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

[jonbar1]

Easily my biggest mistake, and one I STILL pay for...don't try this at home!

When I first set up my tank I was heavy into freshwater tanks, and especially freshwater planted tanks. I hadn't thought ahead that I might actually want a tank full of corals and coralline algae. So one fateful day when I went to get my cured live rock from a local fish store, I saw a large rock with some plant life growing on it. How cool I thought it would be to have saltwater plants...
Here's that rock on the right in one of my earliest pics:

Little did I know I had just introduced a life long plague into my tank. Caulerpa soon covered the rock faster than I could pull it out and managed to take over any bare rock surface. At one point I removed everything but the sand and blacked out the tank for two weeks and put in new dry pukani rock. Sure enough, within a couple months it was back in force. The only thing I have ever had that would eat it is a baby longspine black sea urchin (Diadema), but he quickly outgrew the tank and it quickly grew back once he was gone. Today I still fight it, and my weekly waterchange is mostly dedicated to pulling and siphoning out what I can get a hold of. This is probably great for nutrient export, but not a fate I would hope on anyone elses tank!

 

[Mstansbery]

took a mother colony out to frag it and then leave it outside to die while putting the frags i just cut back in the tank..

yes ive done it more than once .. in fact more than 5 time.. lol

I've done this twice...and I felt like an idiot both times!!

My biggest mistake however...was thinking I could build an acrylic tank without proper engineering!! NOOOB mistake made back in 2001

 

[Cl0ne1]

Thinking a hovens wrasse would leave small inverts alone....1 candycane pistol shrimp, 1 arrow crab, 15 nassarius snails, 10 dwarf ceriths later...$50 worth of live fish food and still no clean up crew...I was adding them all to my tank to alleviate some algea problems...oops

 

[Devonjevon]

Buying a commercial grade ozone generator. Not using a orp regulator and falling asleep on the couch until 3 am

 

[Jordan Siehr]

what does "top off" water mean?

 

[ItsNotaNemo]

Sometimes I think the biggest mistake I made was actually getting into this crazy awesome time consuming and sometimes frustrating hobby. Its just so addictive... and there just so many pretty things.

 

[osteopth]

what does "top off" water mean?

When your water evaporates, the salt stays behind. You don't have to put more salt or saltwater in, just "top off" with RO/DI and the salt concentration should remain the same. (unless you have a lot of salt spray encrysting on things).


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[osteopth]

I bought a powder blue tang because "he looked so pretty" in the store and my wife like him. Put him right in my 180 gallon display with three yellow tangs, who promptly beat the he11 out of him. The stress brought out his Ich (maybe velvet, I was such a noob). Infected the whole tank. I tried to save my corals by using reef safe treatments. Got smart when I lost all but 5 fish. 16 weeks fallow, cupramine for my remaining fish and now nothing goes in my DT without using the transfer method and QT.


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[Andrew L]

buying used tank on craigslist, not a very big mistake, just one problem with all the things that come with it?

 

[Andrew L]

Also listening to my family when they wanted to buy a butterfly fish that I said wouldnt do good and then getting a clam.

 

[ChoxRox]

buying used tank on craigslist, not a very big mistake, just one problem with all the things that come with it?

Best thing you can do to save money is buy your tank on CL, but IME you need to buy it WITHOUT supplies. The tanks are usually OK, but you definitely want to customize your aux equipment

 

[scapone]

Another big mistake dont start your tank with tap water being impatient or this will happen as it did to me

Then me fixing it
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[shovelrider]

The wife and I left town for the week on vacation, right before we left she turned the A/C off to save energy while we were gone. Just so happened a heat wave hit while we were gone. We came back and the house smelled rancid and the tank was over 100 degrees and full of death! However, my fish and a frogspawn lived through the "Nuke"...

The good = I had fragged my corals out to friends so I was able to get the same colonies going again.

 

[EmilyXLC]

My biggest mistake as a n00b?

Listening to the guy at Pet Depot & trying an 'instant cycle' with Bio-Spira. Enough said.

 

[EcoFrags]

using Garl-ich to soak frozen food and pouring that whole concoction into the tank...wiped out everything in about 15-20 minutes =/

 

[steamer51]

Bought some macro algae for my display and did not quarantine it. Tank had been running almost three years with no aiptasia since the beginning but one was hiding in the macro and I've been fighting the darn things ever since.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

I see we all have made some mistakes. Another mistake I made was thinking I could trust my sister and her kids (the ones that came were 10, 4, and 1) with my tanks. She came to visit with my mom and I. I had to work and thought everything would be OK. I was wrong my 4 year old nephew gave my fish in my nano a bubble bath (that tank was in my bedroom no one was watching him). I came home to find that tank a mess with the fish gasping for air.

 

[j.p. harrington]

not buying the top notch equipment the first time. i ended up with cheap powerheads and all to begin with only to upgrade later to the nicer equipment as far as just about everything goes. now i run H&S skimmer maxspect lighting tunze powerheads and waveboxes along with UV and reactors.

 

[Platehead]

Getting xenia into my tank. Can't get the evil stuff out.

 

[Rasengan]

Only a year and a half into my first tank of any kind (saltwater or freshwater) I'm still making mistakes...but my biggest was probably buying live rock from TBS...sure it was teeming with life...but also cirolanid isopods, gorilla crabs, and flatworms which promptly killed any fish and corals i added for the first few months

it took me about 3 months of staying up late night to turkey baster out each isopod one by one...i would catch about 15-30 isopods a night on the glass...took me over a year to get the last gorilla crab out...i don't know how many times during that past year i just wanted to throw in the towel and quit before i even got started