Stupid Mistakes You've Made

[MichaelReefer]

What stupid mistakes have you made in your reefing experience?

Last night I made a pretty bad one. I saw an Aiptasia so I pulled the rock out and shot some super glue into it. Well, I guess I didn't wait long enough for it to dry because my poor puffer, Benjamin, got curious and stuck his mouth into the crevice and got some super glue on his mouth. He was unable to open and close it. I had to catch him and pull it off his mouth. The only thing I enjoyed about it was he puffed up in my hand, which was the first time he's ever done it.

 

[EmilyXLC]

Poor Benjamin! I'm glad you were able to remove it.

My biggest mistake was setting up my initial aquarium with the advice of a PetCo associate like 16 years ago. I'm glad that is far behind me now.

 

[tsouth]

Most recently - perhaps just due to inexperience - but hard plumbing my tank, and I cemented PVC into a 90 on one end, and the union on the other end....But forgot to put the collar on the screws the union together before cementing both ends.

 

[Gil03]

You know something...I did the same thing with a magnificent foxface smh. I glued a frag in and he got curious and plucked at the glue while it was still curing in the tank and came away with a chunk stuck in his mouth that he couldn't dislodge. Thankfully he was incredibly smart and swam up to my tweezers and let me pull it off while he was still in the tank. He was perfectly fine after.

 

[User1]

I have plenty. Here is one fine example of my stupidity (note, I'm dad in this real life event):

1. Dad - hey honey (talking to my daughter) would you mind helping me in 5 minutes to hang some lights over the tank?
2. Daughter - sure, give me 5 minutes
3. Dad - ok.....
4. Dad - starts to get ladder, positions lights, thinks to self I got this, gets on ladder, maneuvers lights through cabinet, wire gets caught, misses clip, says to self, "Oh ****" and says NO...
5. Daughter enters den to help - yells, "dad what the heck" you didn't wait
6. Dad, daughter - look in horror as LED fixture gently floats ever so slowly to the bottom of the aquarium
7. Dad - starts to cuss, goes outside, kicks a couple of bushes
8 Daughter - the calm one - searches what to do and pulls out light fixture, asks me if I have RI/RO water made, I do, and starts to submerge, rinse, and then air dry unit and says firmly - DON'T TOUCH IT...
9. We both wait 24 hours, make sure it is try, and then proceed to fire it up. Shockingly it works. Who would have thought. We both hang it up this time.
10. Daughter - looks to me and says - next time wait
11 Wife - smiles...

True story more or less in that order. The LED unit was a DIY multi channel I built. The unit that fell in was just the fan, heat sink, and chip. So pretty lucky. I shot Blue Acro (led maker) a email and told him what happened. He was pretty thrilled it worked out. Even the fan. I guess my daughter was quick enough to get it out and rinsed. Glad she is quick on her feet.

 

[Jacksmedula]

Forgot to turn off my flowheads before placing a new Solar Flare BTA in my DT. Helplessly watched as it flew out of my hand and rolled all the way accross my tank and went directly under the largest rock formation.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Forgot to turn off my flowheads before placing a new Solar Flare BTA in my DT. Helplessly watched as it flew out of my hand and rolled all the way accross my tank and went directly under the largest rock formation.

Oh no!

 

[Just_Pete]

Forgot to turn off the pump feeding fresh RODI into my ATO. Not fun cleaning up water everywhere.

 

[ectoaesthetics]

1) Not testing the salinity of salt mixed by an LFS. Twice this has bitten me HARD. I now wouldn’t dream of not mixing my own.

2) Not knowing the exact care of a fish and letting an LFS educate me on care and purchasing it. This was more common and far more troublesome in the days before Internet forums... it often ended poorly. Ie being told signal gobies would be fine eating whatever food I dropped for them in the sand.

3) Not turning pumps back on or off. Has caused tank crashes over the years and a 3 hour delay in a vacation when I realized 1.5 hours out from the house that I had not plugged my ATO back in after my water change.

