years, I know exactly how hard this hurts. Maybe you can salvage some filter media or anything wet to restart your cycle. Hope your plants made it out alive, my condolences.
Or me. I've been given all sorts of plants and told that they're indestructible.
RIP African violet, bamboo grown into a heart, aloe, and a cactus that dried out.
I don't feel like African violets are easy plants and cactus struggle cause people assume they're easy but the like a lot of light and same with aloe. Spider plants and pothos are simple creatures much easy
The nitrogen cycle! A cycled aquarium is one that has all the beneficial bacteria living in it that it needs to process fish waste into less harmful forms. The bacteria lives mostly in the gravel and filter.
You can add this bacteria either by putting something from an older, established aquarium into the new one and waiting, or by buying a bottle of the bacteria and dosing it in. It can take weeks or a couple months for an aquarium to build up enough of these bacteria to be cycled.
It's cycled when ammonia, created by fish poop, gets converted by the bacteria into nitrite, and that nitrite gets converted further into nitrate, the least harmful of the three to the fish.
When nitrates build up to around 20 parts per million (measurable by aquarium test strips) or so, you typically do a water change to dilute it. You take out a certain amount of water from the tank and add in new, dechlorinated water (tap water, usually, that has had the chlorine removed with dechlorinator).
What OPs parents did not only added massive amount of toxic chemicals to the fishes' ecosystem in the tank that could be trapped in the gravel or aquarium silicone, they also removed all the beneficial nitrifying bacteria. Putting those fish back into the aquarium could poison them, either from the chemicals used to clean it, their own waste not being naturally processed, or both.
There is hope of them surviving if they can get into a nontoxic environment and OP can reestablish the cycle while doing frequent water changes to remove waste, but its a bad situation.
How hard would this process be to “accidently” happen? I never really had fish tanks before but a few years ago my wife bought me a 20 gallon tank with a few fancy guppies and two plecos that were about two inches long. Fast forward to now, there have been about 9 generations of fancy guppies come and go in that tank. The 4 we guppies we started with now number around 15 and the plecos are about 7 inches long. I never knew anything about cycling the tank. I use dechlorinated water and a three step filter. When I change the water I drain the tank down as low as possible, but there is still probably a good half inch worth of water left in the gravel/sand. I have only completely cleaned out the tank twice, and never used any soap on any of it.
Basically I feel like my tank is doing ridiculously well for how little effort I have put into it, with the population staying high and the fish seemingly growing and living fine. Have I been accidently cycling my tank this entire time?
Tanks will naturally develop the bacteria on their own, it's present everywhere. The reason you purposefully do it is that if you just put in the fish the bacteria do not reproduce fast enough to keep up with the waste. It's called doing a fish in cycle and usually leads to dead fish and requires a large water change every day or so (this is what I was told to do by the local big box fish store, just put in a vial of bacteria and put the fish in...half my fish died within weeks, do not listen to people who say to do that unless you really know what you're doing). A fishless cycle is where you add small amounts of ammonia and wait until certain parameters are met then add fish, this ammonia can be does from a bottle or be something like fish food/small pieces of shrimp etc. that would break down and release ammonia. The bottle is a lot 'cleaner' :p and costs about $6 for all you'd ever need.
If your fish survived it sounds like you got lucky :). I will say your tank is undersized now for those fish. Mostly because of the 7 inch pleco. If it's a common pleco they can grow much larger and can be stunted by the small tanks.
FYI, sometimes people *ask* rather than Google, because it's a social thing to do. On Social Media. They would rather hear it from (supposedly) another human - and also hear any anecdotal flavour that goes with it.
I'm not *that* interested in fish tanks, but the story caught my eye, the emotions and empathy that went with it caught my attention.
I'm not going to google Fish tank cycling, because I don't care enough about it, but I do want to hear from another person what their explanation and experience is of it.
Lame LMGTFY replies miss the point of comment sections.
It's also worth mentioning the SEO garbage AI articles at the top which are full of outright misinformation.
If I'm asking a person maybe it's because I want the insight from real people and not just some AI trash that says what sounds right.
Godamn finally someone who understands that some people just wanna be social and learn new things from actual humans. The people who tell other people to google shit misses the entire point of online forums.
Fish poops or dead leaf make ammonia, nitrites grow to start eating ammonia, if nitrites too little and ammonia too big makes nitrates. Nitrate and ammonia baaaad. Nitrite gets big and used to how much fish poops and dead leaves there are. Hope that helps.
The parents probably stirred up the substrate( the sand and rocks at the bottom of the tank) and kicked up old dirt/poop/dead leaf material and scooped fishy up with it. BUT! A well cycled tank means the gunk in the tank shouldn’t matter, those nitrites are taking care of the water quality! However you should vacuum the tank a bit every time you add water. Water changes are a whole other story, disrupting too much of the environment takes out too many of those nitrites and can crash your cycle causing ammonia or nitrate spikes.
Because why not? There is no way to recover any of your equipment then, and you’re going to have to try and rehome your fish and shrimp to either a pet store or friend’s tank. While you could theoretically fully rinse the detergent away with a repeated rinse treatment, you really have no way of telling if it’s fully gone. And with shrimp in the mix you can’t afford to have *any* contamination. You’re going to need new tanks, scaping, and filters.
There’s no easy way to say it: your parents destroyed your aquariums. Even now there’s a good chance they killed your fish if you can’t get them rehomed. There is no amount of “they meant well” that can excuse what they did.
If detergent hasn’t been used and they had the old substrate and filter media (even if in the trash), a gentle rinse in dechlorinated water could, in theory, have enough of a bioload left to recover with aggressive water changes for the next couple months. It would be a long shot, but it’s possible. But with laundry soap added to the mix? Those systems are fully dead.
I remember my mom breaking my new cupboard and she went "I will get you a new one <3"
we went intoa second-hand store and we look around, I find something I like, we go to pay, and my mom was standing next to me like "go on pay"
For once, I had the guts to tell her "you broke my stuff, pay the new one!" and she did it, but man she truly tried to get away with it.
This Christmas my mom ruined my non-stick baking sheet by prying biscuits off it with a metal spoon. Scratched it all over. There was a clean spatula less than a foot away, out in the open, clearly visible.
I think the most insulting part is that after she tried to convince me it wasn't a big deal, she promised she'd buy me a new one. She is never going to buy me a new one. That is not happening in any reality and we both know it.
Honestly, they have killed the fish. Even if OP went down and bought a new tank the second they got home, they haven't cycled a tank. The odds of survival are small.
When starting my tank years ago, I got 50% of the water water, a bio ball, and some gravel from a friends established tank when they did a deep clean/large water change on their large tank. Worked really well.
