Stupid dumb mistakes??

[Jimmer]

OK, I just read a comment Tom made about stupid dumb mistakes and I thought it might be fun to see where we all have gaffed in the past..

I'll start... I actually bought a "SKILTER" from.. Pet warehouse like 9 months ago.

[MontanaRocknReefer]

Well one of the most costly stupid mistakes I made was buying a "SC-400 filter system" that had bio-balls and a tiny skimmer attached to it and later was more suited for a FO tank and not a reef tank! Price Tag: $495.00

Ended up taking it to a LFS for a $75.00 store credit! Probably another stupid mistake but now it's gone and hopefully I have progressed to a point of making better decisions for my reef aquarium and for myself(speaking of wallet here ).

[dwall174]

Two of them here: listening to my LFS & finding TRT to late!

[Adam101]

Ok My most retarded mistake was Salting My fish to death, when I first started up my first aquarium ( yearssssssssss ago) No one told me that only the water evaporates so when I did water changes I did it with salt water, well at the end My yellow tang was Emaceated( sp) and when I thought to do a Salt check it was off the charts............Yes I was dumb and I couldnt believe I did that.......so much so that I sold that tank 30 gal and said I would never keep fish again.............LOL well the next year I bought a 50 and it began, No recent dumb things tho. LOL Mistakes.

[rabeiler]

Many years ago, while cleaning the inside glass of my 55 SW tank, I got lazy and decided to lean on the plastic bar in the middle that supports the sides. POP!

Fortunately, the seals did not break and only a little water escaped. In a rented town house that was not too cool about acquariums and water beds. I had one of each!

The middle of the tank was over 15 inches instead of its normal 13 inches. Ran to my tools and found a pipe clamp and quickly squezzed it back together. The next day I made a U bracked to keep it together.

I still have the same 55 and U bracket, but now it is my sump for the 120 and fuge.

Ross

[Reefer Addict]

I have a SeaClone 150 and a Won Pro-Heat Titanium heater...

The Seaclone produced skimmate, but nothing compared to the new one I just built....

The Pro-Heat isn't too bad of a heater as long as you keep it away from EMI and use an external thermometer rather than trying to rely on it's dial setting.

Overall lackluster products, but they do an 'okay' job.

Other than those two gaffe's, I've done pretty well... probably because I found TRT early-on... in fact I started posting here right as I started buying stuff (after I ordered the skimmer and heater though).

TRT... it saves you money!

[Mr. Ono]

Cleaning an old glass tank with one of those Kitchen plastic scrubbing pads. Then I forgot to complete rinse the "cleaned" tank.

I then added sand to the tank, dripped in the saltwater so the tank wouldn't be a milk shake and then went to go pick up the live rock. Came back 2 hour later and the tank smell like desinfecant and was cloudly.

Wasted two bags of sand and 40 gallons of saltwater, had to drive back home and mix another 10 gallons of saltwater to store the live rocks. Spent the rest of the night rinsing the tank clean.

[asmith]

Originally posted by Jimmer

I'll start... I actually bought a "SKILTER" from.. Pet warehouse like 9 months ago.

I bought 2 Skilters and a seaclone for my first two tanks! I could list more, but my list is too long.

[seamonkey]

Bought a skilter, never upgraded from the seaClone skimmer that came with my tank. I also have the unique ability to put my fingers in the line of my Eels mouth.

[thefatman]

well my first *saltwater* tank was made using.....mortons...

i had no clue about saltwater, jsut knew i wanted one. so i went and bought a LOT of mortons at the grocery store. and jsut started pouring it into an existing fw tank (after removing fish of course) didn't know there was a set amount of salt to use. so, i jsut poured and mixed until it tasted like the ocean, since i used ot live in florida

bought about 4 fish the next day, all were dead within hours.

i figured, yep saltwater is harder than fw. drained the tank, refilled with fw, and put my fw fish back in...



course, there was also that time that mike had me massageing snails, but i'm trying to forget about that one

[Harpo]

OK, fatman wins

[RobinsonFam1]

i want to hear about this snail massaging!

if they eat more please tell!

[RobinsonFam1]

our stupid goof! or maybe just accidental.

letting our 4 year old son know where the food was for our tank.

1 week after transferrring everything from one tank to the next and adding new corals our son dumped 1 quart of freeze dried brine flakes to a 29 gallon.

you can picture the rest.

[cath]

ACCCKKKK! the picture that comes to mind

[asmith]

Originally posted by thefatman
.....mortons...

Doh!