What's the "saddest'' moment of your experience in the hobby so far?

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

I guess you could say i'm touching on a sensative subject for some, but i'm just asking as part of my goal to get to know people better.

For me, it'd have to be the infamous backroom massacre, when I was 11 and my juvenile corn snake escaped and ended up as crab food, and I just remember 11-year-old me bawling my eyes out. I miss that snake even today, he was awesome.

 

[draconisj4]

Not just a moment, but watching my oldest Harlequin beetle progress into old age, losing bits and pieces of himself, unable to eat and could barely move but lingering on. It was terrible, I finally euthanized him at the end, but I believe he would have died within a couple of days. He was 7 months old at the time. It's part of the reason that I won't be keeping them anymore.

 

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

Not just a moment, but watching my oldest Harlequin beetle progress into old age, losing bits and pieces of himself, unable to eat and could barely move but lingering on. It was terrible, I finally euthanized him at the end, but I believe he would have died within a couple of days. He was 7 months old at the time. It's part of the reason that I won't be keeping them anymore.

Aww, that's so sad. Especially considering how magnificent those animals are. They're the ones with the super long front legs, right? Or are they the smaller ones? Regardless, that's incredibly sad.

 

[draconisj4]

Aww, that's so sad. Especially considering how magnificent those animals are. They're the ones with the super long front legs, right? Or are they the smaller ones? Regardless, that's incredibly sad.

No, he was a Gymnetis caseyi

 

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

No, he was a Gymnetis caseyi View attachment 275555

wow, those things are beautiful.

 

[Salmonsaladsandwich]

Various events involving polyphemus moths. Moths emerging at the wrong time of year, moths with disfigured wings, moths getting loose and breaking their wings, moths failing to attract mates, moths getting eaten by predators during failed mating attempts, caterpillars killed by fumes from someone's citronella torch, even Calosoma beetle larvae chewing their way through a screen cage and devouring the cocoons of my entire brood one year. Overall they're pretty easy and satisfying insects to raise, but I've incidentally had a lot of sad experiences with them.

 

[SammySpammy]

When I was in third grade me and my dad went to this park. It was super huge and had lakes and streams and stuff. In one of the streams I spotted minnows, so I bugged him and bugged him until he agreed to let me keep one. He did a very small amount of research and than drove us to the pet store. After buying supplies we went back and caught one of the fish. I learned so much about fish keeping and it introduced me into a whole world of exotic animal keeping. Although the impulse buy/catch wasn't a smart idea, we soon got him a bigger tank and a filter, and eventually a 10 gallon, and than 20. My fish would come and go (there was a point in the begging where we over stocked the tank by accident)but Fredrick, the minnow I caught, lived four years. When he passed away, I was pretty devastated, but he taught me so much and i'm thankful for him. I got really sad the other day because I kept Fredrick's original bowl and my step dad "borrowed" it to shovel water out of a pool or something while I wasn't home and shattered it. He denies it, but my siblings tell me otherwise. He still owes me another fish bowl, but none will ever be the same.

 

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

When I was in third grade me and my dad went to this park. It was super huge and had lakes and streams and stuff. In one of the streams I spotted minnows, so I bugged him and bugged him until he agreed to let me keep one. He did a very small amount of research and than drove us to the pet store. After buying supplies we went back and caught one of the fish. I learned so much about fish keeping and it introduced me into a whole world of exotic animal keeping. Although the impulse buy/catch wasn't a smart idea, we soon got him a bigger tank and a filter, and eventually a 10 gallon, and than 20. My fish would come and go (there was a point in the begging where we over stocked the tank by accident)but Fredrick, the minnow I caught, lived four years. When he passed away, I was pretty devastated, but he taught me so much and i'm thankful for him. I got really sad the other day because I kept Fredrick's original bowl and my step dad "borrowed" it to shovel water out of a pool or something while I wasn't home and shattered it. He denies it, but my siblings tell me otherwise. He still owes me another fish bowl, but none will ever be the same.

RIP Fredrick. I'm pretty surprised he lived for 4 years, that's the longest i've seen any minnow live.

 

[Beedrill]

(I know this was mentioned under the invertebrate hobby, but we all have a little overlap here and there.)

My saddest moment was when my very first turtle died. I found him, a Red Eared Slider about the size of a quarter, in a drainage ditch after a rain and just couldn't resist begging my parents to let me keep him. They let me, but we were very poor at the time, so we couldn't afford a proper setup. I had him in a 10, maybe 20 gallon fish tank with a log for a turtle dock. No filter, maybe 4 inches of water, no basking lights... and unfortunately that's what killed him. I knew that he needed to sunbathe so I would take him outside to get his sunlight. But unfortunately, my mom left him outside for too long one day in the Oklahoma summer, and he got too hot. I was shattered. I couldn't believe that it was really happening to me. I honestly sometimes still can't believe it happened to me. My mom will occasionally remember what happened and randomly apologize for it.
I didn't have any pets for some years after that, it just hurt too much. But it taught me several very important lessons about keeping any animals, especially exotics, as pets. Research, love for the animal, and ,unfortunately, cold hard cash are all essential for keeping exotics.
I probably would have kept more than one turtle and several other animals in the same, inadequate conditions that I kept this one in, if it were not for this experience. There have been other devastating blows, but none that scarred me as deep as that one.

