what's the worst mistake you ever made?

[kindaobsessed]

as a newbie, its important (and less costly) if you're able to learn from the experienced hobbiest. so, i'm curious as to what the biggest mistake(s) you folks have made in this hobby? inquiring minds wanna know. thanks in advance

 

[bas12547]

Starting with too small a tank...
Brian

 

[chef jaysen]

Jumping in too fast without research was the biggest mistake.
One dumb mistake I made was too dump my live sand into fresh water before I mixed the salt .

 

[beefcake]

No mistakes yet, just starting out.

 

[d233]

Not buying all the LR I need at frist.

 

[yetex]

I poured water from the lfs in with my ten gallon tank. And worried about copper once i realized what i did. It turned out ok though.
i guess i was lucky

 

[steve40]

Doing a simple little water change and over filling the tank because i thought the filter was big enough to handle it.

 

[entice59]

not knowing how to cycle a tank and adding a big condi, the same month

 

[katara]

Anenome..once it died, it killed EVERTHING;Plus I was stupid enough to try it again.I strongly believe they are only for the very,very experienced.

 

[karenjo]

How did an anemone death kill the whole tank?
Just wonderin

 

[entice59]

i dont exactly what it does, but when my anomie died, it clouded up the water and i think that killed my clams

 

[marinefish]

stupidest thing i did was reach into a tank with a mantis shrimp. i did that not knowing what it was when i first started this hobby a little more then a year ago. althought i didnt get hurt, but after the lfs provoked it and showed me what it can do....i swear i never go near that thing again. that thing move so fast and hit so hard, i swear it left a mark on the tong.

 

[nerdy]

Purchasing cheap equipment because I did not want to spend the extra money. I ended up having to buy the more expensive equipment anyway because the cheap stuff crapped out or didn't do the proper job.

 

[fshhub]

got impatient and listened to those who do not always know what they are talking about
ex. my lfs's, although we think they know it, often they know less than we give them credit for
I listened to them, faithfully, unfortunately, and paid for it
as for the anemone, sometimes they do poison the tank when the die
BE PATIENT AND HEED WHAT WE HERE ARE TRYING TO TELL YOU. Remember, we have nothing to gain, AND only want to help. Plus, as mentioned, these are things we are trying to help others avoid, since we had done it too

 

[fido]

I made a dumb mistake when I first started.
I got uncured rock and cured it in the aquarium with the sand in it....so all the die off went into the sand. So I had tons of excess nutrients in the sandbed that fouled it all up.

 

[newreefers]

My hubby surprised me with a fish that I had been wanting and when he aclimated the fish he put the lfs water into our tank. Their water had nitrites and caused our tank to crash, lost everything. Jamie (hubby) won't even go near the tanks now, which is a shame, I never blamed him, but please, DON'T EVER PUT LFS WATER INTO YOUR TANKS.!!!

 

[thankgod4fish]

purchased saltwater fish for dummies. although published relatively recently, some of the methods seem ancient. this site has taught me more than that whole book.

 

[pirate_bob]

I put used sand from another tank into my fuge and started a whole new cycle on that fuge and tank and killed half my live stock.... I know alot of people will be mad at me when they hear that but at the time i didn't know....

 

[marinemarty]

getting damsels to cycle tank. Had to break down ALL my LR to catch them NASTY guys. HTH
Martin

 

[eelfreakrobi]

The biggest mistake I ever did, was put the tank in an air conditioned room and live in warm temperatures, so when the air turned off the heat would rise and it killed all my fish, thank god I realized the problem and moved it out of the a/c fast, but still felt very sad for the losses.