Worst advise seen/been given

[tkeracer619]

I was in a petco many many years ago. There was this old couple buying a clownfish for their anemone. It’s jaw was rotten off. When the employee left I said, “you should not but that fish, it will not survive”. She told me “it is just too cute not to get and that her anemone needed a clownfish”. The employee came back, apparently he was going around asking other employees if they new lighting requirements of an anemone, she was trying to buy new bulbs for it. The employee asked me, and I said more than “likely no, no light you sell here can support one, especially not one that takes the bulb you’re holding.” The woman, getting annoyed at me, says “well it’s been doing just fine for the last 2 months... I got it with my tank”. At this point the sales guy as serious as can be asks her to show me the picture on her phone. She busts out her phone and shows me a purple lta. The employee repeats the question... “will any of our bulbs work?” I look at him and her, I’m beyond frustrated, and I’ve waisted 20 minutes during all of this. As I turn my back on them and walk off I repeated, “do not buy that fish, everything you have now will die if you do, including your anemone.”

Why was I so frustrated? The anemone was a picture of an lta on a background. Yes, a picture.

 

[DSEKULA]

The worst advice I got was fresh not saltwater, but it mentally scared me. I was a kid, for kindergarten graduation I was allowed to get a turtle (I always wanted a turtle). I'm 31 today so this was pre internet and before people made big turtle tubs and such. My mother extensively spoke with the lfs people before buying a 10gal tank and my new baby red ear slider. She was assured it would only get 2-3" ::eyes roll::. She brought home this wonderful "how to keep a red ear slider" book too.. she found out that my beloved turtle would get much larger and needed things like a heater and heat light... We started buying more stuff. At one of these trips to upgrade things I saw a bunch of fish kept with the turtles in the store. I told my mum I wanted fish friends for my turtle too. Mum told me the fish were food not friends. The lfs owner came running over to correct her and managed to convince my mother that she was an idiot and turtles don't eat fish they eat little turtle sticks and my turtle could have friends. Mum bought me fish, I was so happy I named them all and added them to my turtles tank and they started playing chase... Then she ate my fish one at a time........ Never listen to the lfs again.

Recently caught a lfs employee telling a potential customer that a dursa clam only gets 4-5"
Different guy argued with me when I pointed to the Halichoeres chrysotaenia in their tank and said "i'd like that halichoeres please" he insisted it was a six line (six line cost a few bucks more there ) untill the lfs owner came over and sided with me telling guy to just ring me up and they'd review fish types later. To his credit the sign on the tank had both types on it with prices.

 

[Letterkenny]

“You can just buy one coral.”

 

[Murice]

"you have to cycle a tank for 4-6 weeks"

 

[F i s h y]

Whaaa??? Sure they weren't talking about a fresh water tank??

Or French fries... mmmm French fries....

 

[sam.veilleux30]

Brew it was big of you to take accountability for that, but I don’t think that cause effect scenario is the reason for his loss. We have about eleven years of peroxide work collected, several are black sand, no losses. Sometimes people make dosing mistakes, calculation errors, and they dont know or won’t admit. That loss is one outlier among just a massive amount of opposite outcomes to consider.

based on some of the longest term patterning ive collected for what peroxide does, your call wouldnt kill anything in his tank beyond lysmata cleaner shrimp. Right now in the chem forum, Cory has been using five times the dose in a full reef, documenting everything. Not black sand agreed, but I’ve seen ten or fifteen of them by now dosing the 1:10. hth

Hi, interested to see the thread about peroxyde, can you link the article please.
Considering it for one of my rocks.
Thanks

 

[Valum]

"Get a saltwater aquarium, it's relaxing!"

Yeah tell that to my sleep schedule and bank account...

Haha it is just to everybody else that comes and looks at it

How about the worst advice I've ever given? I'll admit I still feel terrible about it.
A member I had gotten to know well was having all sorts of problems with his tank. Couldn't keep coral, fish wouldn't live more than 6 months. He ended up with a dinoflagellate issue. I recommended that he dose 1ml of H2O2 per 10 gallons of volume.
He did, and pretty much everything in his tank was dead within 24 hours.

