My worst was doing maintenance on a canister filter and missing an o ring. Pumped 50 gallons of salt water on the floor and then it drained into my basement. Needless to say that was the last canister filter I ever had.
ADMIT IT: What is the most insane, craziest thing you have ever done in the hobby?
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tony'stank
Active Member
When I vacationed in the Bahamas in 1985 I decided it would be nice to bring a piece of live rock home. I carefully placed in plastic bags and put it in my carryon. While waiting at the airport I noticed water leaking from my carryon. I went to the gift shop and begged for some more plastic bags. I rebadged the rock. When my carryon went through the XRay conveyer belt the leaking saltwater shorted out the belt. The Bahamian security guard unpacked my bag. I thought I was in big trouble and headed for a Bahamian jail. Instead he said “ it’s nothing but a rock” and let me keep it. That rock was in my tanks for 20 years.
SimplyVibing
Active Member
Three words: Craigslist live rock
Some dude broke down his 200g and was selling it super cheap. It was in a bucket of saltwater for who knows how long. I had been in the hobby for about a month. The rocks are really neat but dumped ungodly amounts of nitrates and ammonia into my tank, which completely crashed a 20 gallon and killed my two clownfish (the only inhabitants).
A year later they’re in my 50 tall and actually look great, covered in coraline and I got probably 30-40 pounds for $20. Not a bad idea IF you put the rocks in an uninhabited tank and let them dump their nasties for a long time before moving it to the display tank.
Some dude broke down his 200g and was selling it super cheap. It was in a bucket of saltwater for who knows how long. I had been in the hobby for about a month. The rocks are really neat but dumped ungodly amounts of nitrates and ammonia into my tank, which completely crashed a 20 gallon and killed my two clownfish (the only inhabitants).
A year later they’re in my 50 tall and actually look great, covered in coraline and I got probably 30-40 pounds for $20. Not a bad idea IF you put the rocks in an uninhabited tank and let them dump their nasties for a long time before moving it to the display tank.
Iván Olalla
Well-Known Member
Worst of mine almost made me quit the hobby and crashed a 6/7 years old sps tank.... Before going on vacation i refilled my co2 cylinder (ca reactor), my ATO with fresh water and the kalk bucket with 5 gallons of fully saturated lime water... after checking timers, feeder, battery backup and some other things i decided to clean my ph probes and calibrate them.... here it goes: i placed the CA reactor ph probe in the sump and the ph tank probe in the reactor, the controller (Reefkeeper) did its work, injected co2 to the reactor since ph readings were high and dosed kalk to the tank since the ph read low.... you get the picture....
I sacrifced a domino damsel to a 3 foot nuese shark for killing a powder blue tang. I did rescue the fish before he was dinner. unfortunatly stress got him shortly after rescue.
Erick375
Community Member
First tank, I had no idea you couldn't just mix saltwater by just scooping salt into the sump. Mixes it up just fine!! This went on for months until I came across an article listing "best ways to kill your fish" or something like that and um I modified my procedure going forward.....
LARedstickreefer
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I split my guts laughing out loud before I finished reading.For my first tank, I had heard of putting one raw shrimp in to feed the bacterial cycle. But I saw a salmon head at the store for cheap so thought more is better, right? And of course started this right before I left town for a week, you know so that the tank will be ready when I got back in town. Not only did I come back to a totally disgusting sesspool, the salmon grease had made my fitting leak which emptied a bunch of water through the floor into the basement. Surprisingly I was somehow able to recover, and the wife didn’t make me sell the whole setup! A good lesson to never change anything a few weeks before leaving town, which I still struggle to follow that rule.
FYI:
The secret when using a salmon head is that you have to turn up the tank temperature to boiling first.
Thanks for making me laugh
Power outage caused salt water to siphon out of the tank and into the tile floor elec shorted causing a fire that partially burned the wood stand. I came home from work and found tank nearly empty house full of smoke and floor 1/2” deep in water.
tehmadreefer
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Had movers move 2 x 50g totes with rock in them a few years back. They wondered what was so heavy, so and looked inside to find a bunch of rocks. The look on their faces was like they couldn’t believe they were actually having carry a bunch of rocks. I didn’t tell them what it was for though, ha.
Erick375
Community Member
I love the picture of your shirt, need to get one of those.
ONCE! and only once I told my wife I had just bought a 120.00 coral. That was the real price that I paid and I was young and naive and thought honestly was the best policy with my wife with whom I had been married for 3 years at that point. Now at 16 years I know better and she still gets curious when the clear bags in boxes show up. Not cause she is excited but I think its because she is looking for a receipt. Did you know some retailers will write you up a wife friendly receipt if you ask They dont laugh or anything I think its common practice.
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