Parents cleaned my tanks without asking :/

[u/Main_Initial_7118]

Came home today to this. First pic is what they put the fish in for god knows how long, last pic is my tank before they cleaned it. They told me it was bc my room looked “messy”. They are old so I don’t blame them…. But damn…

[u/Own_Adhesiveness2829]

You should be good then actually, it being soaked in the bucket of water is a good thing, it probably kept a good amount of bacteria alive. Still monitor it though

[u/Butterflyelle → u/Own_Adhesiveness2829]

Yeah OP this is right- sounds crazy but once you've got the tank set back up wash the filter media out in the main body of the tank- it'll help re-seed it (because a lot of the beneficial bacteria would have been in the gravel :( ) but they'll still be enough stuck to the sponge for it to re-seed the filter.

[u/natehinxman → u/Butterflyelle]

unless it's soaking in chlorinated tap water that's conditioned to kill bacteria

[u/Butterflyelle → u/natehinxman]

Ehhh yeah that won't help, hadn't thought about the fact it's probably untreated tap water- they'll still be some bacteria in it though. It's more resilient than people give it credit for

[u/SycoJack → u/Butterflyelle]

Best case scenario is that it's untreated tap water. It's extremely unlikely that someone who would do this would have the knowledge to use the tank water.

Honestly I'd be worried that they washed the stuff with some kind of chemical, like bleach or soap.

They shouldn't have done it at all in the first place. The fact they did means either they don't know what they're doing, or they were acting very maliciously.

[u/natehinxman → u/SycoJack]

it seems strange to me that they just decided to clean OPs fishtank because their "bedroom" was dirty. I suspect either; A. the fishtank was not being maintained as well as it appears in the photo and there was a smell coming from the fishtank or something that would bother their parents OR B. this was posted by a fish. if I saw this fishtank (as it appears in the photo) in a messy bedroom, cleaning the fishtank specifically would be the least of my concern. although in the photo the tank appears to be well maintained, the water level seems a bit odd and could be a sign of op loosing interest in maintaining their tank. nobody is going to save a picture of their tank once it's gotten neglected to the point that it becomes an issue to their parents so it's most likely an old picture. if the water that's in the cup with the fish is the old tank water then that could be a more accurate reflection of the tanks condition prior to the parents taking it apart. maybe their parents took out some decor or something before catching the fish and it stirred up a bunch of stuff into the water colum before they scooped any out and maybe I way off base with this assumption but it seems like a pretty odd move for the parents to disassemble the whole tank just because the bedroom was messy...

edit to add: also seems strange that there's 2 empty fish tanks in the 2nd photo but we are only shown one tank "before it was cleaned". multiple tank syndrome is very common early on in the hobby. 6 month in I had 5 different fishtanks going in my 1 bedroom apartment before I realized that it was too much for me to care for properly and I condensed them down to 3 tanks (soon to be just 2) so I could properly care for them. I'm curious what the other tank looked/smelled like before OPs parents took it upon themselves to "clean" them.

[u/Butterflyelle → u/natehinxman]

Eh I don't know I remember family members doing this to their fish tanks growing up because they thought that's what you were supposed to do like they're a hamster or something- get everything out and give it all a really good wash.

I think it's easy to forget how little knowledge about fish keeping is intuitive

People that know nothing about fish because they don't know they don't know so haven't thought to look into it tend to think the thing that's important is the water is crystal clear so could totally have taken OPs perfectly fine tank apart

[u/CleatusTheCrocodile → u/Butterflyelle]

Yeah, when I was a kid my mom would help me “clean” my 3 gallon fish tank. We would carry it to the sink in the bathroom, dump out all the water, scrub the gravel and fake plants with tap water, replace the carbon filter with a new one, and then add treated water and the fish back into the tank. My mom just thought that was how you clean a tank and that any algae or bacteria was dirty and needed to be scrubbed out with hot water. She knew not to use cleaning chemicals and to treat the water with dechlorinator but that was the extent of her knowledge. Ofc, the pet smart employees were no help either.

[u/CoolQuality1641 → u/CleatusTheCrocodile]

I did that as well when I had a fish tank as a kid. It was either 10 or 20 gallons, definitely not more, and there was 2 pink kissing gouramis (which I never see in the hobby these days lol, it was a child's PetSmart impulse buy 🤦‍♀️ and a pleco, and I think a bubble eyed goldfish..? And like once every couple weeks when it started to look dirty I'd move all the fish into a bowl or two and I'd take enough water from the tank to lighten it enough to carry the rest to the sink and dump it all out and put the gravel in a colander, wash it all, idk I might've even used dish soap on the inside I honestly don't remember at all. I knew nothing that i was doing and the internet was... Not what it is today. Not something I would've had in my hand like kids do now. I just knew I had to do my part to keep the tank clean and I thought that was right.

My fish all made it fairly well too, no illnesses or obvious stress for some amount of months (though with my current experience I am certain there was stress but it wasn't so obvious that they were on the brink of death) it wasn't until my sister brought home a sightless cave fish from school and we plopped him in the tank without quarantine that they all went from being fine to dead within a week. Obviously I have no idea what happened to them I just watched as they died one by one feeling helpless.

How far I've come now doing it as an adult... I'm glad I have resources to know how to do it right

[u/CleatusTheCrocodile → u/CoolQuality1641]

I’m so glad I have resources as an adult now too. I didn’t really have access to the internet at that age. I think I used my parent’s computer occasionally for school projects but that was it. And my parents were more the type to ask an employee than to actually do any research themselves. I remember having a glo tetra, a glo danio, and a octocinclus I think. At some point a neon tetra, a mystery snail, a ghost shrimp, a betta (by himself thankfully). They usually lived a couple months to a year at most. My biggest kid impulse buy was a blue crayfish! I was slightly older and attempted to do research for that one but I’m sure it wasn’t great. I definitely didn’t know the nitrogen cycle existed. That little guy was the coolest pet though. Used to come up to my finger on the glass. Would try to stare down my cat. I chose that crayfish because all the other ones in the tank at the pet store made a beeline for the rocks to hide but he didn’t.