Stupid accidents that you have made...

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I figured this might be a good way for people to learn from OTHER peoples mistakes. Everyone makes them, and aquariums seem like a running muprhy's law example. So without further ado.. here is a list of totally stupid things I did that resulted in fish death/tank woes.

1. I had a beautiful achilies in QT with copper. Ammonia was creeping up, I didn't want to heat water for a water change..SO.. I added a cap ful of prime. Prime + copper equals toxic copper... fish dead next morning.

2. Had a friend over picking out some frags.. "man, that closed loop intake screen is filthy". .. yeah, I have been meaning to clean that ..I pull it off and throw in vinegar. Need to remember to shut the loop pump off. ... 4 hours later. bzzzzzz... what's that noise? Blue throat trigger and red tailed tamarin wrasse died in the CL inlet pipe.

3. Bought 15 anthias put in QT. didn't start copper yet. Added molly's from petco to the tank. One anthias dead...two...three. what the heck? 50% water change, added some antibiotics. three dead the next morning. "It has to be poor water quality in the small QT" Panic and threw them in my DT. four days later.. massive velvet and Euronema break out.

4. And lastly... on the wifes tank. "I think my wrasse jumped out and the cats ate him" "probably". The tank is noisy. Man, that tank is noisy. A week of listening to it. Then about 1:30AM I think... OMG.. that fish is probably stuck in the siphon tube!!! Opened it up full boar..out he plopped (he limped along for like 4 days then died). I felt absolutely horrible. I am quite certain then when I die, I am going to wake up in a closed tube full of rushing water.


Anyone else care to share? Come on now... fess up!

 

[Peach02]

I work as a casual at an LFS and made a few mistakes.

1. fell off a ladder and my hip clipped a tank, 300L of saltwater later...

2. Glass lid slipped Out of my hand, out a keyhole size hole in a tank, had to replace it.

3. underestimating my ability to be attached to a fish turning into making myself upgrade faster than I should hence tank planning now.

 

[...]

Getting a Small Tank...

 

[ApoIsland]

Forgot that aiptasia are anemone. Put aiptasia eating file fish in tank. Come home from work the first day and all 20 or so baby rock flower anemone have been eaten.

 

[Doctorgori]

Is this a attempt at comedy or a misery loves company thing?
Anyway To use the cliche’ “I could write a book...”

 

[vetteguy53081]

Like most of us, watching TV while the RO unit is running!!
YOU CAN GUESS WHAT HAPPENS NEXT !!

 

[Han]

Getting a reef lobster and putting him in a tank with a lionfish and angler. Both fish are now dead and I had to give the lobster my frag tank.

 

[TriggerFinger]

I bought some nassarius snails, never had this kind before so was unfamiliar with how they were supposed to look. I pulled one of the larger ones out to take a closer look before putting them in the tank and saw an orange flake on it’s tail. Thinking it was some type of critter, I pulled it off. I pulled off the operculum...the snail still lives and has grown a new one!! Felt terrible. Probably felt like pulling off a fingernail

 

[Indytraveler83]

My worst mistake was trying to stop the microbubbles coming from a CPR backpak skimmer. I put some media in the return chamber to "block" the bubbles, then went to the kitchen to make dinner.

Well, about a half hour later the power in the house goes out. I walk out of the kitchen and smell smoke. The media had blocked bubbles and water, so the skimmer was happily pouring 20 gallons of saltwater onto the carpet and wildly sparking T5 ballast below it.

Quite a few newbie lessons to be learned from that one...

 

[sabor]

Making RO water and forgetting to turn off my valve. Left with the family for lunch about 45 mins away and got a message from Apex saying they detect water leakage. An hour later, my floor is filled with RO water. Wife wasn’t too happy

 

[S2G]

Add me to the RO flood list. Gotta love the feeling of waking up & hearing the booster pump still running. Auto shutoff was a game changer

 

[DaneGer21]

I put a small pump in one of my old tanks while I was cleaning it. The outlet went to a filter sock which drained right back into the tank. My gf called and I decided to go to her house thinking the tank would be clean when I returned. Not to long later my apex alerted me that I had a low sump level. I turned on my IP camera and seen my 90gal tank was completely drained down to an inch of water. I drove 40mins home to find all 120+ gallons on the basement floor(finished basement). The outlet came out of the filter sock and sprayed everywhere. Fish and coral survived, but my carpet and two hydras did not. Very expensive mistake.

 

[X-37B]

Setup my carx 6 months ago.
Was adjusting needle valve and the regulator moved. Did not think anything until the morning when the bottom of my cabinet was wet and the 10lb tank was empty.
Tank ph was 7.4.
Opened windows and tank recovered with no loss.
Could have been worse.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

I have three:

Vacuuming out my sump and forgetting to turn off my heaters. The controller temp probe was in the same compartment and the house was about 70, heater set for 79. Figured out there was an issue when I saw smoke and smelled burning plastic. Melted the housing.

