What are your worst/biggest mistakes?

[Flems]

Trusting a DIY auto-top off.

Rimless, topless tank = carpet surfing.

Not staying on top of water changes.

...

Getting into this hobby! (I second the love/hate relationship )

[snorvich]

Originally Posted by Wolverine

Oh, and since Steve started this thread, I'm guessing he doesn't agree with my signature.

Not necessarily so. I have witnessed too many examples to disagree.

[snorvich]

Ok, some of mine. (I mixed in the mistakes and some solutions)

1. Thinking eggcrate will keep fish in the tank
2. Lack of redundancy (for critical equipment, keep a spare)
3. Assuming that fish will get along
4. Not having meds for all treatable diseases
5. Not having a backup power source or solution when power fails
6. Buying cheap fish because they are cheap (unless you want to keep buying)
7. I now have a QT and a hospital tank
8. Not listening to advice

Of course there are more. Give me more time.

[LemonLemon]

going overseas to a 3 week India trip and leaving my aquarium with my family members and friend's care.

lost an alpha male rhomboid that spawned regularly
a NLS pellet eating mandarin (not the target mandarin..the other 1...)
alpha male marjorie wrasse
naoko's fairy wrasse
and a declivis butterflyfish.

was so depressed i decided to tear down my entire tank and build a bigger one.

[jnc914]

Originally Posted by LemonLemon

going overseas to a 3 week India trip and leaving my aquarium with my family members and friend's care.

lost an alpha male rhomboid that spawned regularly
a NLS pellet eating mandarin (not the target mandarin..the other 1...)
alpha male marjorie wrasse
naoko's fairy wrasse
and a declivis butterflyfish.

was so depressed i decided to tear down my entire tank and build a bigger one.

Geez, did your family members pour bleach in the tank? Glad to hear this tragedy lead to the creation of a new system.

[gasman059]

Way too many- all of the above at some point or another.

Pics are worth a 1000 words.
Not having a backup chiller or a controller to turn off 400 watters when the chiller dies===== tank roast!
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Not securing my rocks and having one kill this blue squamie.
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Biting more than you can chew in many many ways- fish/ tanks etc
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[iamwrasseman]

my biggest mistake was when i ended up with 16 morey eels and 18 triggers in my fish only system .it took four years to take that world apart once i changed direction .lesson well learned ,now every fish i buy i think it through first .

[Iwishihadgills]

Over feeding to the point where my filtration cant keep up causing my nitrates to soar :/.
And Also not quarantining my fish which led to the death of half my tank. And best of all buying a clowntrigger when i first started that killed three of my fish the first night i had him. Humbling experiences......

[Iwishihadgills]

Originally Posted by iamwrasseman

my biggest mistake was when i ended up with 16 morey eels and 18 triggers in my fish only system .it took four years to take that world apart once i changed direction .lesson well learned ,now every fish i buy i think it through first .

Now thats a food bill lol

[LemonLemon]

Originally Posted by jnc914

Geez, did your family members pour bleach in the tank? Glad to hear this tragedy lead to the creation of a new system.

no. it's 3 weeks. many things can happen within that time.

don't know exactly what happen. my family members are not marine inclined. so they just feed and top up water.

they dont look at the tank to spot for any changes, aggression, etc.

[jimroth]

1) Hit juvi majestic angel with copper and prazi at the same time in QT. Belly up within hours.

2) Impulse purchase of coral-eating brown heniochus. Tore my aquascape apart getting it out to save my corals.

3) Buying low quality fish from a bad LFS because they were cheap. Usually ends in death.

[Nerd1717]

Originally Posted by jimroth

3) Buying low quality fish from a bad LFS because they were cheap. Usually ends in death.

As well as low quality products for the same reason. Not only do you have to redo everything, but you have to spend the money on the right/better equipment in the end anyway!

[SDguy]

Originally Posted by gasman059

Ah, yes, I had a few of those types of mistakes back in the day

[iamwrasseman]

about a pound of **** tail shrimp per week ! yup they ate better than i back in the day.

[Iwishihadgills]

jimroth we have the same last name we might be related lol

[chingchai]

QT tank is the must.
That was my biggest mistake in 10 year experience.

[snorvich]

Originally Posted by SDguy

Ah, yes, I had a few of those types of mistakes back in the day

As have I.

[JamesJR]

After being in the hobby since my early teens I have made some mistakes. It is a lot cheaper and less heartbreaking to buy good equipment rather than replace livestock.

My biggest mistakes were

1). Not having backup plans for heat issues. I lost virtually everything in my current reef over a weekend when my ac went out. Lost a pair of clowns, flameback angel and a pair of dottybacks and all but a few of my corals (long road to recovery for my remaining ones).

2). trusting an innexpensive heater on a quarantine tank. I lost a fully grown pair of black saddle clowns overnight when the heater shot the tank up to 95

[snorvich]

Yes, I would NEVER have any heater unless it was on a runco controller. They seem like they always break in the "on" position.

[jimroth]

Originally Posted by iamwrasseman

about a pound of **** tail shrimp per week ! yup they ate better than i back in the day.

Dang, you can't say c0cktail? That's harsh. I was trying to think, what kind of shrimp could possibly be offensive? Oh, wait.

[Stanley-Reefer]

Old LFS in Charlotte sold me a masked butterfly fish and said it wouldn't touch my corals. By the time I got it out of my 180, it had eaten $500 worth of lps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tom499]

[QUOTE=jnc914;17519366]Not regularly cleaning my ORP probe and overdosed a 40 gallon tank with ozone, killing my prized mandarin that was eating frozen food. I am still heart broken over that as I have not had luck with the 2 I attempted after.

trusting my orp controller. I feel your pain.

[bradleyj]

Adding a Kleins B/F to my 65g to get rid of pest anenome's. Ate everything but.
Then doing it again 1 yr later in my big tank. Took me 5 days with my fish trap bated with sps to finally get him out.
Still can't figure out why I tried the second time.

[rrnowwho]

Replaced both 96w Power compacts and forgot to clip them in all the way. Started to shut the canopy lid and watched them both fall and shatter on the center divider. Glass and dust into the tank everywhere. Nothing died but I still find pieces of glass in the tank now and then and it’s been a couple of years. I now cover the tank anytime I work on the lights.

[64Ivy]

Not performing the necessary due diligence in regards to fish selection, i.e. adding THIS guy



to a heavily aquascaped 500g aquarium. It lived for six years and killed about a half dozen fairy wrasse during its 'tenure'.


Also, my tendencies to be both impatient and stubborn have led to several of my greatest mistakes, such as continuing to add the aforementioned fairy wrasse to the scenario above instead of just tearing down the tank and removing the pseudo. But I'm getting better about it all now. This is due to my becoming a major proponent of the 'If it ain't broke...' theory of reef keeping. Of course, there was the Crosshatch incident last year, and the urge I've been having lately to add just one more fish to the tank...ok, maybe two. But other than those few things...