Fish Boil
When I was in grade school my cousin and I set up our first fish tank. It was in the basement, the only place we were allowed to keep it, and it was fairly cold down there. My grandfather is a very accomplished breeder, and called asking how the tank was. When I told him the temperature, he suggested that we turn it up slightly for whatever fish we had (I can't even remember what we had) Our heater was a simple +/- nob control and I, having no experience whatsoever just turned it on up towards the plus +. After 15 minutes I impatiently kicked it up again. The next morning when we went to feed the fish, we found several nicely cooked fish floating at the top of the tank, and the thermometer on the side registered well above 90! Needless to say I've been paranoid about temperature ever since...
Another interesting story, though not mine, is from my grandpa who kept electric eels for a time, and came home one day to find them both flopping around on the floor after he forgot to put the bricks back on top of the aquarium (apparently they were avid jumpers!). Also, he once kept some alligators, in a large tank in his basement, and the meter readers refused to go down alone to get readings
!!!