What is the biggest mistake you made as a noob???

[SeahorseKeeper]

Or maybe just thought it was OK and it backfired?


Mine is using tap water. My tank had a pretty long bout with cyano that took awhile to get rid of.

 

[Pappy]

Dosing buffer and purple up everyday without testing because the Lfs said to. thank god for the forums!


Mike D "like the beastie boys" Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AZDesertRat]

Adding a sand sifting star against everyones advice not to. My 100G, 5-6" thriving Southdown DSB looked like the Sahara desert with no life whatsoever in 3 months. To this day still the stupidest mistake I ever made.
Second dumbest was not attacking mojano anemones as soon as they showed up. I waited too late and they wiped out my SPS population.

 

[Pkunk35]

having a carpet anemone tank and then thinking a jawfish could somehow live in there.

He did for about 12 hours.

wow. it looks even more stupid when i write it out.

 

[ritter6788]

I have so many...

The worst was adding some ph buffer straight to the tank and frying a frogspawn, torch and trachy right in front of my eyes.

I preach now AGAINST trying to move ph in a reef tank. Not only for those reasons but because many aren't aware of the alkalinity spikes involved with it.

 

[pgr11]

buying too small of a tank when I knew darn well I should have gone bigger.

 

[illdoya]

buying too small of a tank when I knew darn well I should have gone bigger.

+1

Biggest mistake I've made more than once - impulse/cheap purchases. I've upgraded almost every item I've bought.

I know you read it all the time on the forums, but research research research. I would actually have more if I hadn't wasted money by buying w/o the proper research.

 

[NanoNathan]

well i bought a 125g 6' rimless tank knowing i wouldnt be able to set it up till next year in a new house... now it sits in my hallway as a large decoration. :squigglemouth:.. but the deal was to good to say no... but i think the waiting a year in more trouble then the deal lol...

 

[mainereefer]

I doubled the amount of salt when I did a waterchange in a 20g sps growout tank watched about $3000 melt about an hour later.
I tried to save them but nothing I could do at that point.

always double check salinity when doing a waterchange

 

[Kbra]

Did a 50% water change and forgot to add the salt

 

[BillyC]

I used to top off my 55g with salt water instead of R.O. water. I was wondering how everyone hadn't lost their patience mixing saltwater every night and how expensive all this salt was going to be.

 

[richfavinger]

Buying a $25 Yellow Tang (average size) with in the first week of setting my my very first 20g Saltwater Fish tank... Never being told by the LFS that then tank needed to "cycle" and I'd need to test things... Seeing now 15 years later that tangs should not really be in tanks smaller then 90g, and cycles take 3-6 weeks.

Scary knowing that I now know more about saltwater and reef aquaria then most of our remaining local stores.

 

[scott89wing]

left my tank out in our breeze way and didnt get everything and everyone moved inside before summer hit and every thing got to hot and lost all my coral and fish

 

[Reefing8EZ]

I regret not finding R2R before I began my first attempt at a reef tank!

 

[Reginald]

started off with a single 30" t8 fixture on a 48" tank was one big mistake and then another mistake was dosing a PH raiser straight into the tank and watched it kill my coral beauty and half of my corals

 

[AsphaltPays]

+1

Biggest mistake I've made more than once - impulse/cheap purchases. I've upgraded almost every item I've bought.

I know you read it all the time on the forums, but research research research. I would actually have more if I hadn't wasted money by buying w/o the proper research.

Isn't That the truth !!


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

 

[Steelerfan747]

Well besides electricuiting my tank and feeling I could keep all the fish I wanted and all different types of corals using a cheap skimmer that could not skim a filtered 16oz bottle of water lol, I would have to say it would be thinking I could put together my own acrylic tank and used silicone could you say crack, snapple and splash

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Instant Ocean was my first salt, I switched to more expensive brands and now after so many years I am back to it, in between I $$$$pended meaningless

 

[Electrobes]

When I first started, the craze to to feed the tank everything under the sun many times a day. I, of course, did this without the appropriate filtration and bombed out my sand bed pretty quickly, which then caused all sorts of problems in my tank.

 

[chestnud]

My first mistake was always using salt for top off water, (also seems to be the case with many customers who have come into the store.) We now give out a list of 10 tips/mistakes on a printout to help new sw hobbyists