60gallon Aquarium Water Disappeared Overnight

[92vetstudent]

Hi everyone!

Before making this post I searched around the internet for a possible explanation to this mystery but it is nowehere to be found. The only story that comes close to it was also posted here in 2009.

This happened about two years ago but my aunt only told me the story last night. Her and my uncle have a 60-gallon aquarium in their living room which they have owned for the past five years. The aquarium has never had any defects of any kind. One weekend they arrived home late Saturday night, around 2 am, and the aquarium was completely normal, filled to the top, with its fish swimming around as it always had been for 3 years. They turned off the aquarium lights before going to bed. The next morning, around 8 am, my uncle woke up and walked to the living room to turn the aquarim light back on and the aquarim was completely empty of water! All the contents were still there (rocks, decorations, ect.) including the poor fish, who were all dead or almost dead (they were only able to save 2) but the water had copletely dissapeared. He woke up my aunt the they started checking the aquarium for any cracks where the water might have leaked throught, nothing. The filrter and the hoses were all there, functioning with no tares, brakes or ruptures. They checked the entire surroundings of the aquarium (table, walls, floors, everywhere) but everything was completely dry. They have tile floring in the entire house so no chance the floor soaked up the water. They also checked the possibility of the water maybe going under the wall into the bathroom on the other side but also nothing, everything was dry, not one single drop of water.

After the event, they removed all the dead fish, refilled the aquarium with water, added new fish and it's been normal like that for 2 years now. It was just one isolated event, but we have absolutely no explanation for it! Do any of you have any ideas of how the water left the aquarium and who or what could have taken it? I am open to any ideas.

P.S.= Just f.y.i. no one came into or out of the house during the night as it was completely locked with the alarm on, it was only the two of them. Also, they have no pets that could have drank the water.

[Imaginarynumber1]

Aliens, obviously.

[Gunn]

Seen a guy (neighbor) one time in his pajamas, get into his truck one afternoon and drive off to god knows where. Then he came back without it, walking into his house. Later that night he came knocking on my door, just about time he usually leaves to go work the night shift. He said: "Maaaan, somebody stole my "F" ing truck!!! Did you see anything?" He started to call the police before I could answer. And I didn't answer at first because I thought he was screwing with me, joking around and stuff. But when he called the police and started talking to them, I knew he was serious. God that was a awkward moment because of what I was about to tell him. Guess what. He didn't believe me, thought I was playing a cruel joke on him or taking advantage of the situation. Anyway, to make a long story short, turns out he parked the damn thing in the parking lot of his work place and walked back home. Found that out later on, after about month of not seeing him or talking to him, he came over one day with an embarrass look and apologies and all that.

My point: Maybe one of them is a sleepwalker and doesn't know it. Maybe one of them drained the thing in their sleep.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Purifier

[Simbi Laveau]

Seen a guy (neighbor) one time in his pajamas, get into his truck one afternoon and drive off to god knows where. Then he came back without it, walking into his house. Later that night he came knocking on my door, just about time he usually leaves to go work the night shift. He said: "Maaaan, somebody stole my "F" ing truck!!! Did you see anything?" He started to call the police before I could answer. And I didn't answer at first because I thought he was screwing with me, joking around and stuff. But when he called the police and started talking to them, I knew he was serious. God that was a awkward moment because of what I was about to tell him. Guess what. He didn't believe me, thought I was playing a cruel joke on him or taking advantage of the situation. Anyway, to make a long story short, turns out he parked the damn thing in the parking lot of his work place and walked back home. Found that out later on, after about month of not seeing him or talking to him, he came over one day with an embarrass look and apologies and all that.

My point: Maybe one of them is a sleepwalker and doesn't know it. Maybe one of them drained the thing in their sleep.

You don't sleep walk and empty a tank. Do you keep tanks?

Do you have any idea how much work emptying a tank that size entails?

When I used to do water changes on my thirty gallon, I needed a siphon and three gallon container, and would have to do three four siphonings, to do just a 25% water change.

A sixty gallon tank, completely empty, is a HUGE Job, where in there's no way you wouldn't spill a bit here and there , and need to make multiple labor intensive trips to do it .

Water is HEAVY.

It would take a long time to do it properly, and the lugging the water to where you dump it, and dumping it, I'm betting would make noise, and no way can you do it in the dark.

I seriously doubt that anyone has ever done that in their sleep, anywhere.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Simbi Laveau

[VvROMULUSvV]

This is truly strange. I too am an avid tank keeper, have been for 15 years and I totally agree with Simbi.