 

[AZMSGT]

Flooded my kitchen with RODI water because I forgot I was filling a barrel. Fixed that opportunity to be stupid by installing a mechanical shut off float.

 

[Sapper Ski]

A lot. Lol.
Hard plumbing the sump
Trusting a lfs with advice of fish compatibility
Not using a protein skimmer for years (I kept a successful tank, but it was HARD to control nitrates)
Not waiting for a tank to fully cycle
Trying to upgrade lighting from fowlr quality to sps quality (talk about algae blooms for a good year)
Not testing nearly enough parameters or using cheap test kits

I could go on and on.

 

[boacvh]

Moved my ATO output to another sump chamber while cleaning and forgot to put it back. Sump syphoned back into ato container and flooded

 

[jeffchapok]

Used H2O2 to combat GHA and irritated a condy which responded by spewing his toxins into the entire tank. Severely stunted all corals and nems and I lost a few, although all fish survived unfazed.

On the off chance this was a fluke, I repeated it a couple of weeks ago, with much the same result.

My wife has since hidden the peroxide from me.

 

[Dave Cureton]

More RODI floods than I can count.
Worst mistake involved 2 part dosing. I used old vinegar jugs to hold the DIY 2 part solutions. I also kept a bottle of vinegar handy to clean pumps. Well one day after I refilled the 2 part I accidentally hooked up the vinegar instead of Alk. Unfortunately by the time I figured it out I crashed my tank and lost just about everything. I don't use vinegar jugs for 2 part anymore......

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

My mistake, buying cheap equipment at first. Waste of money and time

 

[The cats wrasse]

i cycle with clowns and never have the heart to get rid of them...

 

[vetteguy53081]

1- Marriage. Im now in Love with my . . .Tanks
2- Not setting up a calcium reactor sooner
3- Considering a damsel. Now anything I hate more than a damsel is > > > > Two of them !!
4- Using tap (well) water

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Using a metal hose clamp. Used it on a rubber vibration dampening section of my plumbing. It was inside the sump about a quarter of the way down from the top which I thought would be no problem since the water level was a little over half way down from the top, so I thought it would be high and dry. Even smeared it with some silicone grease just to be safe. Also told myself at the time not to raise the sump level. Well, about a year later I changed some equipment around in the sump. I completely forgot about the clamp which was hidden from view. Adjusted the water level in the sump for the new skimmer. ;Facepalm A few months later, ....... everything took a turn for the worse. ;Jawdrop;Inpain;Hurting Basic parameters all tested okay over and over. Wasn't until the ICP test results came back that I knew what to look for. Still took a while to find that hidden little mistake. Moral, always zip ties, no metal clamps!

 

[brandon429]

2010:

did a water change on planted pico and drained the water off into a blue 5 gal bucket to be dumped.

went over and did a water change on the 4 year old pico reef, and accidentally used the fw as the sw replacement for the pico, walked away (grabbed wrong bucket to pour back)

30 mins later, walked by corals looked so mad I could not believe it, they'd never done that in hundreds and hundreds of 100% water changes. all benthic life/snails limpets/brittles were hovering up near top and crawling up glass, they always hide in rocks. I figured I poisoned it somehow...then it hit me what happened.

got the real saltwater from another twin 5 gal container, swapped out, and within an hour all back to normal. reef=30 mins full freshwater test passed all corals all animals wow

 

[zalick]

8 Daughter - the calm one - searches what to do and pulls out light fixture, asks me if I have RI/RO water made, I do, and starts to submerge, rinse, and then air dry unit and says firmly - DON'T TOUCH IT...
9. We both wait 24 hours, make sure it is try, and then proceed to fire it up. Shockingly it works. Who would have thought. We both hang it up this time.

Common misconception with electronics is that all water contact is fatal. Its the ionized water that is fatal (when in contact and electronic turned on). Rinsing in DI water (with battery removed/power disconnected) and letting dry almost always works. Smart daughter!