Turns out he had high levels of Vanadium in his water from black sand. The H2O2 must have reacted with it and wiped his tank. ;Blackeye

This, it's very good of you to put yourself out there like that I'm sure we can all thing of a time we were wrong in the hobby but admitting it is another thing

This is a great thread by the way! Especially if new aquarists came across this. I can't imagine how much headache, stress, heartache, and money I would have saved myself if I knew then what I know now!

That's what I thought bit of fun reading some of the ridiculous ones but some of the more believable stuff will help others out

 

[brandon429]

Sam here we go, tons of p work

Reef2Reef Pest algae challenge thread hydrogen peroxide

Thank you for the quick reply and guidance. it Is a Waterbox 100.3 so a take down is fairly easy. Went through it to get all the fish out a month ago and is no problem. All corals on plugs aside from the nem so that is also a non issue. Conchs, snails, hermits, fire and cleaner shrimp is all...

www.reef2reef.com

*we like external work there, taking rock out vs dosing it in the tank where possible. We wiped out ulva infestation totally in our recent jobs

 

[KStatefan]

A number of years ago there was a poster on here that said he could drill tempered glass.

 

[Brew12]

A number of years afo there was a poster on here that said he could drill tempered glass.

I can drill tempered glass. Once. Before I sweep it up.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

This is a great thread!!

 

[Valum]

I can drill tempered glass. Once. Before I sweep it up.

I can guarantee you'll miss one shard and step on it barefoot later on

 

[BeltedCoyote]

I can guarantee you'll miss one shard and step on it barefoot later on

Ah yes. The curse of the ancients, roughly translated to “lone LEGO in Carpet late at night”

 

[Joedubyk]

To me, the worst is still aiming for 0 nutrient tanks. Nothing kills corals more

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Turns out he had high levels of Vanadium in his water from black sand. The H2O2 must have reacted with it and wiped his tank. ;Blackeye

Certainly not something you should have known in advance, but this brings up an important point that reefers need to understand.

Adding oxidizers (Lugols iodine, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, permanganate, etc.) or reducing agents (vitamin C, ferrous iron, etc.) can impact the chemical form of trace metals, potentially making them more or less bioavailable, more or less toxic, and more or less soluble.

Thus when it comes to these additives, one needs to be very careful about the "it worked for me" experiment and what exactly can be concluded from it.

As an example, suppose that someone doses Lugols iodine and see a positive effect on something. Even ignoring the main problem of a one off experiment (coincidence), the effect might not be from iodine itself, but from some other element that it reacted with and altered the form of to make it more bioavailable.

Thus someone who tries to repeat that dosing, but doses a nonoxidizing form of iodine (iodide, I-), will not see any effect if oxidizing is the role of the iodine.

Even if they dose an oxidizing form of iodine (I2, as in Lugols), if they lack sufficient quantities of the element that was reacting with I2 in the other tank, or already have a sufficient amount of the product of that reaction, they will see no effect.

This issue greatly complicates interpretations of dosing oxidizers and reducers and what effects can be expected.

 

[Crustaceon]

“You want zero nitrates and phosphates in a reef tank”.

- Said by WAY too many lfs owners and book authors.

Runner up: “If you want to keep sps, you need to check and adjust your parameters daily”

 

[CoralClasher]

You have an GHA problem because phosphate is too high. Buy a large GFO reactor and fill it full.

 

[HeyJay]

Maybe my brain doesn't work anymore, but I think 0 nitrate/0 phosphate *was* the correct advice at one point based on what was known at the time. Of course, learning is constant and advice should change over the years.

People who refuse to adapt to new information however...

 

[EMeyer]

My vote for #1 worst advice because its so common:

"You should start with all dry rock to avoid hitchikers, it becomes live rock soon enough anyway"

 

[Joedubyk]

“You want zero nitrates and phosphates in a reef tank”.

- Said by WAY too many lfs owners and book authors.

Runner up: “If you want to keep sps, you need to check and adjust your parameters daily”

Has killed so many coral, it wtill STILL continue to kill coral , until this paradigm universally changes.