I'm going to jump to an unlikely conclusion first (mainly because it's more fun and some people on this site get really worked up over things like that!). I'm thinking metaphysical, like a dimensional tear where only water molecules were able to fall through leaving all other objects intact. Maybe a mini wormhole opened up in the tanked and sucked it dry!

Seriously though, really bizarre. Reminds me of the stories about missing objects phenomenon. There's one story on this site where someone claims a fruit bowl vanished in front of their eyes whilst watching TV. That would be enough to send you mad, i would think!

[Fox M]

Was the fish All there or was some missing? those who was at the bottom did they look like they had been experimented with like an anal probe ... or maybe they just probed the fish they didnt return in any case this is clearly a work of the aliens and the yetis... Finally proof!!

[Gunn]

You don't sleep walk and empty a tank. Do you keep tanks?

Do you have any idea how much work emptying a tank that size entails?

When I used to do water changes on my thirty gallon, I needed a siphon and three gallon container, and would have to do three four siphonings, to do just a 25% water change.

A sixty gallon tank, completely empty, is a HUGE Job, where in there's no way you wouldn't spill a bit here and there , and need to make multiple labor intensive trips to do it .

Water is HEAVY.

It would take a long time to do it properly, and the lugging the water to where you dump it, and dumping it, I'm betting would make noise, and no way can you do it in the dark.

I seriously doubt that anyone has ever done that in their sleep, anywhere.

Use to. Still got one 15 gallon, two 30 gallons and one 60 gallon. Use to keep brackish water fish in them, no fresh water. Yeah it's a lot of work, your right there. With the 60 gallon I used this manual siphon and siphoned half of the old water into a 30 gallon tank. I had a 30 gallon on a small low cart, that I could pull or push outside. When that 30 gallon got nearly full I'd pull it outside and dump the water. Usually it wasn't too hard to tip over and dump the water out of it, but it was heavy enough.

That reminds me, I should sell all that stuff on E-bay. Get rid of it, it's just collecting dust now.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble and get off topic. To the whole thread...continue the speculation. Speculation is fun.

[Rafterman]

Call me skeptical, but I'm having a hard time accepting your story.

[Rlyeh]

Was there any water or moisture in the aquarium?

[Sakari]

You don't sleep walk and empty a tank. Do you keep tanks?

Do you have any idea how much work emptying a tank that size entails?

When I used to do water changes on my thirty gallon, I needed a siphon and three gallon container, and would have to do three four siphonings, to do just a 25% water change.

A sixty gallon tank, completely empty, is a HUGE Job, where in there's no way you wouldn't spill a bit here and there , and need to make multiple labor intensive trips to do it .

Water is HEAVY.

It would take a long time to do it properly, and the lugging the water to where you dump it, and dumping it, I'm betting would make noise, and no way can you do it in the dark.

I seriously doubt that anyone has ever done that in their sleep, anywhere.

10 Bizarre Things People Have Done In Their Sleep

( not posting all, but just sayin' )

8. Murder your mother-in-law

By the year 2000, there had been an estimated 68 cases of homicide-while-sleepwalking reported worldwide. One of the most notable took place in 1987, when 23-year-old Ken Parks rolled out of bed, got in his car, drove to his inlaws' house, strangled his father-in-law and stabbed his mother-in-law to death before driving himself to the police station. There, he declared: "I think I have killed some people... my hands." A jury later found him not guilty.

"He still writes to me when he is in trouble," explains Rosalind Cartwright, who interviewed Parks extensively in prison, and later wrote about his case in the journal Sleep. "He is the sweetest guy in the world." Sometimes people like Parks are acquitted on grounds of a "sleepwalking defense"; sometimes they aren't.

6. Cook a meal

Unless, of course, you've been prescribed Ambien, in which case there's a decent shot of you putting down the tub of mayo in favor of an actual meal. According to the FDA, patients prescribed the popular sleeping pill have been known to actually prepare meals (albeit sloppily), and even use the microwave.

5. Cheat on a significant other

The symptoms of sleepsex (aka sexsomnia) can present in various forms. Sometimes the sexual activity is limited to self-pleasure, but it often involves other parties, as well. In the most extreme cases, it can lead to sex with strangers, and even sexual assault and rape.

In an article published in a 2007 issue of Brain Research Reviews, psychobiologist Monica L. Anderson writes:

The [cause] of this parasomnia is not yet elucidated and most afflicted individuals do not seek therapeutic intervention, probably due to ignorance of the condition or embarrassment. Atypical sexual behavior during sleep has rarely been documented; however, because of recent case reports within forensic contexts, more attention has been paid to the matter. Although there has been increased interest in all aspects of sleep-generating mechanisms and male sexual dysfunction, comprehension of sleep disorders as they relate to sexual behavior is still unclear.

