Embarrassing Moments in Reefkeeping that NEED Explanations

[JMMJ13902]

Love this thread. Too funny stories everyone...I had a good laugh. Thanks

 

[reef6414]

When I first got into the hobby back in college, I had a similar issue with "what is that light in your window?" needless to say a few days later the housing office did a "routine check on my smoke detector"...right... lol

 

[Salmo]

Giving 150 lbs of rock an acid bath in the front lawn dawning fullface respirator and rubber gloves up to my armpits, got lots of stares that day. The baking soda box pyramid was priceless!

 

[LetItReef]

taggin' along. Funny stories!

 

[Snitch]

A few years ago I met a few people in the parking lot in front of a large pet store to trade frags and stuff. We were all hanging out looking at the frags in baggies, then the cops rolled up on us. Of course, we had bags of chaeto, they thought they nailed us. It was great. I've never had the nosy neighbor issues before, I'm surprised actually.

Other great moments is changing the carbon in front of the tank, only to not realize I got carbon dust on the carpet till I got it nice and wet. I still hear about that.

Then the all time greatest moments. Leaving the RODI on all night only to wake up to a soaked house. I did that twice by the way.

 

[Electrobes]

Had a cop stop by my house when I lived in South Carolina. I immediately said, "Lemme guess, blue glow, neighbor called, and you think I am growing weed?" To my absolute surprise he responded with "Haha No! I see blue glow, I'm wondering if we have another Reefer in town" (I lived in a tiny and very rural town... I apparently was one of two reefers in town!).

 

[Kworker]

My story is an internal brain fart. I was planting flowers in the front of the house a week ago, I placed the plants together on the front porch and left my front door open. I went inside to grab something quick to eat/drink. Than as I started walking back to the front door I saw the plants touching each other. Instantly my mind kicked in thinking "No! they might be stinging each other!" than after a couple of quick walk strides I just said to myself "Oh... they're flowers" aaaaaand thats when you know you've been reefing too much.

 

[hejjo]

I to have fallen asleep with the rodi on. Usually I fill up 5 gall jugs on my washer that way if I forget or didn't set a timer it jus flows into the washer. One time I was filling up a 100gallon freshwater tank n fell asleep n woke up to my so yelling at me at 6am that the living room carpet had 50 gallons of water in it lol. I live in an older house so it's not exactly lvl so my entire living room carpet was squishing with water. I went in the basement and I had a pool down there lol. Luckily the basement is unfinished. I spent over half the day pulling water out of the carpet. In the end my tank was full and the carpet got a great cleaning.

 

[Reef-roach]

Well mine is not really embarrassing. One time a cop came to my house and asked what I have been hiding in my garage and if they can check it out. Well, I have my rights and if they don't have a search warrant they can't step inside my house. I asked for explanation to why their action. Apparently couple of my neighbors have called in and voiced out their concerns that I "may be" selling drugs for they see blue bright light by the window of my garage and see multiple people leave the house with baggies with them and mostly at night time during weekends. As soon as the officer mentioned it, I laughed and eventually showed them what I have in the garage.

Is this Ryan that used to live in Eureka? If not, I apolo for the confusion, but this happened to a friend of mine in Eureka about 2007!

 

[CDAquarium]

I used to help a friend out at his store on occasion, and I ALWAYS got the group of people that came in moments after I emptied a couple gallons worth of skimmer funk... didn't help that the skimmers were right next to the bathroom....

 

[rlman41299]

Is this Ryan that used to live in Eureka? If not, I apolo for the confusion, but this happened to a friend of mine in Eureka about 2007!