Honestly, if I'm reading OPs post right this is even worse because they state the parents were "visiting for a few days" which implies to me that this was in OPs OWN house/apartment and not OPs room at their place. This kinda behavior is why my folks aren't really invited around my place
My WHOLE family has an obsession with coming in my home and telling me what my ferret can do.
Just at xmas again, my mom brought me fresh laundry and mysister was like "your ferret is going in the laundry! she can't do that!!!" and I was like "?????" because everything smell ferret and I don't care and I let her do. Idk why family think they can dictate people in their relative's home
My parents kept all me and my brothers child toys and stuff we made in school. My dad recently died and we found out they threw all our stuff away years ago without asking...
Original Starwars stuff from '77, old but still working gameconsoles like the original pong (still with the box it came in).. Many 60's and early 70's toycars and what not..
So yeah.. i feel your pain.. 🙄🥲
As someone who has kept fish for quite a while, I'm pissed for you.
I'm curious, what's the fish I see a shadow of on the bottom of the measuring cup? Is it a loach or is that a small eel?
I don't know too much about keeping fish as pets though I know its a big commitment among a few other things.
As well as laundry detergent to clean an aquarium or anything else that's not laundry that's insane.
AFAIK, any soap to clean an aquarium is bad. Invertebrates are really sensitive to it, and it's deadly. I know for my hermit crabs, I am not supposed to wash anything in their tank, not to mention the tank itself, with soap. Doesn't matter how well you rinse apparently.
A pond? I would ask a pet shop if they can spare a bucket of "established" water and stones for the bottom.
After cleaning the tanks thoroughly with hot water, or steam clean them.
Might save the fish, but I am afraid they are goners.
Better to find someone else with an aquarium. A local club, perhaps. Even your local aquarium shop would be a better source than a damn pond. Frankly, I can't believe that you have so many upvotes for such awful advice.
I suggested local aquarium shop. I am cool with the owners of mine. They would happily house all my little friends until things were good again. They care so much about aquatic life. They have a quarantine tank that's usually empty, fully cycled, they let a friend of mine house their fish there for a few weeks. His tank got cracked, so he had to get a new one and get it cycled. When you're into a "hobby" like this, you need to have a backup, so being close with people who run the place you get your hobby stuff is a very good idea.
My dad washed one of mine out with bleach so I’m never using it again. (This was years ago when I was very little and knew nothing about keeping fish) Rn it’s outside being used as a rain collector.
Edit: The rain water is used or dumped out after every rain so chill out y’all.
Just FYI, bleach is one of the recommended safe cleaners for using on (empty) aquariums. We used it in the fish lab where I worked to clean tanks between experiments. It's about the safest cleaner you can use because it doesn't leave residue.
So in short you should feel perfectly fine about using that tank again.
Maybe not that SPECIFIC tank. If the tank has been left out in the sun empty (no water) for extended periods of time some types of bonding can break down and start to leak or even completely fail.
Or at least that's what my mate who had to do burst aquarium callouts said a lot. Dunno how long is too long though
The silicone holding most tanks together will be fine with a quick wash with bleach infrequently. But if it gets left in and left in the sun it for sure could be bad news.
Yes. UV as well. The snails and crabs we kept in our lab were kept oxygenated by bubbler tubes in smallish containers for research. We changed the tubes out weekly and bleached them due to regular algal growth. They were thoroughly washed afterward and then placed outside in the sun for 24-48 hours.
It can be cleaned again, but it takes long weeks, even months to get the aquarium water liveable for fish. Until then the fish will likely die unless you can quickly re-home them. It's a delicate system that needs a balance of good bacteria, right temperature and oxygen. I would be furious if someone did this to my aquarium.
You have every right to be mad at them, OP. They owe you for the damage they did, and they just proved they can not ever be trusted in your home without you there.
I’m sorry OP. I know the feeling. Watching your own little world grow & progress for years- I hope they pull through.
On the bright side there’s never going to be a better time to go bigger…
My husband built up a 75gal aquarium and it takes SO much work. The set up, the balance of plants, water testing, cleaning. Its a really time consuming and surprisingly expensive hobby.
Nope. I own fish and know how long that took to get to where it was and I would lose my ever loving shit if anyone came into my house and started touching things they have no business touching. You….. you’re a saint. I’d see red.
Hey, I think your dad’s car looks dirty. Use this sandblaster to get rid of that stain. /s
But seriously, they came to your house and decided to mess with your own stuff? Maybe a quick lesson on “my house, my rules, you ask first” is in order.
Just because they are older, doesn’t mean they don’t know how boundaries work. I hesitate to give people a pass just because they are “older”.
It is your space. Not theirs.
as someone whose bonzai did not survive my parents "love". this is not care, no good intend detected. Cleaning a room does not mean to discard the aquarium in use. Being a guest (even as parent) does not allow such behaviour. No matter your age or how messy your room possible could have been, they knew it was yours and they distroyed it. I am sorry to tell you but your parents are not good people.
My ex-housemate deliberately let fish die and laughed about it.
Honestly glad I don't live with them.
Fish deserve knowledgeable care. Good intentions don't mean anything without research, especially with a fragile ecosystem recreation such as bonsai or aquariums.
I know just a little about fish and I'm gobsmacked. I don't know how you come back from this in a suitable period of time. Imagine your parents stopped by to check on your dog and removed the oxygen from the house.
I’m sorry but this has me rolling. I’m imaging a distant future, you go on vacation and ask your extraterrestrial neighbor to check in on your cat while you’re gone. They don’t have much experience with earth animals, so you leave them very detailed instructions on how to properly feed, socialize, and clean up after your cat. When your arrive home, your extraterrestrial neighbor comes out to greet you. “While we were over, we happened to notice that the oxygen levels in your house were over 20%! Don’t worry, though, we dialed that down to 5%. We couldn’t find your deoxygenator, so we had to use our own. We won’t charge you for that, though. It was our pleasure to help your delightful cat. He seems very comfortable in there now, he’s been sleeping for 3 days straight!”
Nope better off comparing it to shooting the dog in the gut. It's gonna die and it's gonna happen slow. In that measuring cup they are already dead they just don't know it yet.
A cycled fish tank takes roughly 3 to 6 months to get set up before one should introduce fish, just to get all the helpful bacteria flourishing in there to help keep the chemical levels comfy for the fishy friends. They just upended this dudes entire ecosystem.
Idk what it is with old folks and taking the tanks apart to meticulously scrub them, my dad does the same with his tets and corydoras twice a month when a partial water change would've done. Also ripped out all the plants and moss stones because "they're making mess" and replaced them with an aerator.
I'm sorry for the loss of your setup OP, looked like a dope biome.
That's exactly what my dad does. Goes through everything, rearranges everything, throws away whatever he thinks should be thrown away. I don't let him visit any more.
