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

[Peter Blue Reef]

My biggest blooper was owning a coris wrasse and no covering the tank. R.I.P. Uncle Gumby.

 

[Terry aka Cr@sh]

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

I have to agree on that very point, LOL .....now to add to that, I had on my wedding day with the stress and confusion.....My wonderful fully grown catfish panic and jump out of his giant specimen tank.
I should mention I used my net and grabbed an "ELECTRIC" catfish ushering him into the net, or at least thinking I was going to <**>
My ears still ring and when I pet my cat. her hair still stands on edge from residual static electricity. I no longer keep any eels or catfish that can jolt my stupid AS@#$ with more than a 9 volt battery.
After returning home from reception, my octopus tank was empty and found, it shouldn't be hard to find an escaped octopus in a studio apt right? all I found was a giant fuzzball under my bed, then realized....'It was breathing" ...ya know, I rinsed him off and he was fine after I gave him a crab. I have no idea how long he was exploring my house because we were out 10 to 12 hours........ He did a great job of dusting my floors by the way.....hardy creatures and amazingly me too after that "SHOCK OF MY LIFE" ! I'm glad I didn't set up my piranha tank yet, who know's what chaos that would bring with my luck. Do piranha's eat wedding leftovers? ;Smuggrin

 

[Seyoz]

Didn't use the scientific Latin classification, but knew all the Trade Names.

 

[Jisko]

Buying cheap equipment to save money.

yup going cheap can sometimes just wreck a build before it even gets going

 

[jd371]

Not drilling my tank and not having a secure enough lid, lost a Red Margin Wrasse a couple of months ago.

 

[Seyoz]

Buying Anything Made in China for Aquarium..

 

[Seyoz]

I have to agree on that very point, LOL .....now to add to that, I had on my wedding day with the stress and confusion.....My wonderful fully grown catfish panic and jump out of his giant specimen tank.
I should mention I used my net and grabbed an "ELECTRIC" catfish ushering him into the net, or at least thinking I was going to <**>
My ears still ring and when I pet my cat. her hair still stands on edge from residual static electricity. I no longer keep any eels or catfish that can jolt my stupid AS@#$ with more than a 9 volt battery.
After returning home from reception, my octopus tank was empty and found, it shouldn't be hard to find an escaped octopus in a studio apt right? all I found was a giant fuzzball under my bed, then realized....'It was breathing" ...ya know, I rinsed him off and he was fine after I gave him a crab. I have no idea how long he was exploring my house because we were out 10 to 12 hours........ He did a great job of dusting my floors by the way.....hardy creatures and amazingly me too after that "SHOCK OF MY LIFE" ! I'm glad I didn't set up my piranha tank yet, who know's what chaos that would bring with my luck. Do piranha's eat wedding leftovers? ;Smuggrin

dang, that's why Most Husband's don't wanna bring Wife to Store with Easy to Read Price Tags!
Drop off to get nails done and save yourself the future regret after she seen purchase.

 

[Brew12]

Starting up my first tank I saw all the "experts" were using GFO so I figured I should to. And if some is good, more must be better. Quickly found out that corals like phosphates. Learned that if you know what to look for, and do your testing, your tank will tell you what it needs. It is not good to just add something or start dosing something just because you see someone else doing.

 

[Empress]

Just dumping a fish from the bag and into the tank without acclimating....store water and all. Dummy.

 

[hartin461]

Just joining a forum like this would of saved me money and made a whole lot of things much easier. Been doing saltwater for 10 years or so but didn`t know about forums for it the first 5...stupid

 

[Fishmantim]

Thought I new what I was doing found out I didn't know anything

 

[Forsaken77]

Not using RO/DI WATER!!!!!!!

I don't even think that counts as a mistake. My first 75 gallon bow saltwater tank was all tap water with Stress Coat and lasted until the tank sprung a leak years later. Did you not dechlorinate the water first?

If that's your worst mistake, you were a good rookie.

 

[Forsaken77]

LOL - this is a rookie mistake we all do regardless of the warning. I too did this back in 2002 when I got my HUGH 55 gallon tank. i added Panther grouper ,Lion fish, clown trigger, koran angel, yellow tang, eel, spiny box puffer.. At the time I knew it was overkill, however, i really thought my tank was large enough. Today I prefer smaller groups of fish and to throw in some drawf angels and tangs for color.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Dog Faced Puffer and Porcupine Puffer. I think there was also another type of grouper. I really stocked the tank, rarely did water changes, had no skimmer, had one of those old Marineland sumps with the huge bio-wheel, and the tank never had problems until seams failed. Used only tap water and never had algae issues and I fed minimally. The tank ran itself. Never quarantined and no disease, nothing.

Now I use rodi, reactors, skimmer and more tech, yet I have more problems and algae. I guess less is more sometimes.

 

[sebastiaan1985]

yup going cheap can sometimes just wreck a build before it even gets going

Also made that mistake in the past; O how I've had to learn...
Now my equipment is up to par, but forgot the check all parameters (expecting Triton to take care of it all...)