Sexsomnia, along with murder, is probably one of the most psychologically damaging forms of parasomnia, not only due to the emotional impact it can have on the sufferers and the people they interact with during an episode of sleep sex, but for its potential for abuse, as well. The press is riddled with examples of people being acquitted of rape charges on account of their sexsomnia, but confirming these cases can be incredibly difficult. [Photograph via Shutterstock]

4. Hurl yourself from a window (and survive the fall)

That's right — if you're a sleepwalker, there's a decent chance that you'll subject yourself to self-defenestration. Back in 2007, a teenager in Germany managed to climb out of a fourth-floor window in his sleep. Incredibly, he not only survived the fall, he actually sustained relatively minor injuries — a broken arm and leg (it bears mentioning that he remained asleep throughout the entire accident).

And it turns out that if you're going to throw yourself out a window, you might want to be asleep for it, anyway; the fact the teenager was asleep may have saved him from a much more serious injury, or even death. Consider this: if you find yourself in a free-fall sans chute, experts recommend not panicking and letting your muscles relax. The reasoning behind this is that more limp you are, the less impact the fall will have on your bones. But just imagine trying to be reasonable and relaxed while falling from a fourth-floor window, and it's easy to see how being asleep could actually be beneficial once you've stepped out the window.

Draining a fish tank does not sound so far fetched now does it?

My 2 55 gallon tanks, I siphoned them out with hoses. Did not take long, and no mess. Put the fish in ice chests while I cleaned out their homes. Never in my sleep, but knowing what people are capable of, it can happen.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Sakari

[George Ford]

Well for once I'm stumped. I would suggest there was a leak but if it did not leak a second time then it can't be. Is it possible the pump broke and moved and was pumping water out of the tank?

The only info I can add is once I came back from work to find the flusher mechanism of the downstairs toilet had somehow broke and was spraying water up out the top of the bit where the water stores. The floor was badly soaked and I was expecting the whole of downstairs to be flooded but it was all contained in the small downstairs loo. Once I fixed it I got a mop and started cleaning up but there was hardly any water to clean up. It appeared to be disappearing under the floor through small gaps. So it is possible for large volumes of water to disappear and not leave much mess. Although for everything to be bone dry kind of rules my theory out in your case.

[scots_nomad]

Maybe the fish drank it!

Sorry, I couldn't resist that, but on a more serious note I attach an extract from one of the posts I made a few months ago on my thread under this forum headed 'How Things Started with me' which recounts a kind of similar type of thing that happened to me once...

"One of my mates was over on a Saturday and we spent the day playing pool in my pool room then watching TV. He stayed in my spare bedroom that night and on Sunday morning we got up and went in to play more pool. At one point my friend had lit a cigarette so he went to place it in an ashtray so he could play a shot but then he noticed that the ashtray (which was on my window sill) was full to the brim with water (and cigarette butts and ash from the previous night). He called out for me to go have a look and explain what had happened but I didn’t have a clue – there hadn’t been any leaks from the window or ceiling (it hadn’t rained outside anyway) the water was ONLY in the ashtray with nothing ‘spilled or dripped anywhere around it. I was completely baffled but wanted to think about it more so I told him to leave everything exactly where it was and use one of the other ashtrays scattered around the place (me and all my friends are quite heavy smokers). He went to use the other ashtray on the window sill but it was full of water too…AS WERE THE OTHER FIVE ASHTRAYS IN THE ROOM! (and they were literally all over the place – one on top of a shelf about 6 feet in the air, two which were on the floor underneath small sofas, and a couple on a set of shelves at the other side of the room. Every single ashtray was filled to the brim to that point that one more drop of water would have led to it spilling over and yet nothing had spilled out from any of them. The ONLY possible logical explanation I could come up with (to myself) was that my mate must have done it as some kind of weird joke (and apparently he was thinking the same thing about me!) but I didn’t really believe he had partly because of his reaction but mostly because it had been done so precisely I didn’t think he could or would have taken the time and effort to fill them with such precision without spilling any water anywhere else.