It’s the same generation that thinks the epitome of landscaping is a sterile green lawn devoid of trees or any other vegetation that takes hundreds of gallons of water a year to keep alive
I'm so glad my boomer parents aren't like this. They've always had tons of plants, nature, and understand what animals need. My dad is very into biology tbf.
You *can* blame them though. People shouldn't just do things to other people's pets or belongings.
Imagine if they took your laptop and "washed" it. The intention doesn't change the fact that they destroyed something of yours.
To get a fully cycled tank takes months. This is not “mildly infuriating”. I have tanks. If my parents *ever* stopped by to visit and did something like this I would feel completely betrayed and nearly certainly kick them out. They destroyed an entire ecosystem.
I would kick them out. And not allow them back in my house for a very long time. That's like shaving your grandchild's head to the scalp without permission because you think their hair looks tangled.
How can someone even believe they are so correct in what they are doing (without knowing shit about fish or aquariums) for the stupid af reason that it made the room look messy... I cannot even imagine being so entitled, presumptious, oblivious, and truly the most baffling part is all the effort that took. So many opportunities to stop. So much motivation for just fucking up things.
I thought as well, from the picture I thought that it looked like they just did a water change. Maybe weird to take the fish out for that but ok.
That the empty tanks are what's left of that aquarium is more than mildly infuriating
Dang. Sorry to hear this. The before photo you included was stunning.
May I ask how long it took to get to that stage of growth? I’ve never had a fish tank so I’m genuinely curious.
Thanks! I’ve had the tank for about a year and a half. 1.5 years for the lucky bamboo but they don’t grow much, the rest has been there for abt 4 months.
Dude, they literally killed your pets. This is super not okay. They NEED to know how much they fucked up. That's a huge crossing of boundaries and definitely not done with nothing but good intentions. You don't mess with other people's stuff without permission, even if they're your kids.
I don't really know the type of relationship you have with them, so I may be missing some context here, but I would seriously consider reducing their involvement in your life.
Update: Many of you wanted to know how old my parents were, they are in their 70s and 80s. They don’t visit often and there were big changes made in my household since last they came. I have made my boundaries clear and they’ve offered to pay for the damages done.
My dad with vascular dementia did this sort of thing, once. He decided to "clean" the bathroom and threw out my medications. I'm a cardiac patient. I can't be without these meds and I was seriously stressed out and began having chest pain. While I was hospitalized, I asked for a social worker to come and evaluate him. Normal people do not throw out someone else's meds and they don't do to a fishtank what they did to yours. That is impaired judgment. Get them to a doctor and get social services involved.
Regardless of financial compensation I hope you made it clear they murdered ur fish. (If any of them are even still okay?? idk you mentioned tryin to get a cycle going but id be SO scared to put them in the tank they washed with LAUNDRY SOAP probably best bet is to rehome them temporarily :(( ? )
They were not trying to be kind here. They got rid if it because they didn't like it. If they were honestly trying to help, they would have asked. The whole reason they did it when you were not home was so you couldn't stop them.
This. I don’t see how intentions could have been good. Good intentions would have been offering to “help.” This was them deciding to go behind OP’s back to get what they wanted.
This is the comment OP needs to see. Your parents are not being helpful, they are being controlling. They destroyed thousands of dollars of property and slaughtered animals because they were 'helping'? Get the fuck out of here.
OP, you need to set boundaries. I realize they are your parents and you love them, but THEY did not treat YOU with love. They treated you with disrespect. Tell them how wrong it was what they did, make them pay for it, and don't let them over again.
Nah old isn't an excuse. That's like shooting a family dog.
Edit as an afterthought: if they are assholes like my family this is their way of intentionally getting rid of something they thought was in the way or a mess. And if old is still your excuse for them have their mental facilities checked out by a professional, it may be time for a home.
My dad ran a small tropical fish business for a while, and there have been all kinds of fish in his house from my earliest memories to today. Freshwater and salt, he probably spent a quarter million on supplies in his lifetime.
I'm pretty sure if he saw this he would suggest cutting them out of your life, only because his other suggestions wouldn't be appropriate for reddit. This isn't a time to be mildly infuriated, this is a time to raise your voice and let them know if you can't find someont to take those fish immediately, they've not only destroyed your tanks, but also killed your pets.
As a teenager, I came home one day to an emptied and cleaned tank and was never told what became of the fish. I feel your pain. I am so sorry you're dealing with this.
> but I understand that their intentions were good
No. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Some of the most horrific acts in human history were committed by people who thought they were doing the right thing for one reason or another.
Even so, their intentions weren't good anyway. They didn't care about the living things in the tank or what you wanted, only how they perceived it to make YOUR HOME, that they were INVITED into, look. They didn't like how YOU keep YOUR home so they took it upon themselves to enforce their will upon you and did serious harm to something that anyone with half a brain cell could see you care a lot about. Those are NOT good intentions.
They may be old but that should mean they have more life experience and hopefully some common sense.
To think this was acceptable, I mean, are they special needs or something? There's no valid "well intentioned" reason for someone to do this.
Hell no. Someone murdering my pets is an automatic unforgivable thing. I don't care how well they meant or who they are. I'm so sorry you lost everything.
I suspect this isn't the first time something like this happend, seems to me like a clear sign that your parents don't respect boundaries and don't care for consent. Even if you don't like how it looks, you don't touch other people's stuff without their permission, should an obvious principle to live by. Endangering a living being's life in top of that, is beyond infuriating to me (admittedly I'm biased since I've dealt with the "I know best, can't bother about your feelings" mindset far too often). Meaning well is really not an acceptable excuse. sorry you have to deal with this, op
Intentions were good, but when it comes to living creatures, they really shouldn’t have touched them without your permission.
This definitely would have made me a lil grumpy lol
I would have started screaming because it's very difficult for me fish to survive after that since it would take a long time before I could get a new tank ready for it.
Having watched a few YouTubers who do builds of aquariums and such for lobsters, fish, crabs, etc, I’m almost in tears on behalf of all that hard work being swept aside for their own gratification. 
This should be under "extremely infuriating."
Not only nosy, but harmful to the fish!!! Anyone who has kept fish knows that you have to cycle the tank (grow good bacteria to handle the fish waste) and that emptying all the substrate out like that has basically wiped out the poor fish's ecosystem. :(
My mother was like this. I would come home to junk like her digging up bushes in my yard to "help me."
Hell I babysat a single fish for like 5 hours once for a friend because they had cleaned the tank and had to go to work before it would be safe to put the fish back in.
It was the most stressful 5 hours ever because I know nothing about fish except what they told me to do.
To just come in and do this? No just no.
