Biggest mistake you made as a newbie?

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Sorry if this is a repeat of a prior topic, but I want to hear the biggest mistakes you made as a newbie! Maybe I can avoid them, or we can just have a laugh.

When I was new to salt I poured salt mix directly into my display tank, which had a coral in it. The coral was not happy lol.

What about you?

 

[slingfox]

Starting my first reef tank with all dry Marco Rock and bagged sand. This resulted in nightmarish battles with the uglies which almost made me quit. After two years I restarted with 100% ocean live rock and the experience has been much more enjoyable!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

My biggest newbie mistake was not putting drip loops onto my wires, I once had smoke and sparks coming from the power bar from water running down the wire.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

thinking it wont cost much

 

[13rodo]

Starting my first reef tank with all dry Marco Rock and bagged sand. This resulted in nightmarish battles with the uglies which almost made me quit. After two years I restarted with 100% ocean live rock and the experience has been much more enjoyable!

This for sure!

 

[edsbeaker]

Never walk away from a pump that is transferring water from one container to another. It doesn’t ends well.

 

[13rodo]

Don’t walk away from a pump that is transferring water from one bin to another. It never ends well.

I once stopped up the sink so I could fill it up and soak some containers. Then I walked away and got distracted... luckily the flood was confined to the bathroom.

 

[EnterName]

Leaving my RO/DI system running and forgetting about it. Happened more than once.

By now, I have bought a timer for the power outlet which I can program to stop before whatever I'm filling with RO/DI starts to overflow. This way I can safely forget about it

 

[edsbeaker]

I once stopped up the sink so I could fill it up and soak some containers. Then I walked away and got distracted... luckily the flood was confined to the bathroom.

The good part is most of us make the same mistake just once, and learn from it. The bad part is there are hundreds of mistakes that can be made!

For me it’s been 30 years and I’m still learning from it!!!

 

[fishface NJ]

My newbie mistake (1990's): Coming off of fresh water aquarium keeping, I was doing maintenance on my saltwater tank for the first time. I rinsed my live pukani rock in the sink and scrubbed it with a brush.

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

Starting my first reef tank with all dry Marco Rock and bagged sand. This resulted in nightmarish battles with the uglies which almost made me quit. After two years I restarted with 100% ocean live rock and the experience has been much more enjoyable!

This one is so true. It’s so much easier with live rock

 

[JumboShrimp]

Watching a Unicorn Tang grow so fast in just 7-days that I KNEW I had to immediately return him to the LFS.

 

[EricR]

I let my phosphates bottom out for too long and ended up with dinoflagellates. That was not fun.
*whether or not that was the ONLY cause, I can't say 100% but seems like a fairly common chain of events

 

[Tangdora]

Thinking I could tame a clown trigger in a reef tank. Such a gorgeous fish. The massacre that quickly ensued after…. Not so pleasant to see.