what's the worst mistake you ever made?

[juddster]

adding fish and corals before the cycle was COMPLETELY done!!

 

[broomer5]

Used crush coral substate and had a heavy load of fish in a 55 gallon tank which I overfed. Struggled trying to figure out why my nitrates were always high.
Thought I could "fix" the problem ~ until I realized I could easily avoid and eliminate the causes of the problem.
The "mistake" was that I didn't take time ~ and thought that there was someTHING wrong ........ instead of someTHINGS wrong.

 

[foulbrew]

When first starting out I added a small yellow tang to my 46 gal. befor researching it. I added it thinking that if you had a saltwater tank, you had to have a tang (plus, if they aren't good for my tank why would the fish store have hundreds of them). This mistake made me vow to never purchase anything I haven't researched thoroughly, which I have stuck too.
Oh, why was it a mistake...? Tangs grow fast, too fast. It had soon become too large to be happy in my tank. Unhappy tangs are susceptable to ich - boy was that a battle. Big tangs eat alot, an awful lot. Which causes alot of waste, too much waste for my little 46, nitrates outpaced my DSB causing algae. When I finally figured out I needed to sell her I found out that Tangs are damn hard to catch in a reef tank.

 

[koiman6]

When i first got my live rock i noticed something very large crawl out of my rock and it freaked me out so i caught it in the net and threw it out. Well it turns out it was a brittle star and i would have kept it. Also i used non reef safe medication and it caused a recycle of the tank becaus it killed all my beneficial bacteria...luckily no fish were lost.

 

[reefur.]

kalkwasser OD. This actually happened to me twice early on. First time float valve in the sump got stuck in the down position (i guess salt residue or something dried and got it stuck?), and the second time i put a few hermits iun my overflow box to eat the algae inside and one was a little too big and go sucked up into the tube in my overflow box. Both time i had a 36 gal trashcan upstairs in my room for my auto-top off, full of RO and kalwasser. So once the float valve got stuck down a/o the water flow was stopped via large hermit, the entire contents of the can emptied into the tank and then onto my floor. Leaving my tank solid white in the process. Luckily at the time when this happened I only had a lion and a domino damsel so they were tough enough to survive both incidents!!!! Dont let this happen to you!

 

[birdy]

I am embarassed to mention this, but I took the screens off my skimmer and filter to clean them off and didn't put them back on right away and one of my fish got suck up into the filter.

 

[jarvis]

started off using crused coral for substrate in a tall and deep tank.
What a pain in the A$$ to clean. It acually helped me in the long run I started reading more and decided to go for a reef instead. Im not sure if that was a mistake yet. I have seen some pretty heffty credit card bills come throught. The moment I can't pay the monthly ballance in full, I will reallize Im a full blown reef addict.

 

[kindaobsessed]

never forget my first huge mistake in the fish biz. my son had a lone cichlid in a 10 gal. the water looked like pea soup. so we changed it. all of it. the fish looked happy at first, then freaked out. so we put it back in the crappy water. he probably began thinking this is what fish hell is like. he jumped out of the bowl and into the toilet. my son is crying, and i'm a mess. of course the fish died (in its own coffin), and i had a hysterical son on my hands. it was a poster-boy experience on why research is so key. now i know.

 

[slick]

My biggest mistake was turning on a powerstrip that ran my equipment with the heater still sitting on my brand new carpet. Burnt a black strip in my carpet. Bad day for me. Carpet was only 1 wk old.

 

[twicklund]

Biggest mistake...Thats a tough one..I could easily fall into the category of rushing things. I can also join the "didn't do enough research" club. But my biggest (and wetest) mistake was not having a contingency plan in case my power went off. I had a syphon created in the return line, and had my return jet way too far down into my tank...Had ALOT of water on the floor...Fortunatley, my tank is on tile.
tw

 

[moby da goby]

I actually was off to a tremendous start with my tank, bought decent equipment, test kits, had three damsels to cycle my tank with (one of which is happily swimming around in it still and survived everything). I let it cycle properly, took my time, introduced a couple more fish. Through luck more than anything, I didn't have any ich or disease problems until I put in two fish six months later.
Lesson learned...ALWAYS ALWAYS quarantine your fish. I had my entire tank wiped out within 2 weeks of ich plus complications of using so-called ich medication (hadn't read about hypo yet)
QT is the best and most reliable way to keep your tank disease free and happy. I have had the same fish for darn near one year now and I hope to keep it that way. I shudder to think of the money I wasted on fish and ich medications as well as the torture I put those fish through.
Happy fishing!
Deanna

 

[nacl-h2o]

Got married, there that's the biggest.
If your just talking about aquaria, I listend to the LFSs unconditionaly at first, then smarted up and started reading up and researching myself. This made a big difference in my success.

 

[scotts]

Hey Slick,
Got ya beat. Did that when my 5 year old daughter was standing near the aquarium on a step stool. Then thinking swiftly I put the red hot heater in the aquarium. When it broke she screamed. Now I had a broken still electrically connected heater and a hysterical child. Not a good time.
Scott