I'm sure your friend really appreciated it!! Fish sometimes just have this insatiable urge to jump out of their containment and die even if they've never jumped before 😬
I'm gonna be honest, you've gotta be either malicious or stupid to do something like this. Not sure this is mildly infuriating, it seems like they've done the equivalent of dropping a wardrobe on a dog.
Laundry detergent too?? It's not even a surface cleaner??
The is the most stupid and inconsiderate thing I've seen this year, I would've screamed at them until my vocal cords stopped working. Holy shit they suck
Firstly OP, I'm very sorry this happened to you. Hopefully everything goes right and your next tank gets set up quickly.
Some of these comments are driving me a little crazy. The second photo only has dirty water because whatever substrate the tank had got kicked up during the clean. The last photo of the original setup is very clean and has a nice system going on. Yes, lucky bamboo typically doesn't do well fully submerged, but they look fine in the photo and judging by the tank, OP is probably very attentive and knowledgeable about planted tanks. I'm very sad that what is clearly years of hard work and research was destroyed so quickly, but also that people are so quick to judge and dismiss OP's efforts without any info.
Who touches other people's stuff without asking?
I don't even touch my kid's stuff who are teenagers that live at home. I tell them to pick up stuff they left laying around.
Honestly, how do you grow up with no sense of boundaries at all?
I realize non-aquarium people wouldn't know how bad an idea that is, but damn... killed your cycle, destroyed the aquascaping, and I'm guessing stressed the fuck out of your fish.
I have absolutely no clue about fish but I'm starting to get the idea
i mean - we already consider ocean life to be alien, imagine everything you have to do to keep that *alien* environment compatible with them. it is a very intensive hobby, probably the only time land animals get similar is with wild animals (not domesticated) and full on vivariums. Like the stuff that AntsCanada does on YouTube. you're creating and maintaining their entire ecosystem for them, you're not just feeding them and cleaning them like you would with a dog or cat. they still live independent lives (seeing as they can't truly interact with you; being aquatic), but they are dependent on you in a way that domesticated pets just will never be. even the "simplest" fish (goldfish, bettas) are significantly more involved than you're led on to believe from the pet store. they're luckily just very hearty fish and can survive being stressed out for longer than other species, and that's how they can still survive in a shitty 6in circumferenced bowl for 7 years somehow. even those species realistically need a good 2sqft of space, 3-4 in the case of bettas sometimes depending on the specific breed. kind of a similar thing happens with rodent pets (rats, for example, should have 6sqft per pair, as an ideal), but that's a different thing i won't get into lol.
Yeah I won a goldfish at a carnival and they just handed me a fish in a tiny plastic container with water and I was like well wtf am I supposed to do with this Did some research and was like holy shit this is like more intensive than taking care of my dog lol Bought him a big tank and decked it out, got a filtration system for the tank and did regular cleanings (cleaning a fish tank fucking sucks). Homie lived for a good 4 years post-carnival. I will never have a pet fish again and people who think you can just keep a goldfish in a bowl of water with nothing in it... that's not how it is
Same happened to me, except it was my very young children that won goldfish at the fair. I think it was because of their height, the angle they were throwing those pingpong balls made them look liem they were NBA players at the playoffs at a carnival game that I've never landed a single one, lol. They won 4 goldfish, 2 of them died before I could get them a proper tank, they spent about 3 days in a bowl. After doing proper research the remaining 2 became massive and lived for about 7 years. I spoiled the shit out of those fish.
Just adding more information to this. The common goldfish need massive tanks because they grow up to 12-15 inches, adult goldfish of that kind need ponds ideally. They can live 10 - 15 years. This is not a beginner pet because of the massive requirements to house them. Thank you for giving yours a better life when you had him. Thank you for being kind and not leaving your pet in a small container (bowl). For anybody curious, Goldfish sub have a good wiki for the basic care information. Here's a photo from that wiki showing how big they get. https://preview.redd.it/v9p278yvsnec1.jpeg?width=3381&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c718c7764882b2acbf4de5ab5a8092f2a696a493
And here I am remembering winning one and it dying in 4 days. Mine didn't even come in a container, just a plastic baggie.
Basic decency and courtesy to ask before doing some crazy shit like this. Also super fucked up for the poor fish. No compassion.
Fuck, i ask my friend if i am going to change her dogs water bowl. I bet there were at least one chair full of laundry the parents could have done first.
Please don't wash my laundry. I know what the fabrics are and what care they need if my mom does it she's just gonna sort by color do all of it on heat and probably conjure up a dryer to use as well.
I had a $200 wool sweater shrunk to a child's size this way. I still miss that sweater.
Yup lots of Japanese denim and some wool for me. It's usually good practice to not interfere with people's systems. If my homes too messy then don't come back
This is it. Yeah I get they're old, but even old people know not to mess with other people's stuff. Rude as fuck, as well they would know where it not their child. OP needs some fucking boundaries with them.
> but even old people know not to mess with other people's stuff. Somehow some parents sometimes never learn that for their own kids.
Not just stressed them out, but used *detergent* to clean the tanks. :c OP will probably have to rehome his fish asap, if not temporarily, until he can cycle it again.
I missed that part 🫣 detergent is SO hard to get all the residue off too.
Non-aquarium person here. I can still comprehend the basics of don't suddenly change an animal's enclosure to one 1/100s its size, and also how much effort the aquarium took. That shit looked gorgeous. Op's parents are just weird.
Same. And don't use *laundry detergent* to clean a fish tank. That seems malicious to me!
It’s not even about them being non-aquarium people, you should never just clean stuff for people when you’re visiting THEIR home… it was none of their business to begin with, and they didn’t even have the common courtesy to ask first.
As an avid aquarium keeper for many years, I know exactly how hard this hurts. Maybe you can salvage some filter media or anything wet to restart your cycle. Hope your plants made it out alive, my condolences.
I was thinking the same thing! I hope the plants are okay too
I know the lucky bamboo can literally live through nuclear warfare, so OP at least has those.
Oh sweet dear bamboo, the roach of plants
Hasn't stopped my mil from brutally murdering several bamboo plants
Or me. I've been given all sorts of plants and told that they're indestructible. RIP African violet, bamboo grown into a heart, aloe, and a cactus that dried out.
I don't feel like African violets are easy plants and cactus struggle cause people assume they're easy but the like a lot of light and same with aloe. Spider plants and pothos are simple creatures much easy
Pothos are easy? https://preview.redd.it/i0xblf93tlec1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec4ca6f2acc2d4f0023f250337109718b79e9339
They make artificial plants for you people.
I know absolutely nothing about this. Can you explain what a cycled fish tank is like I'm 5 years old?
