Stupidest things you’ve done Reefing!!!!

[genny1687]

Left my rodi on all night and flooded my house. Soaked from my upper floor into my main floor. Ruined my ceiling and everything. Now I use a float switch

Not as bad as you, but luckily I have my rodi in the garage but yesterday I decided to make rodi in a container instead of my large bucket and left it filling on top of my salt bucket...and yes i forgot about it and yes my salt is now gone...

 

[TeresaRN]

I accidentally placed coffee grounds (Peet’s coffee: Major Dickason’s Blend in the carbon reactor. They were right next to each other.

 

[code4]

If we all haven’t done this then your not a real reefer lol. I do it almost every time I turn it on and tell myself to set an alarm then forget.

Done this so many times we lost count. Now we tape a reminder on the cabinet in the kitchen. It helps since we both walk by it numerous times.

 

[ajm83]

Looked in the cabinet one day and found the sump full right to the brim, but luckily not quite overflowing.
Not understanding the problem, I panicked and switched off the return pump. Of course all the water in the return line plus approx 10 litres from the display syphoned back down through the return pump. 10 litres doesn't sound like much, but it definitely looks like a lot when it's on your new wood floor...

 

[tnewell]

Dumbest thing I ever did was trust my friend who brought me over salt water while I got a huge shipment of corals in. Little did I know he brought fresh and in my small 29gal biocube, 5 gallons is enough to kill all my coral. Which evidently led me to scramble to 3 stores trying to find extra salt so I can put over salted water in to fix it. Little to late and half my corals bleached white, but to this day they have made about a 80% recovery. Never will I make that mistake again.

V

 

[BryanD]

Putting fish in the tank without a proper quarantine. I've been nailed by that mistake twice, won't ever happen again. Its been 13 years since I made the mistake, but quarantine every fish for at least 30 days now.

 

[Everything Aquatics]

I cut my finger and had to get stitches while fragging.

 

[reefpatrique]

I have a best hits, and with less than a year under my belt:

* Believed pH was a measure of alkalinity, so dumped about cup of baking soda into small DT "to increase pH" - LESSON: Increasing sodium bicarbonate DOES NOT EQUAL an increase in pH (also, it's incredible difficult to maintain an elevated pH, so probably not terribly worth the effort and expense)
* Believed that H2O2 was a cure-all for coral issues, so ended up bleaching my first batch of corals after soaking them in the stuff - LESSON: DO NOT dip your corals in H2O2 UNLESS you know it will help; proper quarantining of everything that goes in your DT will take care of any pests that H2O2 would
* Did not have a quarantine system set up, so lost about $300 worth of fish within 4 weeks of introducing some newbies into the DT - LESSON: SPEND THE MONEY AND THE TIME TO QUARENTINE EVERYTHING THAT GOES IN YOUR DT
* Didn't properly cycle QT and hit a nitrite spike that wiped out a recovering fish therein (following the aforementioned plague) - LESSON: Seachem Prime is your best friend if you even THINK your biofilter might not be set up or is compromised in your QT/HT (dose daily)
* After setting up a HT system following the aforementioned plague, did not know it was necessary to thoroughly oxygenate medicated water, so part of the fish loss referenced above was due to suffocation - LESSON: Spend $40 on a good pump, tubing, and air stones and aerate that sucker
* Accepted the gift of a free 75g aquarium, which led to most of the aforementioned problems - LESSON: Never fool yourself into thinking you know what you're getting into with this hobby

One final lesson:

 

[SAWFISH]

Left my rodi on all night and flooded my house. Soaked from my upper floor into my main floor. Ruined my ceiling and everything. Now I use a float switch

In all seriousness, this just reminded me to turn my RO off. I would probably have been in the same boat otherwise. Thank You R2R

 

[Vette67]

About 3 years ago, a buddy of mine was taking down his 40 gallon reef, so he offered his livestock to me. His tank looked healthy, fish looked fine. So I dumped them directly into my tank. Well, he apparently had a low grade ich infestation, because that lead to a 2 year battle to rid my tank of ich. I probably lost somewhere around $1000 in fish trying to get that under control. It was a nightmare.

So yeah, don’t trust that your friend (or anyone for that matter) knows what they are doing. Always quarantine.

 

[radsdad]

I rolled a shell over, not knowing there was a Blenny inside.
I figured it out 5 days later.

 

[DC Reefer]

bought a vlamingii tang for my 155 without figuring out it would grow 20+ inches long. Was tough to catch also.

 

[CMMorgan]

Throwing that ping pong ball in the goldfish jar at the county fair.... it's been all downhill from there.

 

[NightmareReef]

I bought a zoa colony from my lfs. There was one interesting looking zoa that I though looked neat - it was transparent with long tentacles. Placed it in my tank and now I’ve been fighting a losing battle with aiptasia for months. At the time I had no idea what an aiptasia was.

 

[RickSanford]

Real reefer's shrug and turn the rodi up further to flood the guest room into a growout tank

Left my rodi on all night and flooded my house. Soaked from my upper floor into my main floor. Ruined my ceiling and everything. Now I use a float switch

Been there, done that...... Sigh....... Have new tile down in the hall where there used to be carpet & pad as a result. Guest room growout plan didn’t work out so well in my house.......

 

[tnewell]

I cut my finger and had to get stitches while fragging.

Second this, opened a bag of turbo snails and almost sliced my finger off. 5 stiches and a life time of arthritis.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

Took my wife to visit WWC. Now she knows that those little frags don't cost $5.

I try to tell her that coral is much cheaper in the UK but I don't think she is buying it.

 

[ReefPig]

Buying Siporax, which leaches inorganic silicates for many many months.
The extremely high silicates effects Hanna Phosphorus checker, making you think you have very high PO4.
Running a lot of RowaPhos and LC dosing to “bring down my PO” (which it never worked, so I kept doing it), of course my PO4 was completely zero, but the Hanna told me it wasn’t.
This started the spiral of various strains of dinos I’ve been battling for many many months.

Worst mistake I ever made and I’m still paying for it.

 

[richarddeweerd]

After a small leakage I sold my stuff and quit reefing for some years I have always regretted that.

 

[HB AL]

Bought a beautiful large Queen trigger, killed all my fish in 48 hours, not to eat em just to kill em. I actually bum out when I see one at a lfs, knowing someone is gonna buy them and be in for whats coming, beutiful fish but not with other fish.