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

[Derek Kennedy]

Used regular tap water. Green hair ruined that tank. Live and learn

 

[GraphicReefer]

Oh my gosh. My husband would have died. He is terrified of snakes. How did you get it out without getting bitten?

I let him swim face first into the largest net I had and kinda scooped him out before he could turn around and find his way back out and dropped the net and everything in a 50 gallon Brute trashcan I had next to the tank ( Cant climb the sides) . Took the whole can outside and just tipped it over... They're not necessarily aggressive snakes, just dangerous. He went on his merry way...

 

[cnseekatz]

When first introduced to the hobby I collected rock and dead coral skeletons ( I live in florida and they dredge rivers a lot so neat stuff comes to shore ) from my yard and placed them in my tank filled with saltwater without any prior preparation. When I came back in my bedroom five minutes later I had a coral snake ( very venomous, ironic name too lol ) swimming back and forth in my tank. It was hiding in one of the rocks... Im a Genius! I knew some about saltwater tank pests but never thought a snake would be one of them lol. Talk about a fiasco trying to get that thing out!

No. messing. Way.

 

[Vahanyos]

I'll start...

When I first got into the aquarium hobby, I started with a simple 10 gallon freshwater tank without doing any research. Went to Walmart, picked up a 10 gallon starter kit and strutted out the store as if I were getting ready to house a new species of fish that would change the world. I figure I'll just fill it and add fish...how much easier could this be. After a few days of adding water, the tank would get nasty!! I told myself, "what the heck did I do wrong?". So naturally, I emptied the contents, including the fish, and threw everything in the dishwasher to get cleaned....then started over.

A week later...same problem. "what the heck is going on with this darn filter?!" I told myself. So once again, dishwasher it went, I even scrubbed the equipment with the best Dawn soap I had. After the tank got ugly the 3rd time, I decided to finally do some research to see what the heck was happening and guess what the problem was....Nothing! My tank was trying to cycle. So the 4th time, I let it go and a little over a week later...crystal clear water, healthy fish, no problems for years. There were times where I didn't touch the water for weeks except to top it off.

That was the biggest amateur move I've ever made and still shake my head when I think about it but after tons of reading up on aquariums, I'm understanding it more and more everyday. We won't mention the fact that I didn't think about back siphon and flooded my basement floor 1 day after running my saltwater tank with the ATO pump hosing.

What's your story?? C'mon...it'll be out secret...

Using USED live rock and sand. I learned my lesson lol. Always start with fresh new stuff unless you know where it's coming from. In this hobby I learned another persons trash is probably not your treasure. Can't say the same for dry goods but for live stuff definitely be careful of that. Oh, and also not being patient! Patience goes a long way in this hobby. Stock slow, and observe!

 

[mkj]

poring skimmer contents "skimmate" over some house plants thinking it would be good for them. Forgot about the salt and they all died

 

[Forsaken77]

My first saltwater tank was a 72 bow tank FOWLR predator tank. My first big mistake was buying fish that would grow way too big for the tank. I had a Panther Grouper, Harlequin Tuskfish, Volitan Lionfish, Longhorn Cowfish, Clown Trigger, Huma Huma Trigger, Niger Trigger, and a Lunar Wrasse.

I then added a frogfish because it looked cool but that little *#&@ would dangle his thing on his head to lure the fish in and caught him with the 5" Lunar Wrasse hanging halfway out of his mouth. I pulled the fish out but he was already partly eaten... Yuk. So bye-bye went the frogfish.

My next huge mistake on that tank was using those plastic clamps on the vinyl return lines. This was a siphon setup. Apparently the one connecting to the pump under water snapped, the tube came off and the pump was just shooting water all over the place.

Then a few months after that disaster, the tank sprung a leak on the bottom corner and emptied 72 gallons of saltwater onto the floor, killing all the fish in the process.

It was an AWESOME predator tank, but those fish would've easily outgrown the setup had they lived. This was before the internet was big, lile 20 years ago.

After that I scrapped everything and got back into the hobby 2 years ago. Now I use 2 Titan Titanium clamps on each end of the pump line just in case, lol.

The weird thing was that I had an overstocked tank, no protein skimmer, a big Marineland sump with those giant bio-wheels, rarely, if ever, did water changes and my parameters were always good. I never had diatoms or algae outbreaks, but occasionally had cyano.