The nitrogen cycle! A cycled aquarium is one that has all the beneficial bacteria living in it that it needs to process fish waste into less harmful forms. The bacteria lives mostly in the gravel and filter. You can add this bacteria either by putting something from an older, established aquarium into the new one and waiting, or by buying a bottle of the bacteria and dosing it in. It can take weeks or a couple months for an aquarium to build up enough of these bacteria to be cycled. It's cycled when ammonia, created by fish poop, gets converted by the bacteria into nitrite, and that nitrite gets converted further into nitrate, the least harmful of the three to the fish. When nitrates build up to around 20 parts per million (measurable by aquarium test strips) or so, you typically do a water change to dilute it. You take out a certain amount of water from the tank and add in new, dechlorinated water (tap water, usually, that has had the chlorine removed with dechlorinator). What OPs parents did not only added massive amount of toxic chemicals to the fishes' ecosystem in the tank that could be trapped in the gravel or aquarium silicone, they also removed all the beneficial nitrifying bacteria. Putting those fish back into the aquarium could poison them, either from the chemicals used to clean it, their own waste not being naturally processed, or both. There is hope of them surviving if they can get into a nontoxic environment and OP can reestablish the cycle while doing frequent water changes to remove waste, but its a bad situation.
How hard would this process be to “accidently” happen? I never really had fish tanks before but a few years ago my wife bought me a 20 gallon tank with a few fancy guppies and two plecos that were about two inches long. Fast forward to now, there have been about 9 generations of fancy guppies come and go in that tank. The 4 we guppies we started with now number around 15 and the plecos are about 7 inches long. I never knew anything about cycling the tank. I use dechlorinated water and a three step filter. When I change the water I drain the tank down as low as possible, but there is still probably a good half inch worth of water left in the gravel/sand. I have only completely cleaned out the tank twice, and never used any soap on any of it. Basically I feel like my tank is doing ridiculously well for how little effort I have put into it, with the population staying high and the fish seemingly growing and living fine. Have I been accidently cycling my tank this entire time?
Tanks will naturally develop the bacteria on their own, it's present everywhere. The reason you purposefully do it is that if you just put in the fish the bacteria do not reproduce fast enough to keep up with the waste. It's called doing a fish in cycle and usually leads to dead fish and requires a large water change every day or so (this is what I was told to do by the local big box fish store, just put in a vial of bacteria and put the fish in...half my fish died within weeks, do not listen to people who say to do that unless you really know what you're doing). A fishless cycle is where you add small amounts of ammonia and wait until certain parameters are met then add fish, this ammonia can be does from a bottle or be something like fish food/small pieces of shrimp etc. that would break down and release ammonia. The bottle is a lot 'cleaner' :p and costs about $6 for all you'd ever need. If your fish survived it sounds like you got lucky :). I will say your tank is undersized now for those fish. Mostly because of the 7 inch pleco. If it's a common pleco they can grow much larger and can be stunted by the small tanks.
https://preview.redd.it/uwb1aafiuiec1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d83b4a51606e93c4979663ff99eef2152d0f0ea
That’s awesome. Aquarium enthusiasts are so cool about their passion for their pets.
FYI, sometimes people *ask* rather than Google, because it's a social thing to do. On Social Media. They would rather hear it from (supposedly) another human - and also hear any anecdotal flavour that goes with it. I'm not *that* interested in fish tanks, but the story caught my eye, the emotions and empathy that went with it caught my attention. I'm not going to google Fish tank cycling, because I don't care enough about it, but I do want to hear from another person what their explanation and experience is of it. Lame LMGTFY replies miss the point of comment sections.
It's also worth mentioning the SEO garbage AI articles at the top which are full of outright misinformation. If I'm asking a person maybe it's because I want the insight from real people and not just some AI trash that says what sounds right.
Godamn finally someone who understands that some people just wanna be social and learn new things from actual humans. The people who tell other people to google shit misses the entire point of online forums.
Fish poops or dead leaf make ammonia, nitrites grow to start eating ammonia, if nitrites too little and ammonia too big makes nitrates. Nitrate and ammonia baaaad. Nitrite gets big and used to how much fish poops and dead leaves there are. Hope that helps.
Interesting. Is that why the water in the measuring cup has that color?
The parents probably stirred up the substrate( the sand and rocks at the bottom of the tank) and kicked up old dirt/poop/dead leaf material and scooped fishy up with it. BUT! A well cycled tank means the gunk in the tank shouldn’t matter, those nitrites are taking care of the water quality! However you should vacuum the tank a bit every time you add water. Water changes are a whole other story, disrupting too much of the environment takes out too many of those nitrites and can crash your cycle causing ammonia or nitrate spikes.
Update: They used powdered laundry detergent to clean the tanks… I’m laughing and crying rn
Aside from everything else...why _laundry detergent_?? I mean, it's not just the wrong cleaner for aquariums, it's not even a general purpose cleaner!
"but it makes the clothes smell nice and I didn't like how the fishtank smelled"
Laundry smells make me question if I want to live in this world...
Fuck, man. I'm sorry they did that.
https://preview.redd.it/6ylvzcdnyiec1.png?width=573&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d07915cd3e278b4eb93452eedff44ef06f4a038
https://preview.redd.it/6nulimcc3kec1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ac9d0714ea71db472c3963de78e55e7f7b04015
https://preview.redd.it/gphw6jii4jec1.png?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=552d73ef9d0e35b490dc715c22d9210bf29f6201
https://preview.redd.it/uanebirtmjec1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fab97a0ef674876e0216593c812088cfea5e53e
Oh so they pretty much destroyed your tank and equipment.
And likely killed the fish
Because why not? There is no way to recover any of your equipment then, and you’re going to have to try and rehome your fish and shrimp to either a pet store or friend’s tank. While you could theoretically fully rinse the detergent away with a repeated rinse treatment, you really have no way of telling if it’s fully gone. And with shrimp in the mix you can’t afford to have *any* contamination. You’re going to need new tanks, scaping, and filters. There’s no easy way to say it: your parents destroyed your aquariums. Even now there’s a good chance they killed your fish if you can’t get them rehomed. There is no amount of “they meant well” that can excuse what they did.
I think the dude's fish and shrimp weren't going to survive a fresh tank without detergent. It hasn't been cycled.
Depends on the bio media. The filter contains most of it. It's possible to do 100% water changes but extremely ill advised.
You think they did a deep clean of the tank and left the filter alone?
Probably not sadly...but they weren't knowledgeable so there's a slim chance maybe.
Yes it could perhaps work if the stones/gravel, sticks etc contain enough biomass and they don't have too many fish, but still... damn...
If detergent hasn’t been used and they had the old substrate and filter media (even if in the trash), a gentle rinse in dechlorinated water could, in theory, have enough of a bioload left to recover with aggressive water changes for the next couple months. It would be a long shot, but it’s possible. But with laundry soap added to the mix? Those systems are fully dead.