Well my name's Ryan but not the Ryan you know for sure for I never lived in Eureka

Guess reefers named Ryan experience the same embarrassing moments in reef keeping

 

[Irsug1]

I met someone downtown Chicago to trade frags and a older lady casually walked up to us. She said that she had never seen such a public display of dealing drugs. We showed her the bags and cell phone pictures and she apologized. Lol

 

[ShawnSaucier]

I had one this weekend. Some friends had come by the house and I was in the middle of some tank spring cleaning. Basically cleaning all of my powerheads. I had just grabbed one of the tunze 6105's that is placed behind my rock, as I was pulling it up, my fore arm ran through my lg BTA. Now I have handled my anemones without being stung for years, but this just lit up my arm. With the initial reaction, I launched my powerhead through the air, and the cord hooked the arm of my lighting rack causing the said powerhead to becoming a wrecking ball . Now some of you with larger tanks may have experienced this, when your stand is on the higher side you use a step ladder. And when you are trying to get to something in the middle back of your tank, you end up in unflattering and compromising positions..... Well that wrecking ball had all the right stuff to land in the wrong place. The double whammy ended in a triple as the power head rocked the family jewels, causing me to slam the back of my head on my lighting system.
As good friends and a loving wife do, everyone was in tears laughing at my pain. Thankfully the powerhead didn't hit the side panel of my tank. And my mailbox has been full of Peter Sellars Pink Panther gifs all weekend.

 

[runzwithscissors]

I have a light fish load at the moment, so I have an ice tray that I fill with enough food for one day per cube, top it off with RO/DI water and leave in the freezer. My elderly Mom came over and while I was in the garage she decided to help herself to some iced tea.....nevertheless, when I came in and saw what she had in her glass, I told her she had something floating around. I casually replaced her tea and never did fess up.

 

[SCMatt]

Oh man, best thread I've read in quite a while! Done many of these myself, including the salt/white powder on a digital scale with lots of rubber bands and plastic shipping bags beside it, and the skimmer gunk on the toilet. Another I can add is trying to explain why I have so many 1-2ml syringes laying around some with the Salifert pink pointy tip on them looking like a capped needle.

Buying surgical gloves, super glue, and hydrogen peroxide at once can be an interesting convo too.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

I get that look from the cashier at Joanne fabric, when a middle age guy comes up to the checkout with 30 sheets of plastic canvas (cross stitch mesh), then I have to explain what an algae scrubber is.

I'm sure some of my neighbors also wonder exactly what I'm up to when I load up 2 white 5 gallon buckets of RODI every Friday morning. Luckily my Blue Glow is front and center for all to see, no mystery there. But a few members of our club have had the door kicked in, one had it done twice I think.

 

[klondike4001]

I've had county sheriff, city cops, and state troopers come visit me at every address I've had an aquarium at over the last 10 years, apparently all my neighbors think I'm some meth master chef or something... I don't even have to talk to the neighbors anymore, I send the cops to do it at this point, the sheepish looks I get from the neighbors afterwards make it completely worth it.

 

[andrea.nichols.1650]

My story is an internal brain fart. I was planting flowers in the front of the house a week ago, I placed the plants together on the front porch and left my front door open. I went inside to grab something quick to eat/drink. Than as I started walking back to the front door I saw the plants touching each other. Instantly my mind kicked in thinking "No! they might be stinging each other!" than after a couple of quick walk strides I just said to myself "Oh... they're flowers" aaaaaand thats when you know you've been reefing too much.

Thats by far the best one so far [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

[TJ's Reef]

FUN READS Everyone, lets keep them coming.

Going back some 30+ years now when I was breeding Discus and and Apistogrammas whle working at a LFS rode my motorcycle to work and regularly brought home a bag of live Tubifex Worms and Brine Shrimp which I shoved into the little pouch behind the seats backrest. On this particular occasion and just happening to be a beautiful Summer day I was preoccupied with something (maybe the pretty girl next door ???) totally forgot to bring the worms in and feed the fish as my SOP. A few hours later while riding with my girlfriend on back down to the lake to meet up with some friends we were slowly cruising through the parking lot in search of said friends when we started to hear an unusual squeal from behind us that turned into what sounded like one of those exceptionally juicy releases of bodily gas followed by an INCREDIBLY HORRENDOUS SMELL.............. We left quickly without much of an explanation other than "I really got to go guys.... see ya"

It took weeks and many many thourough cleanings to rid that smell.

Cheers, Todd

 

[pledosophy]

Walking into a liquor store and asking for the largest and cheapest bottle of vodka they have is always fun.