BIGGEST mistake you've made in the hobby

freeborder_01

freeborder_01

Member
not sure if its a mistake as much as a close call. My local fish store recently tried to convince me that using lr, live sand and a dead shrimp wont cycle a tank, "i have 15 years experience and never once got it to work". I was told with my ammonia spike already being down from 1ppm to .5 that i needed to wait to add a damsel otherwise it would die and when my ammonia finally got to 0 1-2 months from now i could put in a damsel and recycle it the right way because the dead shrimp made the ammonia eating bacteria be bad bacteria! i was then told that my other option was to drain everything and start over. Needless to say I came on the forums, double checked what my knowledge of the cycle was ( i was right she was talking like a newbie trying to keep a tank in a freshwater goldfish bowl) and in the next 5 days my cycle was complete and i sucessfully cycles my tank in 20 days. Also when i first went in i was told by 3 people including a manager that my method of no fish cycling would take 1-6 months. But if i used their handy dandy damsel it would take as little as a week!!!
close call if it were not for all the previous knowledge all you people on this site gave me
 
maxalmon

maxalmon

Active Member
I liked the look of this "sugar fine" aragonite sand in my 215g, almost pure white and very fine, tank looked awesome until you moved something around or a powerhead or moved, then I would get these massive "white outs". After 2 months had to tear the tank down, remove the sand and replace with a courser grade of sand....
 
mr_x

mr_x

Active Member
i built my system in such a hurry, i forgot to add a single union. now if i want to do maintenance on something, i have to whip out a saw.....

 
stdreb27

stdreb27

Active Member
My biggest mistake was purchasing oddesea products. My lights almost caught of fire a couple times, then finally my tank decided to leak. So now sadly I no longer have a 180 gallon tank.
 
keri

keri

Active Member
For me it was thinking that tiny bit of macro-algae with the little hat-shapes was cute and letting it grow.....Now I'm constantly finding new shoots of caulerpa strangling Everything!!!
 
ponyta810

ponyta810

Member
joking telling my friend that he could have a panther gropuer in his 10g goldfish tank, it went rite over his head
 
ilovemytank

ilovemytank

Member
Mine definately qualifies as the " stupidest stunt yet " I decided that I needed a bunch more sand in my well stocked healthy tank. I opened the new 25 lb. bag and poured it in without washing it or use of anything to prevent a sand storm. Wish I thought of that. Can you say total wipe out of fish. Stupid!stupid!stupid! Sorry, I still get emotional over it.
 
valeram

valeram

Member
Not using a GFCI but fortunately I was able to replaced it before the day when my output hose from the pump was dislodged and spraying water on my outlet.
 
big

big

Active Member
My biggest ever was buying a boat that was too big to take out of the water without a crane..................You Know the old saying "A hole in the water you pour money into"
My second biggest mistake was having "Water in a glass hole I still pour money into.".............................The worst is,...... if the wife doesn't kill me first I am doing a bigger "Glass hole to put water into,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
funkysean5

funkysean5

Member
Originally Posted by big
http:///forum/post/2819107
My biggest ever was buying a boat that was too big to take out of the water without a crane..................You Know the old saying "A hole in the water you pour money into"
My second biggest mistake was having "Water in a glass hole I still pour money into.".............................The worst is,...... if the wife doesn't kill me first I am doing a bigger "Glass hole to put water into,,,,,,,,,,,,,
lol
 
1990jpyj

1990jpyj

Member
Originally Posted by SpiderWoman
http:///forum/post/2821202
Just about everything we did in our 55 gallon tank.
thats basically what has happened to me now. thats y i am working on a 125g. i will do this one right. now that i know alot more then i did a few years ago
 
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