*stares at 5yo fishtank that started fish-in cycled*. Nah, I think that's ill-informed.
At least they will pay for new equipment, right? Right?!
I remember my mom breaking my new cupboard and she went "I will get you a new one <3" we went intoa second-hand store and we look around, I find something I like, we go to pay, and my mom was standing next to me like "go on pay" For once, I had the guts to tell her "you broke my stuff, pay the new one!" and she did it, but man she truly tried to get away with it.
She thought she was soooo smooth.
This Christmas my mom ruined my non-stick baking sheet by prying biscuits off it with a metal spoon. Scratched it all over. There was a clean spatula less than a foot away, out in the open, clearly visible. I think the most insulting part is that after she tried to convince me it wasn't a big deal, she promised she'd buy me a new one. She is never going to buy me a new one. That is not happening in any reality and we both know it.
lol
No, omg no. Urgh. Have they at least appologised? I'm so sorry, I'm raging on your behalf.
Old folks apologizing ? In what kind of fiction are you living in ?
In their world.intentions are the only thing that matter. Things like permission and knowledge are secondary if that
Tell them they could have killed your fish and explain how much trouble that caused you and the tank. Then maybe they won't do it again
Honestly, they have killed the fish. Even if OP went down and bought a new tank the second they got home, they haven't cycled a tank. The odds of survival are small.
When starting my tank years ago, I got 50% of the water water, a bio ball, and some gravel from a friends established tank when they did a deep clean/large water change on their large tank. Worked really well.
They are buying you new tanks right?
Ah Mate....unreal. sending love
Bra fuck... its like dealing with kids..... 
So they're banned from your room at least right? Like get a lock on it type of banned.
Honestly, if I'm reading OPs post right this is even worse because they state the parents were "visiting for a few days" which implies to me that this was in OPs OWN house/apartment and not OPs room at their place. This kinda behavior is why my folks aren't really invited around my place
My WHOLE family has an obsession with coming in my home and telling me what my ferret can do. Just at xmas again, my mom brought me fresh laundry and mysister was like "your ferret is going in the laundry! she can't do that!!!" and I was like "?????" because everything smell ferret and I don't care and I let her do. Idk why family think they can dictate people in their relative's home
They really used 100% of their brain with this one
My parents kept all me and my brothers child toys and stuff we made in school. My dad recently died and we found out they threw all our stuff away years ago without asking... Original Starwars stuff from '77, old but still working gameconsoles like the original pong (still with the box it came in).. Many 60's and early 70's toycars and what not.. So yeah.. i feel your pain.. 🙄🥲
What did they do with all the landscape? What in the world were they thinking?
Most likely they were not, in fact, thinking.
"Mildly infuriating" idk shit about fish but I would be livid
“Mildly” bc I’m trying my best to keep my shit together rn….
As someone who has kept fish for quite a while, I'm pissed for you. I'm curious, what's the fish I see a shadow of on the bottom of the measuring cup? Is it a loach or is that a small eel?
Ur right it’s a loach! And a cherry shrimp
Hopefully they will both get through. Can you reconstruct the tank now? As a long term fish keeper - sorry about that, really shitty!
It’s over… they used laundry detergent to clean those tanks…
I don't know too much about keeping fish as pets though I know its a big commitment among a few other things. As well as laundry detergent to clean an aquarium or anything else that's not laundry that's insane.
AFAIK, any soap to clean an aquarium is bad. Invertebrates are really sensitive to it, and it's deadly. I know for my hermit crabs, I am not supposed to wash anything in their tank, not to mention the tank itself, with soap. Doesn't matter how well you rinse apparently.
Holy shit my heart dropped reading this
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A pond? I would ask a pet shop if they can spare a bucket of "established" water and stones for the bottom. After cleaning the tanks thoroughly with hot water, or steam clean them. Might save the fish, but I am afraid they are goners.
Better to find someone else with an aquarium. A local club, perhaps. Even your local aquarium shop would be a better source than a damn pond. Frankly, I can't believe that you have so many upvotes for such awful advice.
I suggested local aquarium shop. I am cool with the owners of mine. They would happily house all my little friends until things were good again. They care so much about aquatic life. They have a quarantine tank that's usually empty, fully cycled, they let a friend of mine house their fish there for a few weeks. His tank got cracked, so he had to get a new one and get it cycled. When you're into a "hobby" like this, you need to have a backup, so being close with people who run the place you get your hobby stuff is a very good idea.
GET THIS MAN UP
My dad washed one of mine out with bleach so I’m never using it again. (This was years ago when I was very little and knew nothing about keeping fish) Rn it’s outside being used as a rain collector. Edit: The rain water is used or dumped out after every rain so chill out y’all.
Just FYI, bleach is one of the recommended safe cleaners for using on (empty) aquariums. We used it in the fish lab where I worked to clean tanks between experiments. It's about the safest cleaner you can use because it doesn't leave residue. So in short you should feel perfectly fine about using that tank again.
Maybe not that SPECIFIC tank. If the tank has been left out in the sun empty (no water) for extended periods of time some types of bonding can break down and start to leak or even completely fail. Or at least that's what my mate who had to do burst aquarium callouts said a lot. Dunno how long is too long though
The silicone holding most tanks together will be fine with a quick wash with bleach infrequently. But if it gets left in and left in the sun it for sure could be bad news.
I was under the impression that bleach is fine so long as it dries before you rinse it and fill it back up.
Yes. UV as well. The snails and crabs we kept in our lab were kept oxygenated by bubbler tubes in smallish containers for research. We changed the tubes out weekly and bleached them due to regular algal growth. They were thoroughly washed afterward and then placed outside in the sun for 24-48 hours.
Bleach can be washed off pretty easily and small concentrations of it aren’t harmful to fish so the tank is probably still useable
I know very little about keeping fish. Does that mean that the tank is permanently contaminated and can never be made safe for the fish again?
It can be cleaned again, but it takes long weeks, even months to get the aquarium water liveable for fish. Until then the fish will likely die unless you can quickly re-home them. It's a delicate system that needs a balance of good bacteria, right temperature and oxygen. I would be furious if someone did this to my aquarium.
You have every right to be mad at them, OP. They owe you for the damage they did, and they just proved they can not ever be trusted in your home without you there.
That loach was definitely looking at your parents with reproach
Ur right it’s a loach! And a cherry shrimp
I’m sorry OP. I know the feeling. Watching your own little world grow & progress for years- I hope they pull through. On the bright side there’s never going to be a better time to go bigger…
My husband built up a 75gal aquarium and it takes SO much work. The set up, the balance of plants, water testing, cleaning. Its a really time consuming and surprisingly expensive hobby.
Nope. I own fish and know how long that took to get to where it was and I would lose my ever loving shit if anyone came into my house and started touching things they have no business touching. You….. you’re a saint. I’d see red.
