[catfishbum]

My first tank was a 20g i purchased 2yrs ago right before christmas. My girlfriend always wanted a tank, and i thought it would be cool to set a tank up christmas eve and put a nice engagement ring in the tank, then wait for her to see it. I bout 2 big Dalmation mollies, 6 neons, and 3 albino tiger barbs along with numerous decorations and an undergravel filter(stupid mistake). Xmas eve i set up the tank, put in the water (untreated......hey we have well water) droped in all the fish un-aclimated, set the heater to 80 and started her up. So the next morning she gets up and we walk to the living room and she sees the tank, walks over(its under a sheet but you can hear it) and i tell her "go ahead, lift it off". She does and find 6 dead neon tetras, 1 dead albino bard(being eaten by the mollies.............and my ring is gone. The temp in the tank was 90 degrees due to a crappy glass(not submergable but was submerged heater). She just looked at me and laughed, apparently i was wearing a look of sheer horror and shock, after all the tank and acc. cost about 200 dollars, not to mention my missing ring! I removed the dead fish and moved around the decor until i found my ring in the ship.........fixed the decor and left it alone. About a week later i finally notice there is a missing albino barb and i figured it got eaten or whatever happens in these things. My amonia was 2ppm and everything that hit my tank was dying in 2 days because i was adding dose after dose of ammo-lock(like i was told) and i added a water softner pillow(dont even know what for) and just dumped carbon strait into the tank. I decided to change water and clean gravel, so i start moving decor around......lone behold under my cave(in a hole where the mfgr. places holes to let out air) i found my missing barbs which was quite pleasant. apparently he went in and then got trapped when i flipped the decor right side up. End of story is that the tank never cycled after 3-4 months of my screwing it ip, i killed dozens of fish including multiple ick outbreaks that led to my dying everything blue with ridick and then ditched the tank................easily my most entertaining engagement story.