So I thought I'd do something nice for my fish (350l community tank) and decided to try and grow a moss wall along the back to give a more natural feel to the tank. Did a load of research on the best way to do it, chose my materials carefully and spent about an hour threading all the Christmas moss through the aquarium mesh, mounting the whole thing onto suckers and putting it in the tank.
Looked great, (if patchy but will grow in), and what was better the fish were all really curious and went for a look, started nibbling etc and seemed to really like it.
That was 2 days ago and all good until this just now I saw one of my barbs had somehow got himself stuck behind the mesh (so behind the mesh and the glass). He can't have been there that long (all accounted for this morning) but I was too late in seeing him and he had died :(
I feel so guilty! He would never have died if it weren't for me trying to do something too clever for my own good. I've hauled out the moss wall and made some adjustments and reinstalled and I'm confident there are now NO gaps or anything where a fish could get in behind, but I still feel so bad.
I know I'm probably overthinking things, no doubt most will say 'it's just a fish'. But I love my fish and they are my responsibility and I want them to be happy and healthy and have good long lives.
Of course I've lost the occasional fish to illness over the years, but this is different somehow. Because it died from something I did rather than natural causes.
Anyone else ever accidently killed or injured a fish??