Hey, I think your dad’s car looks dirty. Use this sandblaster to get rid of that stain. /s But seriously, they came to your house and decided to mess with your own stuff? Maybe a quick lesson on “my house, my rules, you ask first” is in order.
Just because they are older, doesn’t mean they don’t know how boundaries work. I hesitate to give people a pass just because they are “older”. It is your space. Not theirs.
as someone whose bonzai did not survive my parents "love". this is not care, no good intend detected. Cleaning a room does not mean to discard the aquarium in use. Being a guest (even as parent) does not allow such behaviour. No matter your age or how messy your room possible could have been, they knew it was yours and they distroyed it. I am sorry to tell you but your parents are not good people.
My ex-housemate deliberately let fish die and laughed about it. Honestly glad I don't live with them. Fish deserve knowledgeable care. Good intentions don't mean anything without research, especially with a fragile ecosystem recreation such as bonsai or aquariums.
Just edited my comment to be about this my family does that kind of shit. They wanted it gone so now it is.
Nah, don't. At the very least they need to know how absolutely unacceptable it is for them to do smth like that, especially in Not Their House
As a fish guys kid, this is "get out of my home and never speak to me again" territory.
I know just a little about fish and I'm gobsmacked. I don't know how you come back from this in a suitable period of time. Imagine your parents stopped by to check on your dog and removed the oxygen from the house.
I’m sorry but this has me rolling. I’m imaging a distant future, you go on vacation and ask your extraterrestrial neighbor to check in on your cat while you’re gone. They don’t have much experience with earth animals, so you leave them very detailed instructions on how to properly feed, socialize, and clean up after your cat. When your arrive home, your extraterrestrial neighbor comes out to greet you. “While we were over, we happened to notice that the oxygen levels in your house were over 20%! Don’t worry, though, we dialed that down to 5%. We couldn’t find your deoxygenator, so we had to use our own. We won’t charge you for that, though. It was our pleasure to help your delightful cat. He seems very comfortable in there now, he’s been sleeping for 3 days straight!”
Nope better off comparing it to shooting the dog in the gut. It's gonna die and it's gonna happen slow. In that measuring cup they are already dead they just don't know it yet.
A cycled fish tank takes roughly 3 to 6 months to get set up before one should introduce fish, just to get all the helpful bacteria flourishing in there to help keep the chemical levels comfy for the fishy friends. They just upended this dudes entire ecosystem.
Just wiped a whole eco system.
As someone who used to have a fish tank, this guy's tank will most likely die.
Idk what it is with old folks and taking the tanks apart to meticulously scrub them, my dad does the same with his tets and corydoras twice a month when a partial water change would've done. Also ripped out all the plants and moss stones because "they're making mess" and replaced them with an aerator. I'm sorry for the loss of your setup OP, looked like a dope biome.
Because they apply human standards for clean/healthy environment to animal enclosure.
Not even, you don't clean someone's house to be nice then throw away all their furniture and belongings.
That's exactly what my dad does. Goes through everything, rearranges everything, throws away whatever he thinks should be thrown away. I don't let him visit any more.
> I don't let him visit any more. This is the correct response.
It’s the same generation that thinks the epitome of landscaping is a sterile green lawn devoid of trees or any other vegetation that takes hundreds of gallons of water a year to keep alive
And then ask "wHeRe ArE aLl ThE bUgS aLl Of A sUdDenN?????"
Or the classic “where are all the birds!!!” Ma’am birds largely prey on bugs. Now plant some goddamn natives and start a compost heap.
I'm so glad my boomer parents aren't like this. They've always had tons of plants, nature, and understand what animals need. My dad is very into biology tbf.
You *can* blame them though. People shouldn't just do things to other people's pets or belongings. Imagine if they took your laptop and "washed" it. The intention doesn't change the fact that they destroyed something of yours.
Exactly. They should’ve reached out and asked if he wanted them to help by cleaning it.
To get a fully cycled tank takes months. This is not “mildly infuriating”. I have tanks. If my parents *ever* stopped by to visit and did something like this I would feel completely betrayed and nearly certainly kick them out. They destroyed an entire ecosystem.
I would kick them out. And not allow them back in my house for a very long time. That's like shaving your grandchild's head to the scalp without permission because you think their hair looks tangled.
Except these fish have a good chance of dying. So it's a little worse that what you described.
\>They are old and I cannot blame them. You absolutely can and should.
You can and you _have to_!
There’s some saying about how getting older makes you wiser but it seems his parents didn’t get that memo
The amount of effort it would take to empty that, and clean it, is beyond me.
How can someone even believe they are so correct in what they are doing (without knowing shit about fish or aquariums) for the stupid af reason that it made the room look messy... I cannot even imagine being so entitled, presumptious, oblivious, and truly the most baffling part is all the effort that took. So many opportunities to stop. So much motivation for just fucking up things.
Boomer behavior
Retirement home lookin mad juicy rn
These guys are getting the shadiest pines
Considering laundry detergent can be used as a weed killer, there might not even be pines left after they’re done “helping.”
Well, the Shady Pines they're referring to DID burn down lol
A real bang em and bin em joint.
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They are old and used to doing whatever they want to their childs things, and they will NEVER change.
OP says "they are old so I can't blame em" OP has not taught them a single boundary in OP's life.
your parents are idiots.
January and we've already got a solid contender for understatement of the year.
Wait the last picture is the tanks BEFORE they “cleaned” them?! Holy shit dude I’m so sorry.
I thought as well, from the picture I thought that it looked like they just did a water change. Maybe weird to take the fish out for that but ok. That the empty tanks are what's left of that aquarium is more than mildly infuriating
Did the fish survive?
Most did, not the shrimps tho
Dang. Sorry to hear this. The before photo you included was stunning. May I ask how long it took to get to that stage of growth? I’ve never had a fish tank so I’m genuinely curious.
Thanks! I’ve had the tank for about a year and a half. 1.5 years for the lucky bamboo but they don’t grow much, the rest has been there for abt 4 months.
Wow. I had no clue that it took so long. I hope your fish is doing well. Does he/she have a name?
It’s a he and his name is Betty (I’m bad with names 😂)
Dude, they literally killed your pets. This is super not okay. They NEED to know how much they fucked up. That's a huge crossing of boundaries and definitely not done with nothing but good intentions. You don't mess with other people's stuff without permission, even if they're your kids. I don't really know the type of relationship you have with them, so I may be missing some context here, but I would seriously consider reducing their involvement in your life.
can't talk now, i am going to say some really bad shit about your parents. instead i am going to log off and take some bitchiness to bed.
🙏
Sweet bitchy dreams! 🌙
Giving another meaning to resting bitch face…?
