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[Thales]

Weekly Discussion - Your biggest mistake

What's the biggest mistake you ever made with your reef tank? What did it end up costing you in time or money?


About the RDO Weekly Discussion:
This discussion is meant to get at your experience and to share information that is in your head, so don't necessarily treat it as information gathering. State your opinion and, if available, use material, anecdotal or otherwise, that will back up your opinion.
Past weekly discussions will be archived in the archives.
If you have topics that you think would be helpful for the RDO community to discuss, please send me a pm or start your own thread!

[bookfish]

Hey Righty, how's that clav polyp?
Anyway here's my tale of woe.
Once upon a time I was sitting in my living room watching my sea apple which had, over the previous week, moved 2 or 3 inches closer to the powerhead in the tank. It was still 6+ inches away so I figured I had another day or two to get a sponge over the intake. Went to bed, woke up, went to work.
Sometime around the middle of the workday I started getting that feeling-you know, like did I leave a siphon hose going? I felt that something must be wrong or I wouldn't be worrying so much. I've learned to act on intuition so I took off from work at 2 pm.
When I got home I found the sea apple had indeed crawled into the p-head. The skimmer was frothing out of control and I watched as my clown and marine betta took their last breaths. Surprisingly all the corals were alive. Some were pissed, some seemed unaffected but they all lived.
Now, if there is ever something I think I can "do tomorrow" on the reef tanks... I do it today.
Cheers-Jim

[Len]

Hey Jim,

In case no one has ....



I've made too many mistakes over the past decade to recall them all. But one of the top ones was I decided one of my tanks could do without circulatio for a mere 6 hours overnight (pump broke and I decided it could wait 'til next day to address). I couldn't have been more wrong!

[fishfanatic2]

Used a cleaning scrunge to wipe down my tank before I filled it, had no problem. Used it again to wipe algae, and it leaked soap into the aquarium. Foot-high columns of foam came out of the skimmer cup every minute, I emptied the cup every minute or so for at least an hour.

Tisk, tisk. My lesson:Even if the box doesn't mention soap, DON'T USE IT!

I'm starting to wonder if I screwed anything up wiping down the tank...

[Bingo]

My biggest mistake was setting up a 15 gallon as a first tank. I had originally bought a 100 gallon, but its laden with copper. Not worth trying a reef tank in. So I figured out what size I could afford, and went with the 15. It also replaced a 10 gallon freshwater on my desk.

I've been diligent enough to keep stable water params, I just don't have much room to do much. I wish I would have went with a 30 or 40 minimum. When I see these great big LPS colonies for sale that I want, I realize they are too big for my tank. It's been few and far between that I find a specimen that's small enough to go into my tank.

Once I sell the 100 gallon, I'm setting up a 72 bowfront. Or a bigger tank. and combining the 15 and the 10 into one tank. (The 10 gallon started as a 4 when I found a mantis in my show tank. it leaked. I went for a 7 gallon. I needed more room, and thus the 10 gal.)

So my advice, go for the bigger tank right from the start.

B

[Thales]

Hey Jim,

Welcome to RDO! I think you will dig it here!
The frag is doing great!

My biggest mistake:
Got home from a 14 hour flight, and noticed the tank was low on water. Filled it with water from the sink, about 5 gallons into a 50 gallon tank. The tank crashed.

[danmhippo]

My biggest is jumping from cheap and easily maintained planted FW tank to FOWLR tank. The second biggest is switch from FOWLR to Reef.

The next would be allowed my wife access to my online credit card statements to see how much I have spent on this "pet" over all these years...............

[Mogo]

I cleaned algae off the glass etc. in my new tank. I thought it would be a neat idea to put a sponge into the overflow box to nab some of the detritus. Then we went out for New Years eve. Upon our return very late (or early the next morning heh) I noticed a weird sound coming from the basement (the pump was whistling a lovely tune).

The tank had overflowed because the sponge had clogged. The overheated pump was pumping ro water into the tank. I figure about 50 gal of water on the floor at least. It was about noon by the time I got new salt water into the tank and finished mopping. I learned the hard way that 50 gallons is alot of water. (I slept the rest of New Years day and missed all the football games )

[manny]

My first fish were a pair of clowns...

