What's the dumbest/biggest mistake you made when you first entered the hobby?

[mlivvy]

I used a copper return nozzle. Couldn't figure out why my corals were dying but my fish looked great.

 

[Frop]

I don't feel like I made any major mistakes. Minor stuff like not researching my RODI good enough, spending $60 on a coral. It died a couple weeks later. Shocked my fish with a water change and killed one. Dosed a little too much calcium at one time and it caused an ich outbreak.

Ive had freshwater too. But anyways.

 

[paul01]

I mixed tap water with my salt

 

[Abhishek]

Well mistakes I still do and silly ones like I didn't tighten the screws enough on my MRC reactor to cause drips yesterday and flooding 1 gallon of water .Luckily it was small amount ..

Biggest mistake was to rinse newly bought sps in RODI water after some revive dip
They died in an hour ...

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[Rick.45cal]

Forgetting the RO/DI unit was running and flooding my downstairs neighbor's apartment in college

(I wasn't new in the hobby either)

 

[tigastt]

Starting with a hex.. then upgrading to 40gb but I really want to have a trigger.. so another upgrade is needed

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

Not realizing the drain towards the bottom of the tank was meant for a closed loop system and just made it an overflow to the sump. Realized what it really was the first time I lost power and sump just wouldn't stop filling and filling and then overflowed.

 

[64Ivy]

I let a salesman talk me into purchasing a "Bumblebee Grouper" for my 55g FO. It was maybe 6". Soon I came across another name for it: juvenile Jewfish. This fish grows to be over 9 FEET long and 1000lbs! First suspected a problem when I came home from work and found my Powder Blue Tangs' tail protruding from it's mouth.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Not quarantining fish in my first saltwater tank. Lost $300+ in fish do to ich.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Using a kalkwasser paste to kill off 40 or so aptasia. The resulting Alk/ph spike killed half of the coral.

 

[Trembz]

I mixed tap water with my salt

I've been doing that for more than 5 years with no issues thus far.
Although yes a Rodi is the appropriate way to go

 

[Reef man 89]

....telling the wife the true start up cost for a new tank :/

Did the same thing and I didn't here the end of it for weeks till I started showing her pictures of some the nicest SPS tank here on R2R and the calmed her down a little bit

 

[Ashish Patel]

in 1997 I set up my first Fish only with Dead rock tank. I was about 13 years old with only information coming from a old book and LFS... I bleached my dead coral skeletons and rinsed it well (just like the LFS said) and put it back in the tank - My 2 fish died instantly. I was devastated and I literally cried myself to sleep. Don't take advice from any one person, had I used my own judgment I would never have bleached the fish I knew it was toxic but if the LFS said this is the only option then do it. To this day this was my biggest mistake

 

[becks]

I got a 30" tall tank....it's going to be drained soon as I go for a 20" tall tank once it arrives.

 

[Rob Lion]

Did the same thing and I didn't here the end of it for weeks till I started showing her pictures of some the nicest SPS tank here on R2R and the calmed her down a little bit

I've learn my lesson...... it's much better to just do it and ask for forgiveness later, than ask for permission to start with

 

[Quah]

Not QT'ing fish.
Added salt to the tank directly once. It only caused issues with a frogspawn (surprisingly) - which is still around.
Not labeling water jugs and dumped SW in a turtle tank (turtle survived but wasn't happy).
Buying water.
Not researching fish properly.
Not researching the hobby thoroughly thus learning everything the hard way.
DSB.
I could continue I imagine.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Not realizing the drain towards the bottom of the tank was meant for a closed loop system and just made it an overflow to the sump. Realized what it really was the first time I lost power and sump just wouldn't stop filling and filling and then overflowed.

 

[ca1ore]

I had my first reef tank in 1988 when nobody knew nothing about the hobby. I did a whole bunch of things then that I wouldn't dream of doing today, but they weren't really 'mistakes' necessarily.

 

[coral-boss]

Bought a 150 gallon tank and set it up on a used metal stand.... came downstairs and stepped in 2 inches of water all over my basement.... not a drop of water in the tank as the front and bottom glass separated from each other. Not a good start to the day at 6:30am

 

[coral-boss]

Forgot the mention the tank was used...... never again