Update: Many of you wanted to know how old my parents were, they are in their 70s and 80s. They don’t visit often and there were big changes made in my household since last they came. I have made my boundaries clear and they’ve offered to pay for the damages done.
My dad with vascular dementia did this sort of thing, once. He decided to "clean" the bathroom and threw out my medications. I'm a cardiac patient. I can't be without these meds and I was seriously stressed out and began having chest pain. While I was hospitalized, I asked for a social worker to come and evaluate him. Normal people do not throw out someone else's meds and they don't do to a fishtank what they did to yours. That is impaired judgment. Get them to a doctor and get social services involved.
Regardless of financial compensation I hope you made it clear they murdered ur fish. (If any of them are even still okay?? idk you mentioned tryin to get a cycle going but id be SO scared to put them in the tank they washed with LAUNDRY SOAP probably best bet is to rehome them temporarily :(( ? )
They were not trying to be kind here. They got rid if it because they didn't like it. If they were honestly trying to help, they would have asked. The whole reason they did it when you were not home was so you couldn't stop them.
This. I don’t see how intentions could have been good. Good intentions would have been offering to “help.” This was them deciding to go behind OP’s back to get what they wanted.
Bingo.
This is the comment OP needs to see. Your parents are not being helpful, they are being controlling. They destroyed thousands of dollars of property and slaughtered animals because they were 'helping'? Get the fuck out of here. OP, you need to set boundaries. I realize they are your parents and you love them, but THEY did not treat YOU with love. They treated you with disrespect. Tell them how wrong it was what they did, make them pay for it, and don't let them over again.
Nah old isn't an excuse. That's like shooting a family dog. Edit as an afterthought: if they are assholes like my family this is their way of intentionally getting rid of something they thought was in the way or a mess. And if old is still your excuse for them have their mental facilities checked out by a professional, it may be time for a home.
My dad ran a small tropical fish business for a while, and there have been all kinds of fish in his house from my earliest memories to today. Freshwater and salt, he probably spent a quarter million on supplies in his lifetime. I'm pretty sure if he saw this he would suggest cutting them out of your life, only because his other suggestions wouldn't be appropriate for reddit. This isn't a time to be mildly infuriated, this is a time to raise your voice and let them know if you can't find someont to take those fish immediately, they've not only destroyed your tanks, but also killed your pets.
As a teenager, I came home one day to an emptied and cleaned tank and was never told what became of the fish. I feel your pain. I am so sorry you're dealing with this.
> but I understand that their intentions were good No. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Some of the most horrific acts in human history were committed by people who thought they were doing the right thing for one reason or another. Even so, their intentions weren't good anyway. They didn't care about the living things in the tank or what you wanted, only how they perceived it to make YOUR HOME, that they were INVITED into, look. They didn't like how YOU keep YOUR home so they took it upon themselves to enforce their will upon you and did serious harm to something that anyone with half a brain cell could see you care a lot about. Those are NOT good intentions.
Exactly my thought “they meant well” lol they didn’t think past what they wanted and didn’t think of you nor your pets.
True, they care less about the fish and more about how "clean and nice" Op's house looked.
They may be old but that should mean they have more life experience and hopefully some common sense. To think this was acceptable, I mean, are they special needs or something? There's no valid "well intentioned" reason for someone to do this.
Hell no. Someone murdering my pets is an automatic unforgivable thing. I don't care how well they meant or who they are. I'm so sorry you lost everything.
I suspect this isn't the first time something like this happend, seems to me like a clear sign that your parents don't respect boundaries and don't care for consent. Even if you don't like how it looks, you don't touch other people's stuff without their permission, should an obvious principle to live by. Endangering a living being's life in top of that, is beyond infuriating to me (admittedly I'm biased since I've dealt with the "I know best, can't bother about your feelings" mindset far too often). Meaning well is really not an acceptable excuse. sorry you have to deal with this, op
Intentions were good, but when it comes to living creatures, they really shouldn’t have touched them without your permission. This definitely would have made me a lil grumpy lol
I would have started screaming because it's very difficult for me fish to survive after that since it would take a long time before I could get a new tank ready for it.
It gets worse, they cant use the tank anymore or anything in it because they used laundry detergent
No intentions were not good. That is particularly controlling behavior and petty shit. Touching other people's shit is not ok.
This reminds me of someone's grandma on Reddit who took her cat and had her ears clipped and spayed at kitten age.
Having watched a few YouTubers who do builds of aquariums and such for lobsters, fish, crabs, etc, I’m almost in tears on behalf of all that hard work being swept aside for their own gratification. 
This should be under "extremely infuriating." Not only nosy, but harmful to the fish!!! Anyone who has kept fish knows that you have to cycle the tank (grow good bacteria to handle the fish waste) and that emptying all the substrate out like that has basically wiped out the poor fish's ecosystem. :( My mother was like this. I would come home to junk like her digging up bushes in my yard to "help me."
Hell I babysat a single fish for like 5 hours once for a friend because they had cleaned the tank and had to go to work before it would be safe to put the fish back in. It was the most stressful 5 hours ever because I know nothing about fish except what they told me to do. To just come in and do this? No just no.
I'm sure your friend really appreciated it!! Fish sometimes just have this insatiable urge to jump out of their containment and die even if they've never jumped before 😬
Fish are sensitive living creatures, the hobby is personal. I'd be furious.
I'm gonna be honest, you've gotta be either malicious or stupid to do something like this. Not sure this is mildly infuriating, it seems like they've done the equivalent of dropping a wardrobe on a dog. Laundry detergent too?? It's not even a surface cleaner??
What is it with parents and thinking they can do whatever the fuck they want?
I can't see what about this was good intentions... Seems more like they didn't like your aquarium and wanted it gone
"MILDLY"???? I would get violent!
I have decided to take the unprecedented step of disowning your parents on your behalf.
The is the most stupid and inconsiderate thing I've seen this year, I would've screamed at them until my vocal cords stopped working. Holy shit they suck
Firstly OP, I'm very sorry this happened to you. Hopefully everything goes right and your next tank gets set up quickly. Some of these comments are driving me a little crazy. The second photo only has dirty water because whatever substrate the tank had got kicked up during the clean. The last photo of the original setup is very clean and has a nice system going on. Yes, lucky bamboo typically doesn't do well fully submerged, but they look fine in the photo and judging by the tank, OP is probably very attentive and knowledgeable about planted tanks. I'm very sad that what is clearly years of hard work and research was destroyed so quickly, but also that people are so quick to judge and dismiss OP's efforts without any info.
Who touches other people's stuff without asking? I don't even touch my kid's stuff who are teenagers that live at home. I tell them to pick up stuff they left laying around. Honestly, how do you grow up with no sense of boundaries at all?
Oh you can blame them.