What is One Mistake You Will Never Make Again?

[Rugops]

Buying corals online.

 

[pap2]

I had my Di water running in to a 5gal btl. forgot about it and ran on my basement floor.
Noe i put my 5gal btl in a rubbermaid tub. just in case

 

[Fishy888]

Buying a tank for cheap because someone drilled the holes too close together. The resulting blowout just set me back seven months in terms of stability. At least it was caught fast enough to not be a complete disaster.

 

[schooncw]

Using Lanthanum Chloride
Filefish

 

[workhz]

Buying pretty zoa colonies on rocks with a couple of ‘ugly’ green/brown palys. Yeah, the palys take over. It’s nice that it all looks mature and grown out but it’s a sea of faded green.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

1) Using Salifert Flatworm Exit --- Used at 70% dosage strength - 40 mins after dosing 100+ fish just fell to the bottom of the tank dead. Most expensive lesson ever learned.

2) Maroon clowns should be enjoyed in other peoples tanks.

3) Two guys start reef tanks - 1 buys pretty corals frags. 1 mortgages his house and buys the most outrageously priced and fancy named coral frags that can be found. 24 months later the tanks have both grown in. One tank is not any more beautiful than the other. A mature reef tank is a thing of beauty and many of the crazy lil bits of corals don't grow into crazy colonies. Man (or person) #1 who bought pretty corals not only didn't mortgage his house, but now probably can afford a bigger tank and maybe even a bigger house.


Dave B

It's easy to forget that the bread and butter stuff is popular for a reason. A lot of super common stuff that a lot of elite reefers look down is colorful, relatively hardy or easy to grow, etc. Perfect example is Monti caps. I love them and have several frags. But for SPS, they're relatively easy, cheap, and grow fast...and a mature colony looks amazing. I don't care about name brand corals....I just buy what I like. Besides, how common is it for stuff to change color as it adapts to your tank. I've got a few $5 rescue frags that have colored up amazingly well.

 

[PhishMonger84]

forgetting to check sump levels without having an ATO and freaking out trying to find where the chemical fire smell was coming from. sump ran dry and exposed my heater for several hours. we were getting ready to go to a friends wedding

 

[vtecintegra]

Setting up a tank on carpet.

 

[Uncle99]

Using Hydrogen Peroxide to treat Dino’s.

 

[takoarm8]

Dry rock without live rock in a new tank. God created the oceans in 1 day. It took me 8 months to get coralline and biodiversity.

 

[MrGisonni]

Letting my nitrates zero out

 

[jstndnhyr]

Flipping the wrong valve on my mixing station and doing a 20% water change with rodi water instead of the saltwater.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Leaving a frag in my tank when I saw an aptaisia on it. I will get to it tomorrow

 

[FrugalReefer]

Not curing my rocks

 

[aws2266]

Not fully researching a product before using it. I used NoPoX two weeks ago and blew over the part that said to leave your skimmer running. The next day my dwarf lionfish and Fiji damsel were dead. An expensive and heartbreaking lesson to learn. Loved my lionfish.

 

[Bruttall]

Topping Off with Salt Water!! I managed to spike my salinity to nearly 1.030 about the 2nd week I had a salt tank running, Luckily I did not lose anything, though my poor Clowns did stress out a little bit.

 

[ianw163]

Dosing my fish that has marine ick with too much Ick medicine. The results where horrific But the ick died so that is somewhat a good thing

 

[j.falk]

Buying anything from LiveAquaria. Never again!

 

[UtahReefer]

Buying anything from Red Sea.

 

[flashsmith]

Not realizing how expensive this hobby is. I have expendable income and I've had all kinds of money burning hobbies but this one is by far the biggest money sink and yes I own a boat too.. I've built hot rods and restored cars nothing holds a candle to reefing. The reason is there's not a whole lot of return other than looking at your tank and never ending work and always having to spend to keep it going in the right direction. I'm absolutely over coral and will be keeping fish only in the future. I enjoy keeping fish but corals are just too much work and expense.