Mistake #1 I quarantined them in a tank with sand and rock to make sure that the ich had a nice comfortable place to grow and multiply.

Mistake #2 I used kick ich to "cure" them of the ich they showed.

Mistake #3 when they showed no more signs of ich after a few weeks in the small tank, I tossed them in my display. next day they were covered in spots form head to tail! the ich was dormant on them and the stress of the move brough it out...it wasn't in the display because the display had not had fish in it for many many months...so it had survived the wonderful kick ich.

Mistake #4 Gave them both a freshwater dip at the same temp as the tank...they died later that night. I DIDN'T BUFFER THE FRESH WATER. Killed them before the ich could.

At least I learn from my mistakes...but man, I still feel guilty about those little guys.

[Laura D]

Not eradicationg mojano anemones when I had the chance. I have been battling them for three years now, I probalby have 200 in my main tank. Next time I move I am throwing away all my live rock and starting new.

[Laura D]

Double post

[coralite]

I don't know how many times I wished i could have kicked myself in the anal fin because i thought I could go one more day without a top on a tank or one more day without plugging the minute hole of the canopy with jawfish or firefish in it. Losing fish to jumpers is the most avoidable, and inexcusable way to lose fish. It's too bad cause I love the open top look.

People often say to me, " well I have an open top and my fish never jump " but you know what, fish usually get the chance to jump only once in their lives and then its all she wrote. Apart from some puffers and seahorses, all fish jump or can jump out of a tank so why risk it?

[Laura D]

Apart from some puffers and seahorses, all fish jump or can jump out of a tank so why risk it?

I had a dog faced puffer jump out and die on my living room floor. I had left a hole open in the top of the tank cover for easy access, telling myself, puffers don't jump. . .

[PerryinCA]

I think the biggest mistake I have ever made was to chase numbers. It was a popular theme that was started in the very early days of these forums. Basically, if something is working great, don't change it "just because". I can't tell you the mess-ups I have had because I thought I needed more of this or that after seeing another reefer with different levels.

Advice: Don't go chasing numbers. If what you are doing is working well, don't try to change it just because there is someone else doing well with a different system.

-Perry[/b]

[Wazzel]

My biggest mistake was buying undersized equipment the first time around. I got bad advice from a LFS before I found any on-line discussion group. Needless to say the only parts of my original system I have left are the tank and stand.

[Matt_]

Ran out of dechlorinator, realized it right when I added some bleached dead corals to a 275g FO tank. In 5 minutes, the majestic angel that my boss bought a month earlier was gasping and twitching on the bottom along with all the other fish. The fastest trip to the pet store ever then ensued, and all fish were back to normal after a couple hours. Now THAT was dumb...

[Jolieve]

The most expensive mistake I've made so far, in terms of financial outlay... was buying a used system that had equipment that I did not want. I've replaced the lights, the skimmer, the filtration, the substrate. Everything except the tank and the stand got changed out for what I really wanted, and I'm still not finished upgrading the equipment.

The most time consuming expense... well when I started up the system, I filled it with dechlorinated tap water. LFS uses it, but I forgot that the water source for the LFS is different than my water source. Water quality vastly differs between the city proper and the county. I am still battling hair algae and phosphate content six months later.

There are likely to be more mistakes, I'm still new at this.

[salt creepette]

dumbest mistake (among many): before I had saltwater tanks, i had freshwater, and I thought it would be neat to have brackish puffers. what did i use for salt? regular freshwater aquarium salt! never occured to me (I never knew at the time) that I had to use something like IO or whatever. those puffers, needless to say, didnt last more than a couple weeks.

dumb mistake number two: not covering the HOT skimmer intake. My beloved (and I mean beloved) yellow clown goby (named Tiny, cuz he was so small and cute and had such great character) got sucked into the powerhead intake. couldnt find him all day, then finally got a bad feeling. turned off the skimmer and there was his poor tiny little body plastered to the side of the skimmer. he got 'turbulented' to death. I'll never forgive myself for that one.