Anyway, I really wanted more time to think about everything to see if I could explain it so I brought some more ashtrays from another room and left all the others exactly as they were. We played pool for a few hours and then went into the sitting room to watch TV for a while. A short time later another mate came over. I took him into the pool room to show him the ashtrays and see if he could come up with any possible explanations but when we got there I found that the water was all gone!!!! The cigarette butts and ash in the ashtray were still damp so you could see that there had been water in the ashtrays before but the water itself had vanished! This time I knew my mate had nothing to do with it because we had both been watching TV together since we left the pool room, and tto make it weirder still the ash that had been floating on the water had left a ‘tide mark’ at its highest level and those tide marks were all intact (i.e. if you had tipped the ashtray to empty the water it would have washed away part of the tide mark). I was completely stumped by that and insisted that the ashtrays be left exactly where they were so I could think about it later. The next morning I got up for work but before I left the house I decided to have one last look at the damp ashtrays to see if I could come up with any new theories…AND THEY WERE ALL FULL OF WATER AGAIN!!! (but this time I had been the only person in the house when it happened!)…I came home from work that evening and the ashtrays were empty (apart from damp ash and cigarette butts)! I left the ashtrays there for days but nothing else happened and I never did come up with any possible explanations for it so during my chats with my friends I asked if they had anything to do with it:

‘Of course it was us! Who else do you think it could have been?’

‘But WHY??? What was the point in that?’

‘Just to keep your mind open! To stop you from ever thinking that you understood ‘everything’ already!’..."

[Purplos]

An odd mystery to be sure. I lost all my water once, but it was to a leak. The floor was damp, but not as much as you'd think for 30 gallons of water. And somehow my plecostomus ended up behind the couch.

I just wanted to offer some advice to the tank owners on here. Buy yourselves a Python or similar. It creates suction from your sink so you can continuously siphon off tank water and vacuum debris without lugging buckets. Mine has a 30 foot hose and works great for my 45 gallon and 55 gallon tanks. I collect the water that would otherwise go down the drain for watering plants and washing etc, so there's less waste.

[Skep B]

List of possibilities

1 your grandparents were messing with you

2 someone who is close to them got in, deactivated the system, then siphoned the water out a window.

3. sleepwalking

4. you are making the story up

5.very, very thirsty fish

Edited November 26, 2013 by Kelevra

[DeWitz]

Kelevera may be onto something with # 2 in post 14. This has the flavor of an elaborately staged prank or practical joke. However, the notions of a wormhole or time warp or distortion in the space-time continuum have a certain metaphysical cachet, as well. . .

[Skep B]

Lets not count out those fish.....shifty bunch, with their suicide pranks

[BettyTheYeti]

I remember a well documented case of someone sleepwalking and emptying their tank, and it quicker (and more easily) than when they were awake.

That is your most likely answer.

[George Ford]

I remember a well documented case of someone sleepwalking and emptying their tank, and it quicker (and more easily) than when they were awake.

That is your most likely answer.

I dunno, 60 Gallons is a lot of water to move and there was someone else in the house the whole time who didn't hear anything. Plus if none of the fish were missing or in the sink then it is unlikely that large container like a bucket or jug were used. So if it was something like an empty soda bottle, lets say an empty 2 liter coke bottle, then for 60 US gallons of water, that is 227 liters at 2 liters per trip so 113 trips, it would take a minute or so to fill and a few seconds to empty so that plus travel time and you are talking about a minimum of 2 hours of constant water moving. I just can;t see that happening. Although I do not have any less odd solutions to offer.

[Eldorado]

Evaporation?

[Sakari]

I dunno, 60 Gallons is a lot of water to move and there was someone else in the house the whole time who didn't hear anything. Plus if none of the fish were missing or in the sink then it is unlikely that large container like a bucket or jug were used. So if it was something like an empty soda bottle, lets say an empty 2 liter coke bottle, then for 60 US gallons of water, that is 227 liters at 2 liters per trip so 113 trips, it would take a minute or so to fill and a few seconds to empty so that plus travel time and you are talking about a minimum of 2 hours of constant water moving. I just can;t see that happening. Although I do not have any less odd solutions to offer.

Talking yourself into it being Paranormal I see.

[Mr.United_Nations]

magic trick?

[toast]

BS

[Nicefellow]

Hi,

This same thing happened to me yesterday. I have a 30 gal tank I've been using for over 2 years with no problems. I moved it from my place to a new house. Put in water, fish, ornaments, under gravel filter and air pump at 10:30am. My wife and friend saw me do this. I returned at 8pm, and tank was empty. All fish but 3 were dead. No water on tile floor, no water in surrounding wood floor, no water damage to pressboard tank stand. Filter was making noise because no water, air pump was working also. I didn't think of aliens, but maybe bad spirits in new house. My wife refuses to sleep there, and I'll get a priest to bless the home before we do.

[Sakari]

Thirsty fish

[Nicefellow]

Forgot to add, no pets or anyone has access to the house. House was secured; we're still moving in.