What's the dumbest thing you have done in the hobby

[Spare time]

We all make mistakes, but what are some things you have done in the past (such as when you were new) that you thought "Why the heckin heck did I do that????" I find these stories funny so I figured I'd ask you all what is something you have done with your tank that was not so smart.

 

[Henressy]

I was mixing salt for a water change for over 24 hrs then in the morning I went to do a test before and then me being a newbie I didn’t cover the new mixed tank water I dropped API test tube with chemicals into the new reef tank
I was so ticked I had to do a whole another batch !!!!!!

 

[vtecintegra]

Spilled 30 gallons of salt water on the living room carpet.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

Listened to others' advice without doing my own research when just getting started. I was told "you HAVE to have a skimmer" "you NEED your nitrates and phosphates to be 0" and then BAM, fighting dinos for the next 2 months. Keep a skeptical mind, people want to help but they're not always helpful.

 

[Dakota_reef]

This is embarrassing. I thought I'd be cool and use HCL (hydrochloric acid) to inject and nuke aptasia, and instead I nuked the tank. Lost 80% of the inhabitants when the pH dropped to 6.0. I realized in that moment that I had made a really really dumb mistake.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Accidentally mistook Coral RX concentrated dip bottle for amino acids...

Even with running carbon the tank smelled like Pine-sol for weeks... ;Facepalm

Spilled 30 gallons of salt water on the living room carpet.

I did something similar on my laminate floor... ;Wacky

 

[Sean Clark]

A long time ago I killed a wrasse that was in the sand. I thought that I had all of the fish out of the old tank and into the new tank. I drained all of the water out of the old tank and moved it to the garage to clean it "later". I didn't realize that I had not transferred it to the new display until it was too late. I still beat myself up over this.

 

[Lyss]

Mine is dumb but also lazy — I got very lax on checking refractometer calibration. Long story short LPS and SPS corals began going south and I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why. As a last effort at figuring out the cause I thought, oh, just to be thorough let me just check the calibration on this refractometer… Discovered I’d let my salinity dip to 1.020 sg

 

[WVNed]

Right at the moment it was buying a 180 gallon tank. I hate things done in a rush. I am rushing because this is an upgrade and I gimped the filtration on the old tank to move it.

 

[LRT]

Procrastinating on getting water quality correct. Slow playing and being lazy about keeping water quality correct.
Not paying attention and making sure I turn the float valve back on after maintenance. Forgetting to make water.
Flooding fish room.
I do these things constantly lol

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

Mine is dumb but also lazy — I got very lax on checking refractometer calibration. Long story short LPS and SPS corals began going south and I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why. As a last effort at figuring out the cause I thought, oh, just to be thorough let me just check the calibration on this refractometer… Discovered I’d let my salinity dip to 1.020 sg

I gave this a thumbs up, but only because I'm sure I haven't calibrated my refractometer in a very long time and I'm 100% sure I'm not the only one. I greatly appreciate the reminder!

 

[a.t.t.r]

Used vibrant the now known equivalent to algaefix and fought a 3 month long battle with Dino’s because of it.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

A few weeks ago I was mixing salt into my ro di water. Later on I came back to test the saltinity. I keep my ro di in jerry cans, so its common for the hydrometer to float away. The hydro meter floated away, then I got some tweezers to catch the hydrometer, but then the disaster happens. I dropped the tweezers into the jerry can, and they sunk straight to the bottom. I new I was up for a challenge to get them out, because the can was half a metre tall, but the hole at the top is TINY. The 1st thing I did is I tried using my net, but the net did not fit in the hole. Then I tried my cleaning stick but it wasn't tall enough. I tried using a magnet to get it out, but that didn't work. At this point it had been 2 hours. I tried using one of those nets that onions and mandarins are stored in, that idea failed. At last I came up with the idea to pour out all the water into separate containers, and it worked, it took me 4 HOURS TO GET TWEEZERS OUT OF A CONTAINER!!!!!!!!

 

[Gungo]

Buying equipment for "future upgrades" that will never happen and now I have a 80 gallon tank with equipment for a 200 gallon.

 

[Lyss]

I gave this a thumbs up, but only because I'm sure I haven't calibrated my refractometer in a very long time and I'm 100% sure I'm not the only one. I greatly appreciate the reminder!

Check it! It’s a hard lesson to learn, esp since it’s such a simple thing to do. I was beating myself up over that b/c I lost my first group of SPS and lps frags b/c of that laziness. It was about 6 frags in total

 

[TheDuude]

Bought a copperband for a 14 gallon biocube. My excuse is the LFS recommended it and it was my first year in the hobby 16 years ago.

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Bought a copperband for a 14 gallon biocube. My excuse is the LFS recommended it and it was my first year in the hobby 16 years ago.

I think we have all done something like that... I bought a Desjardini tang and promptly stuck it in my 20g tall tank. Tank had only been up for 1.5 months....

 

[JachPot]

I think we have all done something like that... I bought a Desjardini tang and promptly stuck it in my 20g tall tank. Tank had only been up for 1.5 months....

I about had to fist fight a couple customers when I worked at a fish store. Luckily we had display tanks with 10" sailfins and stuff so I could steer them over there, point to the tang and tell them they can't have that fish in their 40 breeder.

 

[Karen00]

I have never had an AIO before but I picked one up for my first saltwater tank. Never having had components like heaters hidden in a chamber before I would constantly forget they were back there when doing water changes. I can't tell you how many times I have forgotten to turn the darn heater off while doing a water change. A heater out of water is not good. Doh! Thankfully nothing happened but I finally bought a smart plug where now one tap of a button shuts everything off. If I hadn't purchased that I would probably still be forgetting to shut it off. LOL

 

[ReefGeezer]

I killed a lot of corals by trusting a swing arm hydrometer. I couldn't figure out why they were dying and why my parameters were staying so low. Turned out that while my el-crapo hydrometer was reading 1.026, the SG was really around 1.009.