Was dosing two-part before having a calc reactor. Calculator had me adding 260ml of Ca, I'm pouring it in my DT from the rear side where I can't see. I knew immediately what I had done when the pH alarm went off - I had grabbed the jug of Alk instead of Ca when I measured it out. 7.8 to over 11dKH in less than 3 min. Lost 1/4 of my colonies/frags over the next two weeks.

Bought seven bimac anthias - took me a long time to find a source and actually manage to purchase them. My first anthias. Not knowing better, I treated with CP instead of copper. All but three died within an hour. I've never felt worse as a hobbyist before or after.

 

[Cell]

I set my new AI Prime 16 down on the couch while I waited for the app to go through its several minutes long start up procedure. I came back to a smoking couch because the program auto starts at 100%. I feel like this should not be the default setting.

 

[AlexG]

Lets see I have several stupid accidents I have been a part of or seen:

My stupid accidents related to aquariums

• Stirring up a 120 gallon tank with detritus that contains a long spine sea urchin 12" in diameter and then trying to scrub off algae with a hand scrubby pad = hand hitting sea urchin with lots of force which = lots of screaming profanities which = many urchin spines embedded in your hand which = having to douse hand in really hot water followed by cutting sea urchin spines out with razor blade which = stupid accident on my part.
• Overflow the RO storage tanks a few times
• When I was a kid we found out that RO storage in a garbage can with 2 wheels can be a bad idea when it decided to tip over on its own in the house dumping 30 gallons at once. Looks like a small tidal wave came out of the bathroom that day
  • Grabbing the heater that was on after the spill = burn which was also another lesson learned that day
• Not having a big enough sump to hold the tank water during a power outage = water on floor
• Grabbing a heater controller that is being rained on by an overflowing tank = electrical shock
  • Putting any electrical devices in the spill zone was a bad idea

I have also bee a witnessed to several stupid accidents related to aquariums

• Standing on 90 gallon glass tank laying on its side = glass breaky breaky (Yes this did happen at an LFS I worked at)
• Working on aquarium light fixture electrical switch while plugged in = electric shock
• Grabbing a fluorescent light fixture that fell into a tank and is still on = electric shock
• Cutting drain pipes with a reciprocating saw that are still connected to a full tank without a bulk head and just silicone = aquarium leak
• Unpacking sea anemones without gloves and then rubbing your eyes = swollen eyes and face (do not try this at home)

 

[Paul B]

When the hobby started in 1971 it was nearly impossible to get ASW so most of my water was from the East River Near Manhattan and it was hard to collect.

(It was also lousy water)
Anyway, a few months after I started the tank it was full of ich, algae, worms, cyano and everything else that is in Manhattan water.

I removed all the fish and added a cup of Clorox. (I didn't invent that, it was invented by the "Father of Salt Water Fish". The Clorox stays in there for 24 hours and it is removed with chlorine remover and carbon.

I used to do that to the NSW I would collect because at that time,I didn't want the stuff in NSW and thought I had to kill it. I don't think like that any longer.

About 20 years later I treated NSW that I collected that had red tide in it.

But this time I used "New Fresh Scent Clorox". I don't know what is in New Fresh Scent Clorox" but with in minutes most of the fish were dead or jumping out.
The anemones turned into snot and the soft corals I had didn't look to well, but they recovered, and smelled real nice.

I lost a 15 year old cusk eel, a ten year old mandarin and quite a few other fish. My fireclown lived and now is 29 years old.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

What seems like a lifetime ago.. I was a commercial marijuana grower (a legal one BTW). I had a 15,000 watt grow in my unfinished basement and a 300 gallon reservoir of nutrients. I had plumbed a one inch line from my house water supply to fill it. I don't really partake in MJ anymore but on this day I decided hey, I should smoke some of this. You know where this is going...

So I take a couple hits and start filling the reservoir. Then I go upstairs. "Hey, I'm hungry". I know!!! I am going to ride my bike up the street and get a gyro. I pedal down the street, its sunny, I'm high. "Hey, this being high thing is kind of fun..I should do this more often". I sit down and order my food, I'm looking out the window, having a good ol time.

My food comes and the waitress says "Would you like a glass of water?".....

WATER!!! OH MY GOD THE WATER!! "i need this to go, I need this to go!!".

Race home, I opened the front door and could hear the water flowing in the basement. I bolted down there and there was about 2" of water in the ENTIRE BASEMENT. Floating power strips, the whole deal. I had to put my finger in the water before wading into it to make sure I wasn't going to die.

That was the last time I have ever gotten high.

 

[Peach02]

Bought seven bimac anthias - took me a long time to find a source and actually manage to purchase them. My first anthias. Not knowing better, I treated with CP instead of copper. All but three died within an hour. I've never felt worse as a hobbyist before or after.

Do anthias not react well to CP I can’t find anything else on this.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

CP will kill anthias and hippo tangs.