 

[Jayke]

Saddest moments I've had were mostly learning experiences or weird near one-off problems.
Most technically catastrophic came from a bad batch of coco fiber (eco earth) years ago. Which was extremely unfortunate because I had no idea what the cause was, and thought it must have been another material or food, so I kept using that batch of soil. After losing over half of everything (mostly had many different isopods and carabus beetles at the time) I went through and moved all of the survivors to new enclosures with a fresh batch of everything. Had a very small group set aside to slowly test what the issue could be, eventually found out any small amount of that soil would mess with them. The company apologized for the problem, said something might've happened during packing, and refunded me the $4 cost of eco earth...
Overall loss was ~400 adult isopods (+ uncountable # of babies) and all (~110) carabus beetles. Those carabus beetles were CBB from field collected beetles I gathered myself, and I have been unable to find more healthy beetles since (previous location they were found had been converted to a parking lot), so I was pretty iffed about that. I use it as a learning experience though, any new soil or material will be kept with some "guinea pig" isopods on the side first.

 

[Lokee85]

When my A. avic, Morticia, died. I don't know what happened. I did my research, followed the amazing avic threads here on AB, but she died. I found her next to her water dish in a death curl. I often wonder "what if" about her death, if I did something wrong even though I still have the other avic I purchased with her and they were kept exactly the same...


Another moment was when my then seven yr old was so worried about her B. albo dying that she burst into tears. We had discovered what I highly suspect is an impaction and she wasn't looking too good for a while, then started pooping everywhere, even to the point of it leaking out while walking around.

We were all so worried because everything I've found told me impaction is practically a death sentence, but it's been almost two months since the pooping incident, and she started eating again, so we've cautiously become hopeful that she will be ok.

If she would just molt already (we call her Fluffers Never-Molt because she hasn't molted since Sept and all other albos we have kept the same have molted at least 3x since then) I feel like we'll know more one way or the other.

 

[Nightshady]

I had two 1/4” slings die on me within 24h of each other. I was so bummed. Made me question my husbandry skills a lot, but in the end still have little clue as to what happened.

 

[Vladaz1]

When one of my rhino roaches died

 

[Greasylake]

I had to red eared sliders as my first pets when I was young, probably around 4 or 5. My parents were the ones actually taking care of them but I got to name them so in my mind they were mine. If I remember correctly I had them for a pretty good while (my mom really hated doing water changes) but one of them ended up developing an eye infection of some sort. The vet gave us some drops that we put in its eye but unfortunately it just continued to deteriorate until it died. The second one died while my parents and I had gone to see my grandparents in Sweden and the neighbor was taking care of it. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong but I know I came home to a dead turtle. I was pretty gutted and wouldnt keep anything other than fish until last year when I started buying Ts.

 

[VolkswagenBug]

Definitely watching my H. membranacea die of old age. I had to euthanize it because it was clearly in a lot of pain. It kind of sounds dumb, but I really loved that mantis.

 

[NYAN]

My saddest moment happened today... I came home from my Arizona trip already in a somewhat bad mood. I go to check on my inverts and find first that my hottentotta franzwerneri is in pieces. As I turn around I find thousands of ants going though my shelves. In the end all but 3 of my scorpions were killed, one being likely gravid as well as my Arizona scolopendra polymorpha. My scolopendra viridis was beginning to get overrun also. In addition I find just now that one of my latrodectus Hesperus died in a molt. So all in all the stupid ants did $150 or so in damage. Tomorrow I’m going to hunt them down and try to ant proof the room.

 

[VolkswagenBug]

My saddest moment happened today... I came home from my Arizona trip already in a somewhat bad mood. I go to check on my inverts and find first that my hottentotta franzwerneri is in pieces. As I turn around I find thousands of ants going though my shelves. In the end all but 3 of my scorpions were killed, one being likely gravid as well as my Arizona scolopendra polymorpha. My scolopendra viridis was beginning to get overrun also. In addition I find just now that one of my latrodectus Hesperus died in a molt. So all in all the stupid ants did $150 or so in damage. Tomorrow I’m going to hunt them down and try to ant proof the room.

I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[NYAN]

I'm sorry to hear that.

Me too..

 

[Veles]

My saddest moment happened today... I came home from my Arizona trip already in a somewhat bad mood. I go to check on my inverts and find first that my hottentotta franzwerneri is in pieces. As I turn around I find thousands of ants going though my shelves. In the end all but 3 of my scorpions were killed, one being likely gravid as well as my Arizona scolopendra polymorpha. My scolopendra viridis was beginning to get overrun also. In addition I find just now that one of my latrodectus Hesperus died in a molt. So all in all the stupid ants did $150 or so in damage. Tomorrow I’m going to hunt them down and try to ant proof the room.

Destroy their nest, take your time at that.
It will give you a measure of relief me thinks.

 

[Godzillaalienfan1979]

My saddest moment happened today... I came home from my Arizona trip already in a somewhat bad mood. I go to check on my inverts and find first that my hottentotta franzwerneri is in pieces. As I turn around I find thousands of ants going though my shelves. In the end all but 3 of my scorpions were killed, one being likely gravid as well as my Arizona scolopendra polymorpha. My scolopendra viridis was beginning to get overrun also. In addition I find just now that one of my latrodectus Hesperus died in a molt. So all in all the stupid ants did $150 or so in damage. Tomorrow I’m going to hunt them down and try to ant proof the room.

dang ants, i'm so sorry to hear that