What’s the worst mistake you have made reefing?

[Nanolifeuk]

I’m talking full on face palm moment. I just did a water change and about 5L into it realised the hose was on the carpet and not in the bucket.

This isn’t the worst though. By far the worst mistake I made was doing a 50% water change and forgetting to add salt. No idea how my fish survived that one.

 

[BaliReefBox]

mixing salt and rodi in a 500ml container and pouring it into th tank......not all the salt was dissolved and ended up settling onto one of the torches....all those crystals the torch didnt appreciate and he shed a good deal... survived though....and my first sps insta frag when i dropped a relly nice large piece....do you want me to keep going? this has and will be for a long time a VERY steep learning curve

 

[OscarHaglund]

I have forgot to turn the ato back on after a water vhange and then leave on vacation

 

[PeterEde]

Starting

 

[Mark Goode]

Beat me to it.

 

[billyocean]

Going out of town..lol

 

[NanoJHB]

Dosing 5ml of phytoplankton twice a day to my 2 month year old 10 gallon that hardly had any corals. After a week my fish were looking terrible and for the life of me couldn't figure out what was wrong. Carried on going for another week.

Lost everything from the ammonia spike, before realizing it was all the phyto.... managed to save 2 clowns, one of them being me lol.

 

[Gtinnel]

When I first setup my system I didn’t take into account that the way I had it setup my ATO would start a siphon and I overflowed my sump with freshwater, luckily there were no inhabitants yet.
The way I currently add rodi water to my ATO reservoir is with a pump in a different room of my house, well a few months back I turned on the pump and forgot to turn it back off, so again I overflowed my sump. Luckily I didn’t have any causalities from it.

 

[Nanolifeuk]

I have forgot to turn the ato back on after a water vhange and then leave on vacation

I’m guilty of this one but never that long haha

 

[Nanolifeuk]

Dosing 5ml of phytoplankton twice a day to my 2 month year old 10 gallon that hardly had any corals. After a week my fish were looking terrible and for the life of me couldn't figure out what was wrong. Carried on going for another week.

I just started with reef-roids. Tank is 14 month or so and I’m still petrified of overdoing it. Feed about 1/8th teaspoon a week (16Gal)

 

[KStatefan]

Starting

This

 

[NanoJHB]

I just started with reef-roids. Tank is 14 month or so and I’m still petrified of overdoing it. Feed about 1/8th teaspoon a week (16Gal)

Think the biggest thing is being aware if it, I was brand new to the hobby and from my online reading, phyto was gold... hence the excessive amounts I was pouring in haha

 

[JaaxReef]

A lot of these are ATO mistakes; Ha!

Right after my daughter was born, I was tired and probably not thinking. Cleaned my ATO pump and put it back on the tank and turned it back on before bed. Woke up in the middle of the night to the ATO alarm for low water beeping and water dripping through the ceiling on the floor below. It pumped the 1.5 gallons left in the ATO container (thank God it wasn’t full) right onto the floor. Completely forgot to put the ATO hose back in the holder in the sump… drying out inside the ceiling, replacing sheet rock, and repairing knockdown ceiling texture was a PITA. I only use a gravity fed ATO now because of this trauma…

 

[Jbell370]

Buying a tank that wouldn’t fit downstairs, thinking without measuring 2 100g storage containers would fit in the space I had, 50g ended up fitting after three trips. This skimmer is awesome, doesn’t fit in my sump or under the tank.

By far, answering gf’s question about how much this all cost.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Netting a new fish out of a bag, fish jumps out of the net and straight down an open floor waste drain where I run my waste water during water changes.

Lucky that Nemo has done that journey before so i guess he's back in the ocean. That's what I told my son.

 

[dmsc2fs]

Getting my parter into the hobby with a fondness for Fairy Wrasse

 

[Jekyl]

GSP. No reason it should be in the hobby.

 

[Nanolifeuk]

GSP. No reason it should be in the hobby.

I’ve had it about three weeks and already lost a frag plug holder to it

 

[fish farmer]

GSP. No reason it should be in the hobby.

Added discoma mushrooms.

Worst is cracking my tank while fiddling with overflow plumbing.

 

[Jack Ravensbergen]

To start this obsession in the first place