About 10 pm I went into the garage and found 5 dozen chubs floating in a frothing mess. 
Found out that my 4 and 7 y/o thought it was fun putting ‘stuff’ in the tank. And somehow they had managed to dislodge the filter so everything was was getting sucked into the pump. Needless to say, the pump started heating up and turned the bait tank into a hot tub, foam and all. 
So who else has horror stories like this? I am hoping I am not the only one!!
I thought I was going to read a horror story about a drowning or near-drowning. Be thankful that all you lost was some bait!
I used to keep a bait tank in the basement because it stayed cool down there. Got home from a 4th of July long weekend to find a similar situation as you with a clogged filter. If you can’t imagine the stench of a few dozen decaying bullies in your house, it is awful.
Horrific is right. In high school out Horticulture Club raised tilapia in huge 10,000 gallon tanks in one of the greenhouses. Someone cleaned the tank before spring break, which necessitated unplugging the pumps. That person neglected to plug them back in… Stench City.
I came home one weekend away to find out that Chubs are a relative to the flying carp…Had quite a stinky mess to clean up on my garage floor.
Needless to say, i’ve learned how to use a cover on my bait tank now.
Well my horror story wasnt a bait tank,but it did involve some very expensive fish. My 4 year old thought it would be funny to put dish soap in my salt water tank. Salt water fish and coral die very quickly when poisoned by dish soap. It killed over a $1000.00 in fish and coral. I have now given up on salt water until the kids are bigger.
Sometimes it’s not just kids that don’t mix.
Two years ago I had a full load of bullies in my chest freezer bait tank for Memorial Day. Someone (name withheld for my safety) didn’t close the hard to close and open valve.
A couple days later when the FD was checking on them, she found 300 lifeless starting to smell fish in the bottom of a dry tank. I had her turn on the freezer until I could get home to give the proper funeral.
The FW wasn’t feeling too good that day. 
On another note…has everyone taken a look at their bait tank set up for safety? What would it take for a stray neighbor kid to fall in and drown?
If your using a freezer, have you removed the locking mechanism?
An ounce of prevention…
Better a bait tank, than the toilet.. Found this “Tea cup” after disassembling the toilet. makes me now wonder where the water came from the last time she brought me a cup…
LOL, all this talk reminds me of when I was younger and I would play with my brother’s convict fish. I thought it was fun grabbing him by hand and taking him out of the water to look at…over and over and over.
We have one of those $300 special above ground pools, you know where this is going. The bully tank is a chest freezer in the backyard, I honestly get to know how many and what they look like after a while, yes I admit, the bullies and me are close. I had a few larger ones in there last year, I started noticing they were getting really light colored. Having lost the whole tank a few times, I’m a little paranoid when it comes to changes. Well, come to find out the boys were giving the big bullies pool time exercise ‘so that they were ready’ for fishing. I’m really not sure how they survivied the chlorine, but very few died and they did get a bit lighter colored.
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I used to keep a bait tank in the basement because it stayed cool down there. Got home from a 4th of July long weekend to find a similar situation as you with a clogged filter. If you can’t imagine the stench of a few dozen decaying bullies in your house, it is awful.
Blue drum? What blue drum? I don’t know what you’re talking about lady. I don’t even know your husband 
My wife had some rhubarb in the freezer in her special high-buck Tupperware containers. That rhubarb sat in there forever. One day I happened upon a good deal on some frozen smelt, which of course make great Pike bait in the winter. I dumped out her stupid rhubarb and froze the smelt in there and perhaps I maybe forgot to fully explain the situation to her. Yea, she thawed the whole bunch out while we were at work. Stunk up the house pretty good. Ruined all that bait too….
Rootski
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I used to keep a bait tank in the basement because it stayed cool down there. Got home from a 4th of July long weekend to find a similar situation as you with a clogged filter. If you can’t imagine the stench of a few dozen decaying bullies in your house, it is awful.
Blue drum? What blue drum? I don’t know what you’re talking about lady. I don’t even know your husband
My wife had some rhubarb in the freezer in her special high-buck Tupperware containers. That rhubarb sat in there forever. One day I happened upon a good deal on some frozen smelt, which of course make great Pike bait in the winter. I dumped out her stupid rhubarb and froze the smelt in there and perhaps I maybe forgot to fully explain the situation to her. Yea, she thawed the whole bunch out while we were at work. Stunk up the house pretty good. Ruined all that bait too….
Rootski
i think this needs to go in the Rhubarb recipe forum. Brian, were you still going to get a Rhubarb forum going? 
AHAHAHA RALPH!! oh man…I’m glad I read this before I almost made the same mistake of putting my bait tank in the basement..wow
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I thought I was going to read a horror story about a drowning or near-drowning. Be thankful that all you lost was some bait!
I used to keep a bait tank in the basement because it stayed cool down there. Got home from a 4th of July long weekend to find a similar situation as you with a clogged filter. If you can’t imagine the stench of a few dozen decaying bullies in your house, it is awful.
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I thought I was going to read a horror story about a drowning or near-drowning.
Dito. This is why I keep my outdoor tank locked in my dog kennel. My back yard borders an elementry school plus theres a lot of kids in the neighhorhood; I don’t want to get a bad phone call some day.
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