Now I have more filtration crap on my tank and have constant algae problems even though my nitrates are 2ppm and phosphates are .03ppm and do weekly 20% water changes.

Go figure...

 

[Jizu Puentes]

Used a hydrometer for a year. Once I got a refractometer I found that the hydrometer was off by .003 and my tank was at 1.028

 

[ChuzUThisDay]

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

Yeah, me too. I couldn't figure out why everything was shriveling and dying, but the fish looked amazingly healthy. Who'd have thought a water hose wouldn't work for returning water from a sump to the DT...lol.

This is a great topic by the way. Hopefully some of the newer members can benefit from out mistakes.

 

[mkj]

Used a hydrometer for a year. Once I got a refractometer I found that the hydrometer was off by .003 and my tank was at 1.028

if that's your biggest mistake that's incredible. I think that should be in a thread called smallest mistake not biggest. Consistency is key and 1.028 kept consistent isn't a problem.

 

[Mini Coop]

Tap water set up and first 2 water changes - advised by a "saltwater expert" friend.

Yup. Did not turn out well. But now - looking back. I'm glad. I've learned way more from that mistake and found this amazing group of people on R2R because of it.
And now I research EVERYTHING before I do it!

 

[Hyde2406]

When first introduced to the hobby I collected rock and dead coral skeletons ( I live in florida and they dredge rivers a lot so neat stuff comes to shore ) from my yard and placed them in my tank filled with saltwater without any prior preparation. When I came back in my bedroom five minutes later I had a coral snake ( very venomous, ironic name too lol ) swimming back and forth in my tank. It was hiding in one of the rocks... Im a Genius! I knew some about saltwater tank pests but never thought a snake would be one of them lol. Talk about a fiasco trying to get that thing out!

I've pulled hermit crabs, tiny tiny burrowing clams things, stray washed up seaweed but not any more, never a problem just scared to kill coal or fish ice had for years. Used to get cool things that came in with the ghost shrimp to my local fish store, some of those things get big hungry and mean

 

[Hyde2406]

I've not ice stupid autocorrect

 

[Oberst Oswald]

Labor Day weekend 1983... Had an impressive collection of Synodontis catfish (won 3rd place in a fish show with a Synodontis Decorus) in a 90 gallon DT tank. Bought a big Eheim canister filter to replace the hang on the back filter. Installed and tested, fed the fish (boiled zucuinni) and went away to enjoy the 3 day weekend. It was a very hot weekend with no A/C in the apartment. Came back home to find every fish dead. The Eheim filter was so much better than what I had... it clogged up with the zucuinni and stopped the water flow to almost nothing. Broke my heart, got rid of the 9 tanks I had and did not have another fish tank until last year which is my present 65 gallon reef.

 

[mkutsch]

Well, here's another, but not quite my fault... I had paid for a flaming prawn shrimp goby upfront then asked the guy to keep him for the weekend. He said sure, and did so... and when I got back, I found that the guy was on 'vacation.' I went to the tank where my little guy should've been hopping around, but all I found was a pseudocorynactis, or an orange ball anemone. The staff then proceeded to say, when asked, "Oh, so that was what that tail was, sticking out of the mouth!" I was dumbfounded, as he bounced away to the next customer. Needless to say, I won't be going back there again.

 

[scottbapilot]

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

(I wasn't new in the hobby either)

I still do that at least once a month, But just a few gallons on the kitchen floor.

 

[mkutsch]

Ohh, yikes... Hope you don't have wood!!

 

[LBReefer]

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

I did that ...

 

[TobySaelee]

The dumbest thing I did was listen to someone who had NO EXPERIENCE in the hobby(my own fault for not doing my own researches)... I started off with a 10g and when the water would evaporate,I asked him what to do,he told me to add more saltwater(water leaves,salt doesnt) so my salinity shot up.

 

[Dub_G]

Within a month of starting our first tank, my wife and I found an ad on-line for somebody taking their system down and was selling live rocks with the corals attached. We went and bought several large pieces of rock. The largest was covered with what appeared to be some great green soft corals. Little did we know that it was a rock that was fully covered with mojano anemones. We did get some other nice pieces of corals, but I'm still battling trying to eradicate the mojanos from the tank some 6-7 months later.

 

[GnarleyMarley]

Spending $350 on a corallife ss220 lol I guess that goes hand in hand with following the lfs recommendations